Movies for Your First Week at a New Job: Six Films for the Nervous New Kid

You know the feeling. The new badge doesn't quite work at the door yet. You've been introduced to eleven people and remember two names. You don't know where the good mugs are kept, the coffee machine has a trick to it, and everyone seems to speak in acronyms that nobody will ever explain. By Wednesday you're exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with the work itself.

A first week at a new job is one of the strangest stretches of grown-up life: hopeful and humbling at the same time, and very lonely in a building full of people. Movies understand this better than you'd expect. Some of the best ones are really about learning a place and figuring out who you are inside it.

So here are six films for the evenings of that first week, when you get home, kick off the shoes that looked great this morning and need a little company. A few are funny and a few are fierce. All of them know that the new kid usually turns out to be the one worth watching.

1. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)

What it is: Hayao Miyazaki's gentle Studio Ghibli film about Kiki, a thirteen-year-old witch who leaves home to train as a witch. She flies to a port city with her talking black cat, Jiji, and starts a delivery business by broomstick out of a bakery run by the kind-hearted Osono.

Why it fits right now: Most new-job movies are about ambition. This one is about confidence, and what happens when it quietly drains away. Miyazaki made Kiki's struggles harder than they are in Eiko Kadono's original novel. He said he wanted her to suffer "stronger setbacks and loneliness than in the original," and he compared her situation, moving to a new place to prove she's a real witch, to a young cartoonist trying to make it in Tokyo. Midway through, Kiki hits a wall: her powers fade, and a painter friend, Ursula, explains it as something like artist's block. If you've ever doubted on day three that you can actually do the job they hired you for, you'll know exactly how Kiki feels.

One scene to look for: Her very first delivery. A gust of wind knocks her off course and she loses the toy black cat she's supposed to deliver, so Jiji has to pretend to be the toy while Kiki races to get the real one back. It's a lovely little comedy of first-assignment panic, and it ends with someone helping her out. That's the film's whole philosophy.

Viewing note: The city of Koriko was largely inspired by Visby, on the Swedish island of Gotland, with streets and shops modeled on Stockholm. Pay attention to the rooftops and you'll want to book a flight.

2. The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

What it is: David Frankel's comedy about Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), an aspiring journalist who takes a job as second assistant to Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), the icy editor of a fashion magazine, and finds she's completely out of her depth.

Why it fits right now: Nobody has had a worse first week than Andy, and that's comforting. The film is also smart about something new hires rarely admit: a little bit of snobbery about the place you just joined is usually a defense mechanism. Andy thinks she's above the job, and the movie gently teaches her that every workplace has its own craft, even the ones that look silly from outside. Streep's Miranda never raises her voice, and that's the scary part. Streep later said she took Miranda's soft way of speaking from Clint Eastwood. Every quiet sentence lands like a door closing.

One scene to look for: The cerulean sweater speech. Andy snickers at how seriously a room full of editors is taking fashion, and Miranda calmly traces Andy's own bargain-bin blue sweater back through the fashion industry to that very room. According to screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, the item started as a plaid skirt, with a Vivienne Westwood angle, before it became a blue sweater. She sent Streep a list of blues, and Streep picked "cerulean." McKenna also admitted that a lot of the fashion history in the speech was simply made up. That hardly matters. The point is the moment a new hire realizes the job is deeper than she thought. (Bonus: Madonna's "Jump" plays over Andy's first day on the job.)

3. Working Girl (1988)

What it is: Mike Nichols's romantic comedy about Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith), a secretary from Staten Island with a night-school business degree, a big brain and a boss who treats her like a joke. After she's fired, she lands a new job as assistant to Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver), a mergers-and-acquisitions executive who at first seems to be the mentor Tess always wanted.

Why it fits right now: This is the movie for anyone starting over after a bad job, or carrying the hope that this time people will actually listen. Tess walks in determined to be taken seriously, and the film is honest about how much work that takes: the makeover, the borrowed wardrobe, the homework. It's also a sly lesson in reading new colleagues. Not everyone who encourages you to share your ideas is on your side. (No spoilers, but keep an eye on Katharine.) Harrison Ford co-stars as a rival dealmaker, and the film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

One scene to look for: The opening. Before the story gets going, the camera follows commuters across the harbor on the Staten Island Ferry toward Manhattan, set to Carly Simon's "Let the River Run." Simon wrote, arranged and performed the song, which won her the Oscar for Best Original Song. Watch it before your own commute. It's pure morale.

4. Ratatouille (2007)

What it is: Pixar's comedy about Remy, a Paris rat with an extraordinary palate, and Linguini, a hopeless young kitchen worker at the once-great restaurant Gusteau's. Hidden under Linguini's chef's hat, Remy pulls his hair like a puppeteer, and together they turn out to be a decent cook.

Why it fits right now: Ratatouille is really about two newcomers: one with talent and no standing, the other with a job and no idea what he's doing. If you're feeling like an impostor this week, Linguini is your patron saint. The film also takes the craft seriously. Co-director Jan Pinkava, who came up with the idea of a rat who wants to be a chef, and producer Brad Lewis did a short apprenticeship at Thomas Keller's French Laundry in Napa, where they picked vegetables, basted foie gras and made tortellini. Pinkava compared Keller's kitchen to "a surgical team dancing together," and you can see that choreography in every rush-hour scene at Gusteau's.

One scene to look for: Linguini's crash course with Colette (voiced by Janeane Garofalo), the only woman on the line, who's ordered to train him and isn't thrilled about it. "How many women do you see in this kitchen?" she asks, and then rattles off a speech about how hard she had to fight to get there. It's the best new-coworker scene in animation: prickly, funny, and secretly generous. Everyone should be lucky enough to have a Colette in their first month. Fun fact: Linguini's voice actor, Lou Romano, was working in Pixar's art department when he recorded a temporary voice track. Brad Bird, who took over as director, liked it so much that he kept him.

5. Hidden Figures (2016)

What it is: Theodore Melfi's drama about three Black women working as mathematicians at NASA's Langley Research Center in the early 1960s. They are Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe). In the film, Katherine is assigned to Al Harrison's (Kevin Costner) Space Task Group and becomes the first Black woman on the team.

Why it fits right now: Some first weeks mean walking into rooms that weren't built with you in mind. Hidden Figures takes that feeling seriously and makes it rousing. It's for anyone who is the "first" or the "only" somewhere, and for anyone who needs reminding that doing excellent work is its own kind of argument. The real story is just as impressive. According to NASA, Johnson started at Langley in the summer of 1953. Two weeks into the job, she was assigned to a project in the Flight Research Division, and her temporary position soon became permanent. Years later, before John Glenn's orbital flight, he asked engineers to "get the girl" to check the computer's numbers by hand.

One scene to look for: Katherine's long run across the campus to the nearest "Colored" restroom, and the moment her boss finally notices when she comes back to her desk drenched. It's the film's most famous sequence, and it's worth knowing that it's dramatized. In reality, it was Mary Jackson who struggled to find a bathroom, in a 1953 incident, and Johnson told VICE that she simply used the white restroom. Melfi acknowledged in that interview that the scene never happened. It still captures something true about a new building. Sometimes the hardest part of a job is everything around the work.

6. The Intern (2015)

What it is: Nancy Meyers's comedy about Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro), a 70-year-old widower and retired executive who's bored stiff by retirement. He signs up for a new "senior intern" program at About The Fit, a fast-growing fashion startup in Brooklyn run by the frazzled founder Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway).

Why it fits right now: End the week here, because it's the coziest film on the list and because it flips the script: the new guy is the calmest person in the building. Ben watches and listens before he speaks, and he wins over the office with competence and kindness, not tech skills. Meyers said she started with "the hook," an older man going to work as an intern at a startup, and then dug for more than generational jokes. She also pointed out that "bosses in startup land are kids," which explains a lot about Jules. It's a soothing reminder that you were hired for who you are, not just for what you already know about the software.

One scene to look for: Ben's first morning at his desk, when this seasoned executive is defeated by a computer he can't figure out how to turn on. Meyers herself pointed to that gag as an example of the age humor she allowed, while avoiding the cheap stuff. It's played for warmth, not mockery, and it's a gentle cue to forgive yourself for every login screen that beat you this week.

One Last Thing Before Monday

Watch these out of order, or just pick the one that matches your mood: Kiki when you feel small, Working Girl when you feel underestimated, Ratatouille when you feel like a fraud, and Hidden Figures when you need some fire. Between all of them is the same quiet promise. The first week is the hardest week, and the people who seem to have it all figured out were once standing exactly where you are, looking for the good mugs.