From Good Housekeeping:
“This year, the turkey will be
served with a side of couch potatoes and amazing Thanksgiving films.”
Once your family is done enjoying
turkey and stuffing, curl up on the couch with one of these classic
Thanksgiving movies that remind you to be thankful. A satisfying sense of
gratitude can come from a feel-good film like A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, or
a hilariously wacky celebration of the holiday like Addams Family Values. There
are even some iconic Thanksgiving scenes that will make you feel thankful for
the family you have. (You couldn't pay us to be there for the meal in Sylvester
Stallone's Rocky). At the end of the
day, there's so much more to this holiday than loading up on all of the amazing
comfort food you can get your hands on. It's really an opportunity to spend
time with the people you love most. We're always looking for a
post-Thanksgiving activity to enjoy as we relax with our food babies. Who says
you can't extend the day even after the last piece of pie is gone? After all
the talking, it's best to come together and enjoy a family-friendly film. If
you're like us, you'll tune into any one of these Thanksgiving movies on Turkey
Day. And if you need even more ways to entertain your guests, try one of our
favorite Thanksgiving games.
1 Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
Watching the antics Steve
Martin's quirky, high-strung character must endure — just to make it home for
Thanksgiving dinner with his family — will leave your sides aching.
2 A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
(1973)
This is one of the best
Thanksgiving movies because it's an absolute classic. Charlie Brown and his
gang never fail to give us the warm and fuzzies so, of course, you should curl
up for this Charles Schulz holiday TV special.
3 Addams Family Values (1993)
We'll never forget the
Thanksgiving scene featuring Christina Ricci as the one and only Wednesday
Addams. In classic Addams family fashion, it's not your everyday reenactment of
what went down between the Pilgrims and Native Americans.
4 Babes in Toyland (1934)
Also known as March of the Wooden
Soldiers, this classic film is aired as an annual Thanksgiving tradition in
certain parts of the country.
5 Rocky (1976)
Best saved for the adults in the
family, this well-known Sylvester Stallone movie features an unforgettable
Thanksgiving dinner scene. After that, you can burn through all of sequels.
6 Garfield's Thanksgiving (1996)
If there's one thing that
Garfield knows how to do, it's celebrate a holiday that's all about food.
7 Krisha (2016)
This film follows a woman who on
Thanksgiving returns to the family she abandoned — which makes for a tense
holiday, to say the least. The film won the Grand Jury and Audience Awards at
the 2015 South-by-Southwest Film Festival.
8 Anne of Green Gables: Fire and
Dew (2018)
We can always count on Anne
Shirley on Thanksgiving. PBS often airs a new Anne of Green Gables movie on
Turkey Day, and 2018 brought us one before the holiday. In this movie, Anne
goes to school in the city and finds herself feeling lost.
9 Home for the Holidays (1995)
Claudia Larson's Thanksgiving
gets off to a bad start — she gets fired from her job, and her daughter has
informed her she'll be spending the holiday with her boyfriend instead. But by
the end of the film, our intrepid protagonist gains a new outlook on things.
10 Free Birds (2013)
Voiced by Owen Wilson, Woody
Harrelson, Amy Poehler, and George Takei, this animated comedy is the perfect
family-friendly Turkey Day flick. The plot? Two time-traveling turkeys try to
head back to the first feast to change the traditional Thanksgiving menu.
11 Arlo Guthrie: Alice's Restaurant 50th
Anniversary Concert (2015)
Arlo Guthrie's timeless classic
describes a memorable day visiting a friend for Thanksgiving. After they have
dinner, Guthrie ends up on a crazy journey when he gets arrested for littering.
12 The Oath (2018)
In a not-too-distant future, the
government decides everybody must take a loyalty pledge on Black Friday, which
opens a rift during one family's Thanksgiving dinner. Will they survive the
weekend?
13 Pieces of April (2003)
In this flick, April invites her
mother (who is dying of cancer) and the rest of her distant family over for
Thanksgiving dinner. She ends up having problems in the kitchen, and reaches
out to someone else in her apartment building for help.
14 Jim Henson's Turkey Hollow
(2015)
Nothing says the holidays like a
Jim Henson puppet spectacular! And since it's too early for Emmet Otter's
Jug-Band Christmas, settle for this one about kids who go to investigate a
local legend about monsters while visiting relatives.
15 Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Sure, this festive flick,
starring Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn, is most often associated with
Christmas, but the film actually opens during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day
parade. Since the Christmas season essentially starts the day after
Thanksgiving, the movie really is totally on theme.
16 The Last Waltz (1978)
For fans of The Band, it doesn't
get better than this Martin Scorsese-directed concert film, which captures a
farewell performance given on Thanksgiving Day in 1976.
17 Tower Heist (2011)
You know when a great time to
plan a robbery is? When everyone is looking elsewhere — like at the Macy's
Thanksgiving Day Parade. When a group of luxury apartment workers lose their
pensions in a Ponzi scheme, they vow payback by planning to steal from their
employer during the parade.
18 Scent of a Woman (1992)
Featuring a tour-de-force
performance by Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman takes place over Thanksgiving break,
when a student (Chris O'Donnell) agrees to take care of a blind veteran
(Pacino) for the week — and ends up learning more than what college can teach him.
19 The Blind Side (2009)
It's hard not to get choked up
while watching Michael Oher — a homeless 17-year-old — have Thanksgiving dinner
for the first time with the Tuohys. It's this moment that makes him realize how
welcome he really is (and makes us realize just how thankful we are for our own
family and friends).
20 You've Got Mail (1998)
Though they may fall in love
online, Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) and Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) are rivals in real
life — on the supermarket line, especially. You've Got Mail's iconic
Thanksgiving grocery store scene, in which Joe steps in for a cashless Kelly
after she mistakenly rings up her items in a cash-only line, is one you just
can't miss.
21 The Big Chill (1983)
When one member of a group of
college friends dies, the rest of them reunite after the funeral and face their
emotions and some nostalgic feelings.
22 Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)
When a gang of thieves plans a
heist at the mall on the night of Black Friday, only one person can take them
down: a segway-riding mall cop! An unlikely hero, to be sure, but holidays are
full of underdog stories.
23 Nobody's Fool (1994)
This movie opens on Thanksgiving
in lonely upstate New York and follows Sully, a 60-something construction
worker who decides it's time to try and get his life together. It may not be
the happiest holiday entertainment, but the film earned star Paul Newman a Best
Actor Academy Award nomination, and the script is based on a novel by Pulitzer
Prize-winning author Richard Russo.
24 Avalon (1990)
For fans of Diner director Barry
Levinson, this is another one of his "Baltimore" movies. It takes
place in the '40s and '50s, an era of change, and nowhere is the shifting
attitudes of the time more relevant than at one particularly momentous
Thanksgiving dinner.
25 Son-In-Law (1993)
If you want to tell your kids
what comedy was like in the '90s, look no further than a Pauly Sore vehicle. In
this one, Shore plays a college RA who visits one of his advisee's family farm
for Thanksgiving.
26 Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Time between two Thanksgivings
are apparently just enough days for an unusual love triangle to form. The
protagonist Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister, Lee. Meanwhile,
Lee's ex-husband sets out to date the third sister, Holly.
27 Grumpy Old Men (1993)
Combining two old neighbors (who
haven't gotten along ever since they were children) with a mutual love interest
makes for one interesting storyline — and one funny Thanksgiving scene.
28 House of Yes (1997)
If your family likes movies that
are a little "out there," this movie is about a guy named Marty (Josh
Hamilton) who brings a girlfriend home on Thanksgiving to meet his
not-all-there family. Parker Posey gives a darkly comedic performance as
Marty's twin sister, recently released from a mental hospital, who's obsessed
with all things Jackie O.
29 Curly Sue (1991)
Try not to fall in love with the
adorable heroine of this John Hughes film, who assists a homeless man in
conning people for food and shelter.
^ I have to say that I have seen
all of these movies and the only ones I would consider to be good Thanksgiving
movies are: “Planes, Train and Automobiles”, “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving”, “Babes
In Toyland” (although I think of it more for Christmas), “Garfield’s Thanksgiving”,
“Home For The Holidays”, “Free Birds”, “Jim Henson’s Turkey Hollow” and “Miracle
on 34th Street” (although I think of it more for Christmas.) The
rest may have some connection to Thanksgiving in them, but don’t seem to have the
real Thanksgiving feel to them. ^
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