Paramount Pictures/Courtesy Photo
There’s a good chance you’ve moved straight from Halloween horror movies into the dozens of yuletide selections available — hundreds if we’re including Hallmark — but if you’re not quite ready for Christmas on your screen, there are, in fact, a handful of Hollywood features that focus on the overlooked Thanksgiving holiday.
And, if you plan it right, you can have Turkey Day content on your TV all day long.
Appetizers at the kids table
A pair of turkeys gain access to a secret government time machine and utilize it to travel back to 1621 to prevent the very first Thanksgiving from gaining popularity.
This is the premise for the 2013 “Free Birds,” the debut feature from Reel FX Animation, and while it’s rife with the expected historical inaccuracies and science-fiction plot holes, you could choose much worse fare for the fourth Thursday in November.
Seen through the eyes of the very fowl that is the centerpiece of the entire holiday, this will certainly entertain the small fries in your house leading up to dinnertime with solid voice work by Owen Wilson, Woody Harrelson, Amy Poehler and more in a story that’s unapologetically silly yet surprisingly satisfying.
Granted, the kids may have some issues when the bird comes out of the oven, but that’s just more turkey for the adults, right?
Dinner is served
If you’re the type that prefers to do your big meal in front of the TV, why not do it watching a family celebrate the same holiday you are?
Hopefully yours is a little less laden with family drama…
You can’t go wrong with the minor mid-90s gem “Home for the Holidays,” featuring Holly Hunter as a single mom who’s both overworked and newly unemployed, begrudgingly visiting her parents and siblings for Thanksgiving.
While it’s neither the first nor the last comedy to hone in on the dynamics of dysfunctional families who are forced to be civil to one another, it is one of the better ones, albeit dated.
In a good way.
Hunter, fresh off her Oscar win for “The Piano,” is as great as ever but arguably outshone by Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning as her loving but exasperating folks, not to mention Robert Downey, Jr. as her puckish brother, whose gay identity is no secret but still the source of plenty of unnecessary familial strife.
Add in Dylan McDermott, Steve Guttenberg and Claire Danes, and you’ve got a perfect cinematic time capsule of 1995.
Also, did we mention Jodie Foster in the director’s chair?
Pass the dark meat
Once you’ve sent the kids to play football in the backyard, whether they like It or not, it’s time for the adults to indulge in a little family-unfriendly viewing with 2023’s “Thanksgiving.”
The slasher that started as a fake preview in 2007’s “Grindhouse” follows the residents of Plymouth, Massachusetts as they are stalked by a homicidal maniac in a pilgrim hat and mask.
Yeah, that’s pretty much it.
Depending on your preferences, this horror show from Eli Roth will either thrill or disgust you with some pretty hilariously brutal kills that lampoon the 80s heyday of the genre when any holiday could be turned into a tasteless gorefest.
If you’re looking for a palate cleanser from wholesomeness, look no further than this very self-aware flick that makes no bones about how ugly society can be, with a Black Friday shopping massacre featuring prominently in the narrative — hint, hint.
No one will judge you if you choose to leave the room, but if you savor a well-executed execution while you nibble on your second helping of green bean casserole, this one is for you.
The main course
You can’t talk Thanksgiving movies without bringing up the granddaddy of them all — admittedly an extremely niche category — 1987’s “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”
Following a business trip to New York, ad man Neal Page has promised his wife to get home to Chicago in time for Thanksgiving, only to be waylaid by every travel inconvenience possible, all while being unable to shake a friendly but irritating salesman named Del Griffith.
This may have been the definitive work by the late writer-director John Hughes, who perfectly captures the formula of the mismatched duo on the road and enhances it better than perhaps anyone else has.
It’s certainly helped along by two comedy giants in the lead roles: Steve Martin as the relatable but snobbish Neal and John Candy as the maddening, buffoonish, but ultimately endearing Del.
The date on the calendar is almost irrelevant in this update of the likes of Laurel and Hardy, Hope and Crosby and Abbott and Costello — which was itself imitated in “Tommy Boy” and “Due Date” — as the main characters go through hell and back traversing the country in ways you’d never want to try yourself.
It’s consistently funny — “Those aren’t pillows…” — but Hughes’ script combined with Candy’s emotionally devastating moments makes it the stuff of legend.
Yes, it’s rated R, but apart from one expletive-laden scene at a car rental counter — you remember the one because you empathize with it more than you care to admit — it’s probably OK for the kids to come back in the house for this one.
Candy for dessert
If you’re still overly full but still eager to stuff your face with pumpkin pie while sitting still, you might as well go for the full deep dive into one of the most brilliant comedic names of our time.
Taking its title from a line in the aforementioned flick, “John Candy: I Like Me” gives viewers a look at the scope of one of the best human beings in Hollywood back in the day.
The documentary compiled by Colin Hanks gives us a full picture of the larger-than-life figure who won our hearts in “SCTV,” “Splash” and “Uncle Buck,” among many other classics, all while showing the beloved actor’s struggles with insecurity and vices.
If you’re looking for sordid details on Candy, you’ll find few here — a fact jokingly lamented by “Stripes” costar Bill Murray in the first few minutes — but you will learn some things you didn’t know about your favorite bombastic big boy from the people who knew him best.
OK, it’s hardly Thanksgiving-specific viewing, but if you can’t enjoy an assemblage of moments that range from gut-busting to heartbreaking with your loved ones, what’s the point of even having a holiday?
- Available on Amazon Prime Video
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