Although it’s arguably the most American holiday this side of Independence Day, Thanksgiving often doesn’t get much attention from popular culture. Even one of America’s most visible Thanksgiving traditions — the Macy’s Parade — is based on the stunning appearance of Santa Claus. It’s no wonder, then, that many lists of the best Thanksgiving movies fudge the definition to include films about the season as a whole (Holiday Inn(or even directly centered around Christmas)The miracle of the 34th dayy street Not a Thanksgiving movie, list makers!)
This year, Eli Roth moved things in that direction, if only moderately, with the first full-scale Thanksgiving horror film in ages, titled — with impressive directness —Thanksgiving Day. But the truth is, there have already been plenty of low-rent Thanksgiving movies for horror fans to check out. It’s very difficult to find Thanksgiving movies that treat the holiday as more than just a gimmick — and even harder for those movies to endure the way their Christmas counterparts have. (There are a fair number of cheerful little Christmas-themed rom-coms from the 1940s, for example—essentially more sophisticated versions of today’s Hallmark marathon programmers, featuring real movie stars—but far fewer revolve around About the supposedly less romantic Turkey Day ) With that in mind, we’ve done the hard work of compiling seven decades’ worth of really good Thanksgiving-themed movies, offering a tour through the joys and experiences of the holiday starting in mid. Twentyy century.
Thanksgiving pictures, even comedies, tend to be less enthusiastic than their Christmas counterparts, focusing as they do on bittersweet reunions, fraught homecomings, complicated family dynamics, and the persistent question of whether our rituals sustain us or remind us of what we have. . Lost in the spaces in between However, the good news is plentiful: these films aren’t overrated, many are semi-hidden gems, and there are enough of them to race through all of them before the big day. Below are thirteen major titles, arranged chronologically.
The same thought from you (1944)
The few Thanksgiving-themed films that you can extract from the first few decades of American cinema tend to use the holiday more tangentially — or, as in this romantic drama, as a respite from larger, thornier issues. Here, a shift in mission allows two World War II soldiers (Dennis Morgan and Dane Clark) to take a weekend off in Pasadena before shipping out for more training and another tour of duty. While there, David Stewart (Morgan) reconnects with old girl Janet Wheeler (Eleanor Parker) – much to her family’s dismay, partly because they’ve seen Janet’s sister walk out on her soldier lover overseas. Director Delmer Davis uses the limited time frame of Thanksgiving weekend as a substitute for the precious little time these soldiers have to go about their personal business, and at this early point, the films were already upending images of family togetherness: the film’s tense dinner scene is actually the night before Christmas. Thanks, while Janet is so infatuated with David that she completely misses her family reunion day. Later, the appearance of Janet’s brother-in-law’s letters includes his reappraisal of Americana: “You know those ads that show pictures of men in uniform returning to where they left off? They don’t show what home is really about. For some men, maybe it’s apple pie, or the smell of home cooking, Or the pharmacy on the corner…but for many others, it’s their girl. Do these characters live on short flashes of happiness that they know from the beginning have time limits, or is life actually lived in those small, unexpected flashes? The same thought from you It may prioritize domestic melodrama and reconciliation over grappling with these questions – which doesn’t stop it from offering an unusual vision before the credits roll. This film is not currently available to stream legally, but keep an eye on Turner Classic Movies, which keeps it in circulation from time to time.
