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When it comes to holidays and movies , Christmas has spiritual and family film , Halloween has repugnance , and Independence Day corner the market of patriotic , flag - wave action pictures . However , the holiday strike off by category feasts , football , and Meleagris gallopavo dinners has very few motion picture where it stands center level .
While Christmas is the granddad of holidays , with46 % of Americans refer it as their favorite vacation , Thanksgiving comes in at bit 2 with a honorable 19 % of the vote . Being sandwich between Halloween and Christmas , and being a holiday about family , Thanksgiving is less commercial-grade by nature and , therefore , might be harder to convince audience to pull themselves away from the bomb to catch a movie . It ’s also not celebrated out of doors of North America , make it hard to commercialize to international audiences ( or even Canadians , who celebrate it in early October ) .
With so many Americans accord that they enjoy the November vacation , it may be time to reconsider Thanksgiving as an apt subject for a moving-picture show . If you ’re front for an alternative to football or just something good to watch as you crash on the sofa , there are a few gem that have done Turkey Day justice . These are Screen Rant’s10 Best Thanksgiving Movies of All Time .
Rocky (1976)
While boxing is n’t necessarily a Thanksgiving custom , there ’s a panorama polar to the entire series of photographic film that involves a Thanksgiving dinner party gone wrong in this classic fight film .
Rocky ’s ( Sylvester Stallone ) pal , Paulie Pennino ( Burt Young ) , bring the bagger home to prepare Rocky up with his sis Adrian ( Talia Shire ) . Adrian decline because she ’s spent all Clarence Day preparing a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner . Drunk and belligerent , Paulie proceeds to throw the boo into the alley to free up Adrian for a date with Rocky . Without Paulie ’s brutish activity , there ’d be no war cry of"Adriiiian"and she probably would not have served as Rocky ’s aspiration to succeed .
While the motion picture features more beef than turkey , Rockydoes propose an first-class mutant - themed choice to football game . So , if you desire something to worry your entire day , you’re able to check out the series of film , all currently available on Netflix . Or , you could ascertain outCreed , the highly - anticipated spinoff to the series that opened this Thanksgiving weekend .
House of Yes (1997)
For a holiday that ’s a prime mark for tales of nonadaptive home , House of Yesmay just take the pumpkin pie . Marty Pascal ( Josh Hamilton ) is come home for Thanksgiving with his fiancée Lesly ( Tori Spelling ) for the first metre . Unaware of anything out of the ordinary , Lesly gets a crash row in the Pascal house ’s strange behaviors .
Starring Parkey Posey as Marty ’s twin baby Jackie , a womanhood suffering from an obsession with both former first lady Jackie Onassis and her buddy Marty , House of Yesisn’t a movie you require to watch with the kids around . With theme of incest , murder , and mental illness , this is a nifty drear clowning , which is far less saccharine than the traditional holiday fare .
Addams Family Values (1993)
In recent years , it ’s become important to see the history of Thanksgiving and know that it ’s not a positive event for everyone involved . Luckily , the kidskin of the Addams Family show empathy toward Native Americans and had an chance to act out some retaliation in 1993’sAddams Family Values .
During a summer camp run about the first Thanksgiving , include a song titled " Eat Us , " Wednesday Adams ( Christina Ricci ) and her buddy Pugsley ( Jimmy Workman ) mutiny and organize the " reject " fry into a circle of Chippewas to foray into the pilgrims . In the typically grim tone of variousAddams Familyincarnations , the children go so far as to burn the readiness to the ground , roast their counselors over a spitting , and burn the especially bothersome Amanda ( Mercedes McNab ) at the interest .
For Your Consideration (2006)
A Christopher Guest mockumentary following the principal of an self-governing film , For Your Considerationfollows the sweat demand to turn a ladder - of - the - John Mill prestigiousness plastic film into an Oscar contender . When the idea of a flick about the Jewish fete of Purim is considered to be " too Jewish , " the reunification of a mother and girl during Purim is replaced by a Thanksgiving mount , just one of many compromise command to get into contention for an Academy Award .
Starring some Guest ’s even dramatis personae members , include Harry Shearer , Catherine O’Hara , Parker Posey , Jane Lynch , and Fred Willard , For Yor Considerationis a great self - reflection on the ridiculous nature of Hollywood . A consummate movie to determine right before Oscar season gets into full swing .
Son-in-Law (1993)
In the early ' 90s , Paulie " The Weasel " Shore was one of teenage America ’s biggest stars , and one parental America ’s greatest fear . Bringing those fears to life inSon - in - Law , Shore stars as Crawl , a campus RA who befriends and profane the new - to - campus farm girl Becca ( Carla Gugino ) . She invite him home to South Dakota for Thanksgiving . Interrupting her gamey school day boyfriend ’s proposal by stating that they ’re already engaged , Crawl exercise heavily to print the fellowship by helping on the farm , to disastrous results .
One of many lapidator fish - out - of - water films , this is Paulie Shore ’s second most successful film , bring in a sum of $ 36 million dollars . Do n’t wait too much in terms of high hilltop humor , but if you ’re looking for some light , chinchy laughter , you could never go wrong with " The Weez . "
Home for the Holidays (1995)
Stick Robert Downey , Jr. in a film about Thanksgiving , and it ’s comfortable to estimate what kind of tone the movie will have . manoeuver by Jodie Foster , rest home for the Holidayssqueezes all sort of messed up syndicate tropes into 103 arcminute : a teenaged daughter ( Claire Daines ) planning to suffer her virginity , a gay comrade Tommy ( Robert Downey Jr. ) , a conservative sister ( Cynthia Stevenson ) and her inner husband ( Steve Guttenberg ) , and an eccentric auntie ( Geraldine Chaplin ) . The maven - studded cast does a fantastical job of bear out the business of present the Larson family in a way that make out across as veridical , and ultimately top us to sympathize with lead theatrical role , Claudia Larson ( Holly Hunter )
Home for the Holidayswas one of the last function for Robert Downey , Jr. before his legal and personal bother do him to mistreat back from his career . hold back on drug electric charge on numerous occasions between 1996 and 2001 , the actor was uninsurable for yr , both during and after this hullabaloo . He finally made a comeback with 2008’sIron Man , and he did it in a major way . Starring in both theIron Man / AvengersandSherlock Holmesfranchises , Downey should be passing grateful for the second chance he was give .
Free Birds (2013)
While many of us finger that the annual presidential turkey pardoning is a minute of a waste of time for the leader of the free world , the animatedFree Birdsshows what a pardoned turkey can do if he puts his heart into it . Underachieving bomb Reggie ( Owen Wilson ) is just the hiss who ends up pardoned , spend his biography in comparative relaxation at the presidential retreat , Camp David .
Things change dramatically when he is enlist by exemption campaign poultry Jake ( Woody Harelson ) to travel back in time to the first Thanksgiving and end the practice of dud dinner . Leading the bird of the era to victory , Jake ends up revolutionize a novel tradition , a banquet of pizza pie on the fourth Thursday in November .
Was Colm Meanie cast as Pilgrim Father Myles Standish because he played engineer Miles O’Brien onStar Trek : Deep Space Nine ? It ’s not sure , but hopefully the creators feel that along with take in George Takei voice the time machine , that this was a nod to Trek sports fan .
Grumpy Old Men (1993)
One of the good comedic devices in cinema is the crony funniness , and the dear at it were Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon . Grumpy Old Menwas the 6th time the two seasoned actors shape together , and the experience pay off with a well - made movie about two one-time codgers harbor the same score against each other that they ’ve held since high school .
With Ariel ( Ann - Margret ) moving to town , Max ( Matthau ) and John ( Lemmon ) rekindle a feud started over a gamey school girlfriend . Chasing the same woman , things issue forth to a read/write head at Thanksgiving when Max spies on John and catch him engaged in intimate acts with Ariel .
Other than some entail sex , Grumpy Old Menis a dependably PG-13 movie and the laugh might serve the family guard off the post - turkey coma that necessarily follows dinner party . However , avoid the subsequence , Grumpier Old Men , which hurt from a heartburn - inducing 17 % rotted paygrade on Rotten Tomatoes .
Pieces of April (2003)
Not all of us have idyllic kinfolk , and getting them around the mesa can cause more anxiety than it ’s deserving . Pieces of April , star Katie Holmes as the titular April Burns , show this less - than - relaxing side of the holiday . work to make a Thanksgiving meal for her dying female parent and alienated family , who spend their slip from Pennsylvania to New York discussing their black sheep girl , April is faced with a broken oven while her boyfriend scrounges for a suit of clothes to put on to impress the syndicate .
Pieces of Aprilmight not be the kind of story that could be called " feel - goodness , " but it does show that , in the end , blood is thicker than water , and that whatever your problems might be , someone else may have it worse .
Best Thanksgiving Movie: Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
If you thought house was hard , try have artisan oaf John Candy as your traveling partner for three day .
Steve Martin plays Neal Page , an ad executive who gets hold up by salesman Del Griffith ( John Candy ) on the means to the airport . go far afterwards , Neal is bumped from 1st class to coach , where he is seated with Del. With the flight of steps rerouted from Chicago to Wichita , Neal and Del spend three days suffering through mischance and fault on the way home to make it to dinner on prison term .
manoeuver by John Hughes , Planes , Trains and Automobilesis often remembered as a Christmas picture show , likely because of the feelgood stop . However , the focus is actually on the " joys " of traveling over Thanksgiving . For example , you ’ll never be able to rent a car without Steve Martin ’s f - bomb tirade bolt down out in your memory .
So , when your turn comes during the game where you ’re asked to state what you are thankful for , make certain to give props to this movie .
