5 Essential Thanksgiving Movies Everyone Should Watch At Least Once

When it comes to Thanksgiving, television tends to do the heavy lifting in terms of representing the holiday on screen — with things like the legendary “Friends” Thanksgiving specials and “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” being what families gather to watch over their turkey and stuffing — that is, other than parades and football, of course. When pressed to come up with movies about Thanksgiving, there’s a certain John Hughes-directed comedy classic starring John Candy and Steve Martin that most people immediately name, but not much else.

In fact, beyond that particular movie — which it’s probably no big spoiler to say is on this list — there are actually a number of films that are specifically set at Thanksgiving and are about Thanksgiving. What follows are what we feel are the most essential of those movies, the ones that everyone should check out if they haven’t already. And who knows, maybe you’ll find that one or more of these end up become an annual tradition to watch as you and yours plop down on the couch to digest all those carbs. 

Though she’s best known these days — especially to younger generations — as the actor who voices Elastigirl in “The Incredibles,” Holly Hunter used to be one of Hollywood’s go-to leading ladies. While it’s not necessarily her best movie, 1995’s “Home for the Holidays” is still a terrific showcase for Hunter’s talent because it features her leading and holding her own in a ridiculously stacked ensemble. Robert Downey Jr., Anne Bancroft, Dylan McDermott, Claire Danes, and David Straitharn are just a few of Hunter’s co-stars, playing the various friends, relatives, and acquaintances who make the movie’s central Thanksgiving celebration hilariously dysfunctional.

Hunter is Cynthia Larson, a recently jobless single mother who flies solo to spend Thanksgiving at her parents’ Baltimore home while her daughter stays back in Chicago. What follows admittedly doesn’t tread especially unique ground for a wild family dramedy full of people with varying levels of connection and estrangement. But Hunter and the cast bring a sweet authenticity to the proceedings that really elevates the somewhat tropey material.

“Home for the Holidays” also gets credit for being a movie from 1995 that’s aged shockingly well in terms of its depictions of gay characters, characters with mental health struggles, and characters suffering from dementia.

The least known and most underrated movie on this list is 2000’s “What’s Cooking?,” the story of multiple families of widely varying backgrounds and cultures taking their own crack at a Thanksgiving dinner. Directed and co-written by British filmmaker Gurinder Chadha, two years before her big breakout with “Bend It Like Beckham,” the movie’s unique flavor comes from a non-American filmmaker tackling a very American holiday tradition. 

“What’s Cooking?” intercuts between four families, each one dealing with their own issues and struggles as they prepare for the impending Thanksgiving holiday. Crucially, none of them are the typical white Christian family that are the most common stars of Thanksgiving films and TV specials. There’s a Black family, a Jewish family, a Vietnamese family, and a Latino family, each one bringing their own spin to the holiday in terms of not only cuisine but culture — all while balancing the classic traditions of their own backgrounds and what their culture looks like in the modern world. 

There’s a lot going on here obviously, and things can get a bit muddled, but isn’t that true of Thanksgiving itself? The argument can be made that the chaos of trying to juggle four different sets of stories and characters was intentionally meant to mimic how Thanksgiving feels to so many of us. “What’s Cooking?” is like that quirky side dish that you never heard of before, but will instantly become a new holiday favorite after you’ve tried it.

If all the things that Woody Allen has been accused of over the years make it difficult for you to enjoy his films anymore, skip onto the next recommendation. But if you’re more of a “separate the art from the artist” type of person, and are in the market for unmissable Thanksgiving movies, his 1986 dramedy “Hannah and Her Sisters” is a must-watch — especially since it’s one of his best movies, period. 

One of the things that makes “Hannah and Her Sisters” particularly unique not only among Thanksgiving movies but holiday movies in general is that it’s not just about a single year’s holiday. Its inventive narrative actually covers three successive Thanksgiving celebrations, each one serving as a crucial milestone in the lives of sisters Hannah (Mia Farrow), Holly (Dianne Wiest), and Lee (Barbara Hershey). The movie positions Thanksgiving as an event where they check in with one another over a daylong feast, much of it focused on each of the women’s romantic lives but also encompassing career struggles, interpersonal drama, and other such dynamics.

Holiday movies are often mere crowd-pleasers that critics are fairly ho-hum about, but that couldn’t be further from the truth with “Hannah and Her Sisters.” It was nominated for best picture, director and screenplay, and scored Oscar wins for the performances by Wiest and Michael Caine. How many Christmas or Halloween movies can you think of that have Oscar-winning performances and were also nominated for best picture? 

While Katie Holmes is sometimes unfairly dismissed as the girl from “Dawson’s Creek,” Tom Cruise’s ex-wife, and the person replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal in “The Dark Knight,” she actually has a number of acclaimed performances in great projects under her belt. One of the first to demonstrate that she was so much more than the star of soapy teen TV shows was “Pieces of April,” an 2003 independent dramedy in which Holmes’ titular character finds herself in way over her head as she attempts to host Thanksgiving for her family and friends.

April is a quirky twentysomething with a rather dysfunctional upbringing who’s doing her best while living in a small New York City apartment. When she finds out her mother (Patricia Clarkson) has cancer and doesn’t have much time left, April decides to reconnect with her estranged parents and younger brother by inviting them to her apartment for Thanksgiving. Holmes is terrific in the role, especially given that she’s the only one on screen in many stretches of the movie and has nobody to act against but herself. 

It’s impossible not to fall in love with April and root for her as she tries to prove — not only to her family but mostly to herself — that she’s got it together enough to successfully pull off Thanksgiving for a medium-sized group of people. Clarkson’s performance as April’s mother, while fantastic — and worthy of the Oscar nomination she received — sort of cannibalized the buzz Holmes might have otherwise gotten for the movie, unfortunately. But what matters is that Holmes and Clarkson are both excellent here, as is “Pieces of April.”  

Apart from any holiday connection, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is one of the all-time great comedies, period. Few movies merit a list of their 12 most hilarious moments while not even coming close to including every iconic joke. While writer-director John Hughes’ film may be more of a road comedy than anything else, the Thanksgiving of it all is a big part of where “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” gets its heart. 

Unlike the other films on this list, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is all about getting to a Thanksgiving dinner rather than having one. But the complications, headaches, and hassles of holiday travel are woven into the very fabric of holidays themselves, and Thanksgiving in particular tends to involve some of the heaviest travel days of the year. People often spend more time on the road to and from Thanksgiving than they spend actually having Thanksgiving, so a movie depicting travel is as much in the spirit of the holiday as a movie about eating turkey.

In one of the best comedic pairings in screen history, Steve Martin is tightly-wound executive Neal Page, whose struggle to get home in time for Thanksgiving becomes entangled with fellow business traveler Del Griffith (John Candy), a much more free-spirited, go-with-the-flow type of guy. Del and Neal have the typical odd couple dynamic and are opposites in pretty much every way, which makes for hilarity for most of the film — that is, until their dynamic takes a poignant turn. While John Hughes has contributed several Christmas classics to that holiday’s pantheon, his best holiday movie remains the one he made as the ultimate tribute to Thanksgiving.