Thanksgiving is bound to look a little different this year for all Canadians.
As COVID-19 cases surge, health officials across the country are urging people to keep gatherings small and limited to people within your immediate household, or to gather virtually.
With fewer people around to entertain, this may be the perfect year to cozy-up for a post-turkey dinner movie marathon.
Here are ten memorable Thanksgiving themed or set movies to watch with (or without) your family:
10. Free Birds (2013)
In this family-friendly, animated science-fiction comedy two turkeys, Jake (Woody Harrelson) and Reggie (Owen Wilson), from opposite sides of the tracks must put aside their differences and team up to travel back in time to change the course of history, and get Turkeys off the Thanksgiving menu for good.
9. Lez Bomb (2018)
In this recently released comedy-drama directed by and starring Jenna Laurenzo, a young woman living in Jersey City who back to her hometown of Ramsey, New Jersey for Thanksgiving. Lauren has a secret: she is a closeted lesbian who has not yet come out to her dysfunctional and conservative family and decides to finally do so by inviting her lover, Hailey, over to meet at her parents’ house.
8. Jim Henson’s Turkey Hollow (2015)
This may be one to put on to distract the kids while the older folks prepare dinner. The film, narrated by Ludacris, depicts the story of the Emmerson family’s trip to the quaint town of Turkey Hollow to visit Aunt Cly. The kids, Tim and Annie quickly grow bored without the Internet, and soon try to track the Howling Hoodoo, an elusive monster the locals dismiss as a legend.
7. Garfield’s Thanksgiving (1989)
You’d be hard-pressed to find any member of your family who won’t enjoy this classic animated television special based on the Garfield comic strip. The entire 33-minute episode can also be streamed for free on YouYube. Check out Garfield’s Thanksgiving adventure below:
6. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Widely regarded as one of Woody Allen’s best films, Hannah and Her Sisters tells the intertwined stories of the lives, loves, and infidelities among a tightly-knit extended family over two years that begins and ends with a family Thanksgiving dinner.
5. Pieces of April (2003)
In this 2003 comedy-drama film written and directed by Peter Hedges, quirky and rebellious April Burns (Katie Holmes) lives with her boyfriend in a low-rent New York City apartment miles away from her emotionally distant family. But when she discovers that her mother (Patricia Clarkson) has a fatal form of breast cancer, she invites her family to her place for Thanksgiving dinner.
4. Scent of a Woman (1992)
Al Pacino won an Academy Award for his role as the irritable, blind, alcoholic retired army officer Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade in this 1992 American drama produced and directed by Martin Brest. The story revolves around a preparatory school student who takes a temporary job as an over Thanksgiving weekend as an assistant to Slade in order to afford a plane ticket home for Christmas.
3. Krisha (2015)
Tensions rise at a Thanksgiving gathering when a troubled woman reunites with the extended family that she abandoned years earlier in Trey Edward Shults’ award-winning feature-length directorial debut.
2. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973)
The tenth prime-time animated television special based upon the popular comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. The Thanksgiving classic originally aired on the CBS network on Nov. 20, 1973, and won an Emmy Award the following year. In the 30-minute episode, Peppermint Patty invites herself and her friends over to Charlie Brown’s for Thanksgiving, and with Linus, Snoopy, and Woodstock, he attempts to throw together a Thanksgiving dinner.
1. Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
In this heartfelt, holiday classic containing impeccable comedic chemistry between Steve Martin and John Candy, Neal Page (Steve Martin) is trying to get home to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with his wife and kids. But his flight is rerouted to a distant city in Kansas because of a freak snowstorm, and his sanity begins to fray. Worse yet, he is forced to bunk up with talkative Del Griffith (John Candy), whom he finds extremely annoying.
READ MORE: 10 facts to gobble up about turkeys
READ MORE: Canadians urged to keep COVID-era Thanksgiving gatherings small, virtual
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