Searches for new physics with leptons and photons in the final state have a long tradition at collider experiments, as they offer clean final states that allow to efficiently select signals of potential new physics while controlling backgrounds from standard model processes. As the search program of the CMS experiment matures, analyses are expanding to cover new final states, use novel analyses techniques, or recast the results of more traditional approaches to extract more information from the collected data sets. Here, four recent searches using the full data set collected by CMS during the LHC Run 2 are discussed, ranging from simple dilepton final states to searches for 𝑊𝛾 resonances and Dark Higgs particles decaying to W bosons.