Everyone has their favorite Christmas movie. Whether it’s the stop-motion classic from your childhood, a modern romantic comedy, or a black and white film from the ‘40s, we all have the movies that we gravitate towards around the holiday season. On the other end, between the ever growing horror/thriller genre and the stand out Halloween comedies, there are plenty of movies to watch all October long for the perfect spooky season. So why are there no Thanksgiving movies?
I recently watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, aka the perfect Thanksgiving movie, and it really made me think about this hole in the entertainment industry. If there can be incredibly successful movies for the October and December holidays, why are we snubbing November? Thanksgiving already has a moral of the story built right in! It would be so easy to make quality movies around it!
As it’s mainly a family based holiday, I think there are many ways a story could be told. If you’re looking for a comedy, there could be a Thanksgiving movie about all the ways Thanksgiving dinner goes wrong. For a drama, spice up the family conflict, and you’re golden! A story about trying desperately to get across the country on the busiest travel day of the year when chaos ensues could be a great action/adventure story. Want a horror movie? I’ve got a zombie-pilgrim movie with your name on it.
It also amazed me that the Thanksgiving movie genre isn’t huge because many TV shows have had successful Thanksgiving episodes. How I Met Your Mother’s “Slapsgiving” episodes contained one of the series most well loved running jokes. “The One with Chandler in a Box” is honestly one of my favorite episodes of Friends of all time. Even Gilmore Girls brought out their entire cast for “A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving.”
Clearly Thanksgiving has some untapped potential in the movie industry. It’s even possible that if this holiday made its way into mainstream entertainment, it would be less frequently overlooked. Hopefully Hollywood will fix this in the near future and we will all have some good movies to watch on many Thanksgivings to come.