Thanksgiving Movies to Watch Between Cooking and Feasting: ‘Free Birds,’ ‘Pieces of April,’ ‘Turkey Drop’ and More
Grab those comfy pants! Thanksgiving is more than just a holiday to celebrate family and feasting — it is the perfect excuse to stream your favorite festive movies all week long.
When not eating mashed potatoes and apple pie, families and friends alike can cozy up on the couch to watch classics like A Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving or the animated hit Free Birds. For family drama, Pieces of April, Hannah and Her Sisters and Home for the Holidays are all great options.
Some fans, however, might want a rom-com to swoon over while digesting copious amounts of pumpkin pie — enter You’ve Got Mail. While the 1998 movie isn’t directly about Thanksgiving, it does encapsulate the fall season.
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan take fans back to the early days of the internet when people met via chat rooms. Hanks’ Joe Fox and Ryan’s Kathleen Kelly may hate each other in real life as Joe’s Fox Books threatens to shutdown Kathleen’s Little Shop Around the Coroner, but online, they can’t help but fall in love.
“No, it’s not like we feel any of that chemistry when we’re just sitting there waiting to film a scene,” Hanks told Entertainment Weekly in December 1998 of his and Ryan’s connection. “We just talk to each other the way we’ve always talked, even back when we did Joe Versus the Volcano. We never talk about the movie or the mechanics of the scene. We just talk about goofy things we’ve read or seen somewhere.”
On screen, however, their love is one that can’t be beat — especially when Joe tells Kathleen via their AOL chat, “I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.”
If a more modern love story is what you want on Thanksgiving, look no further than Turkey Drop. The 2019 film debuted on Freeform and shows the darker side of romance: the moment someone gets “turkey dropped,” or dumped over the holidays.
However, watching Olivia Holt’s character, Lucy, get broken up with by her high school sweetheart while home for Thanksgiving isn’t all fans get from the rom-com. Holt revealed that autumn themes are everywhere in the movie, feeding into the post-meal feels many people want from a movie.
“The leaves were changing [when we filmed in Canada], and you can feel it when you watch the movie. You get the Thanksgiving vibe,” she told KTLA5 in November 2019. “[The network is] totally embracing Thanksgiving. We’ve never really had a holiday movie that’s based around Thanksgiving. I feel like we’re finally giving back to everybody who has been wanting that genre.”
The Cruel Summer actress added: “Cinematically, we just wanted it to feel like a fall movie. It’s a rom-com, so I think that was most important for us to execute a beautiful, romantic story but based around this time of year.”
Scroll down for your guide to the best movies to watch over the Thanksgiving holiday:
Credit: Shutterstock (2)
Thanksgiving Movies to Watch Between Cooking and Feasting: ‘Free Birds,’ ‘Pieces of April,’ ‘Turkey Drop’ and More
Grab those comfy pants! Thanksgiving is more than just a holiday to celebrate family and feasting — it is the perfect excuse to stream your favorite festive movies all week long.
When not eating mashed potatoes and apple pie, families and friends alike can cozy up on the couch to watch classics like A Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving or the animated hit Free Birds. For family drama, Pieces of April, Hannah and Her Sisters and Home for the Holidays are all great options.
Some fans, however, might want a rom-com to swoon over while digesting copious amounts of pumpkin pie — enter You’ve Got Mail. While the 1998 movie isn’t directly about Thanksgiving, it does encapsulate the fall season.
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan take fans back to the early days of the internet when people met via chat rooms. Hanks’ Joe Fox and Ryan’s Kathleen Kelly may hate each other in real life as Joe’s Fox Books threatens to shutdown Kathleen’s Little Shop Around the Coroner, but online, they can’t help but fall in love.
“No, it’s not like we feel any of that chemistry when we’re just sitting there waiting to film a scene,” Hanks told Entertainment Weekly in December 1998 of his and Ryan’s connection. “We just talk to each other the way we’ve always talked, even back when we did Joe Versus the Volcano. We never talk about the movie or the mechanics of the scene. We just talk about goofy things we’ve read or seen somewhere.”
On screen, however, their love is one that can’t be beat — especially when Joe tells Kathleen via their AOL chat, “I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.”
[jwplayer oIUO843u-zhNYySv2]If a more modern love story is what you want on Thanksgiving, look no further than Turkey Drop. The 2019 film debuted on Freeform and shows the darker side of romance: the moment someone gets “turkey dropped,” or dumped over the holidays.
However, watching Olivia Holt’s character, Lucy, get broken up with by her high school sweetheart while home for Thanksgiving isn’t all fans get from the rom-com. Holt revealed that autumn themes are everywhere in the movie, feeding into the post-meal feels many people want from a movie.
“The leaves were changing [when we filmed in Canada], and you can feel it when you watch the movie. You get the Thanksgiving vibe,” she told KTLA5 in November 2019. “[The network is] totally embracing Thanksgiving. We’ve never really had a holiday movie that’s based around Thanksgiving. I feel like we’re finally giving back to everybody who has been wanting that genre.”
The Cruel Summer actress added: “Cinematically, we just wanted it to feel like a fall movie. It’s a rom-com, so I think that was most important for us to execute a beautiful, romantic story but based around this time of year.”
Scroll down for your guide to the best movies to watch over the Thanksgiving holiday:
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‘Free Birds’
The animated movie turns the tale of eating turkey on Thanksgiving on its head, with Jake (voiced by Woody Harrelson) and Reggie (Owen Wilson) teaming up to change the course of history. The turkeys travel back in time in the 2013 film to get the juicy birds off the menu for the annual holiday.
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‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving’
The 1978 animated classic has all the Thanksgiving hits — football, a big dinner and lots of shenanigans — courtesy of Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts gang.
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‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’
Steve Martin and John Candy face a variety of insane obstacles while trying to get home for Thanksgiving in this 1987 movie. Martin’s Neal Page is a Chicago advertising man who is struggling to get back from New York, while Candy’s Del Griffith is a goofball shower curtain ring salesman who’s along for the ride.
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‘Hannah and Her Sisters’
Hannah (Mia Farrow) and her sisters, Lee (Barbara Hershey) and Holly (Dianne Wiest), have a complicated dynamic in the 1986 film after two Thanksgiving dinners within two years create a strange love triangle between them. Throughout the movie, Hannah’s husband falls in love with her sister Lee. Meanwhile, Lee’s ex-husband sparks a relationship with their other sister Holly.
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‘Alice’s Restaurant’
This one’s for both Thanksgiving and Friendsgiving. The 1969 movie is based on Arlo Guthrie’s hit song by the same name and follows Guthrie and his pals after they get arrested for littering after their holiday dinner.
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‘You’ve Got Mail’
The 1998 film starring Ryan and Hanks as rivals-turned-lovers screams fall. The New York City autumn backdrop and chemistry between Ryan’s Kathleen Kelly and Hanks’ Joe Fox — who fall for one another over the internet while sparring in real life over Kathleen’s Little Shop Around the Corner — is a feel-good movie no matter what the holiday.
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‘Pieces of April’
Katie Holmes brings the drama in 2003’s Pieces of April as her character, April Burns, attempts to host her estranged family in her small apartment for the holiday. Her dinner guests include dying mother Joy Burns (Patricia Clarkson), father Jim Burns (Oliver Platt), siblings Beth (Alison Pill) and Tim (John Gallagher Jr.) and her boyfriend, Bobby (Derek Luke).
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‘Holiday Inn’
While the 1942 film is best known for introducing fans to Irving Berlin’s song “White Christmas,” Holiday Inn covers all of the holidays. The Thanksgiving scene shows Jim Hardy’s (Bing Crosby) housekeeper, Mamie (Louise Beavers), serving a meal with all the fixings as the musician outlines his opening night for his inn, which will only be open on holidays for live shows in Connecticut.
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‘Turkey Drop’
Holt stars as Lucy, a college freshman who returns home for Thanksgiving in anticipation of getting “turkey dropped,” or dumped by her high school sweetheart. The 2019 movie, which premiered on Freeform, also stars Cheryl Hines as Lucy’s mom.
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‘Tower Heist’
A film about a robbery might not scream Thanksgiving, but Tower Heist does take place during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, so it counts. In the 2011 movie, a group of hard-working individuals team up to rob their wealthy employer’s high-rise residence after they fall victim to his Ponzi scheme.
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‘What’s Cooking?’
The 2000 film highlights four different ethnicities — Vietnamese, Latino, Jewish and African American — as multiple women from unique backgrounds cook their traditional dishes and come together for an epic Thanksgiving feast in Los Angeles.
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‘Home for the Holidays’
Holly Hunter stars as Claudia, a down on her luck woman who just lost her job, in 1995’s Home for the Holidays. Claudia heads to her family’s home in Baltimore for Thanksgiving and must face her crazy loved ones, including brother Tommy (Robert Downey Jr.) and their conservative parents, Adele (Anne Bancroft) and Henry (Charles Durning), while dealing with her own issues.
