Aneta Pawlik\/Unsplash<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
Thanksgiving movies don\u2019t get the credit they deserve. We get a ton of Christmas, Halloween and other holiday movies canonized as classics and added to the yearly viewing rotation, but Thanksgiving has always remained the day when people slowly food-coma themselves into oblivion in front of football or parades.<\/p>\n
Still, I think it\u2019s time to spotlight a few pretty great Thanksgiving movies for those of us who prefer cinema to sports and celebrate the genius it takes to build a movie around a problematic holiday where the most excitement involved is usually how many deviled eggs one can eat before things go south.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Planes, Trains and Automobiles\u2019<\/h2>\n
This is the obvious one for people of a certain generation, but I\u2019ll always bring this 1987 film up when younger folks are around to keep the appreciation of John Candy alive for a thousand years to come. This classic follows an uptight ad exec and a talkative but affable salesman as they go on a very circuitous journey from New York to Chicago to try to make it home for Thanksgiving. It remains endlessly quotable, genuinely heartwarming and a good reminder that the holiday isn\u2019t about pilgrims as much as a celebration of the people we love and choose to share our lives with.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Knives Out\u2019<\/h2>\n
While the film isn\u2019t specifically set on Thanksgiving, it is still the perfect viewing antidote for those of us who have complicated relationships with our family. It\u2019s a classic cinematic throwback to detectives like Marple, Poirot and Holmes, but all centered around a profoundly dysfunctional family played by a murderers\u2019 row of great actors including Michael Shannon, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Christopher Plummer and Toni Collette. Watching these characters sit around a table and squabble over petty insecurities reminds me of too many Thanksgivings to count and, for good or ill, feels pretty nostalgic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018You\u2019ve Got Mail\u2019<\/h2>\n
While only briefly touching on Thanksgiving, \u201cYou\u2019ve Got Mail\u201d is still a perfect romance to watch with your person after dinner. With a chemistry that I\u2019m not sure any actors have achieved since, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are so effortlessly charming and dreamy that it\u2019s hard not to fall in love with them, too. <\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/swiftmedia.s3.amazonaws.com\/mountain.swiftcom.com\/images\/sites\/7\/2020\/03\/30232534\/VD-logo-white.png\"){kind=logo}
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n