Play time of either of the two is 60-90 minutes, Catan seats 4 and TTR seats 5.

Of the two, I prefer TTR, and if you can find it I recommend Ticket To Ride: Europe over the original American one as it has nicer full size cards, adds a nice friendly track-sharing "station" rule that can get you out of a jam, and has a random-chance "tunnel" rule that can add a bit of excitement to your turn if you succeed or fail to dig a tunnel.

I also suggest watching play-throughs or reviews on YouTube. Geek and Sundry has Tabletop playthroughs with Will Wheaton, and Shut Up And Sit Down has reviews done by a British group.

    Settlers of Catan  
    Carcassonne  
    Clash of the Cards  
    Codebreakers (Mastermind)  
    Codenames  
    Cards against humanity  
    Chess  
    Gin Rummy  
    Dice games (10k, etc)  
    Dominoes and variations

not a lot of game theory or strategy or tactics involved, it's all wordplay. which is nice for multi-generational family game night. i've even played with people who don't speak a lot of english (with a bit of translating back and forth) and we all had a blast.

best with 5-7 people, though; 3 minimum but it's not very fun unless you have at least 5.

For a party style game, I'd recommend "A Fake Artist Goes to New York"

If you'd like far more information than you need to know, https://boardgamegeek.com/ is the definitive online board game community.

Just One: word game kind of like Taboo, but it's cooperative and there's no time pressure.

Kingdomino: quick tile placement strategy game with a fantasy theme.

... Also Euchre: A card game like bridge, but way simpler, that's popular in the Midwest and Canada (Ontario anyway). My sister and I learned to play with my grandparents when we were in kindergarten.

It’s also reasonably confrontational but not curt-throat, so you won’t be ruining relationships over it, but won’t be playing multiplayer solitaire either