Why Thanksgiving Should Be Next Up For Holiday Films

Today I'd like to pitch something for Thanksgiving Day that isn’t the Macy’s Parade, NFL Football, or god forbid, the National Dog Show. Those are the TV traditions of your parents and grandparents.

Where are all the Thanksgiving movies?

Where are the new Thanksgiving holiday film traditions?

Thanksgiving is the last untapped American holiday in storytelling. Christmas has thousands of films. Halloween has hundreds. Thanksgiving? A handful. We’ve treated it like “Christmas Kickoff” for so long that no one stopped to notice it has more narrative potential than both of them. And honestly? We deserve more. I'm tired of having just one great Steve Martin Thanksgiving film we can all sit around a TV and bask in its glow as our stomachs process all the overeating we've done on this glorious holiday. 

I want to make the case for why we need more Thanksgiving holiday films and why writers should be paying closer attention to the stories unfolding around them this holiday weekend.

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A Thanksgiving movie is not just another holiday film. It's the perfect narrative opportunity for character-driven storytelling. Here are three reasons why I think Thanksgiving is the most overlooked storytelling goldmine of the year:

Number 1: Thanksgiving Gives You Built-In Conflict with Zero Plot Work

Every screenwriter is searching for a natural reason to trap characters in the same space, unable to escape, forced to confront something. Thanksgiving solves that automatically. You don’t need a snowstorm, a locked room, or a broken down car to justify why the characters are stuck together. The holiday is the trap. All you have to do is decide what finally boils over. No contrivances. No logic gaps. It’s the one holiday where simmering tension is expected.

Therefore, you can push the drama harder without breaking a sense of realism. The quiet competition between siblings. Or old grudges that resurface every year. Or even new partners navigating old dynamics. Thanksgiving is the perfect container for character-driven drama. 

Number 2: Thanksgiving Is Culturally Huge And Cinematically Empty

Thanksgiving is fighting for its life. It's one of the biggest holidays in the country and yet I can practically count all the Thanksgiving movies on two hands. Here are the films I can think of and find that take place on Thanksgiving: Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), The Humans (2021), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Krisha (2015), The Ice Storm (1997), Pieces of April (2003), Home for the Holidays (1995), The House of Yes (1997). 

And yet, Thanksgiving is massive. It shuts down airport and pulls people back to childhood homes. It's a huge cultural event without any real narrative anchors. It has all the ingredients of a repeatable film category like the other holiday movies but no real precedent. That's why Thanksgiving's film identity is waiting to be defined. 

Number 3: Thanksgiving Is The Perfect Holiday For Stories About Modern America

Christmas Movies are nostalgic fantasies. Halloween movies are ritualized fears. Thanksgiving is a realism holiday. It's an opportunity to reflect on truths in between seasons of fantastical adventure. Thanksgiving happens at a cultural pressure point. It’s the holiday where America’s work-life conflict shows up at the dinner table. It's the ideal backdrop for stories about caregiving, ambition, burnout, money, sacrifice and resentment. 

For some its about found families vs fractured families. For others its about parenting vs aging. Generational divides cultural identity breed in a thanksgiving film environment. Every Thanksgiving table is its own ecosystem. Every seat carries a story. And every person in the room is pretending everything’s fine until it isn’t.

Thanksgiving is one of the rare moments in life where all its contradictions are in the same room. It's tense, comforting, exhausting and funny. If you're a writer, this year, your Thanksgiving table is likely overflowing with material. It's emotionally rich but mature enough to hold real complexity. So take a breath. Look around. And listen. There are an abundance of stories on this holiday waiting for you to grab it and bring it into existence.