Chris Noth wears a Rolex Datejust

In Sex and the City 2 (2010), Carrie and Mr. Big are two years married, and for their anniversary she gives him a watch. Michael Patrick King directed the sequel, which sends the four women off to Abu Dhabi and which most critics could not stand. Chris Noth plays Big, and the watch she hands him is the one part of the exchange the film treats as genuinely thoughtful.

It is a vintage Rolex Datejust. Carrie says as much in the scene, that it is vintage, that it is from 1968, that it is engraved. Watch collectors who have gone through the film frame by frame put it more precisely: a reference 1601, the steel Datejust Rolex made through the 1960s, here on the five-row Jubilee bracelet. The still shows that bracelet clearly, Big on the phone at his desk with the case turned to the inside of his wrist. The steel and the Jubilee are the tell. The watch people tend to picture on a man like Big is the gold Day-Date, the "President," but Rolex never built the Day-Date in steel and never on a Jubilee. What Carrie chose was the quieter cousin.

Big's gift back to her was a flat-screen television, mounted in the bedroom so the two of them could watch old movies together. She had been hoping for jewelry.