It’s Thanksgiving, and that can only mean one thing: drama. But while there’s sure to be some at the dinner table, especially if religion or politics come up, how about you save the drama for where it’s meant to be: in great movies.
Sure, you can make the trip to the theaters and avoid those annoying Wicked cosplayers to catch Conclave or Anora, but if you want to stay in and unwind, I’ve got the list for you. While the following five movies have plenty of drama, they also have some laughs, a gasp here or there, and plenty of moments where you’ll shed a tear or two.
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His Three Daughters (2024)
Here’s a recent movie that has nothing to do with Thanksgiving but is devoted solely to what the turkey holiday is all about: family. The family in His Three Daughters is going through a rough time: Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), Katie (Carrie Coon), and Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) are sisters who have reunited in their Lower East Side apartment to wait out the last days of their dying father, Vincent. It’s not a great way to reconnect, and the sisters’ separate lives have thinned their once-strong sibling bonds.
But as the days pass and the nights grow longer, each sister is faced with memories of their relationship with their father, and also each other. Some hard truths are revealed, but His Three Daughters is more concerned about how each sister tries to relate to one another even though they have few things in common anymore. Death isn’t a terribly cheery subject, but by the end, His Three Daughters will make you feel upbeat about the past that’s fondly remembered but left behind and the unknown future that awaits us all.
His Three Daughters is streaming on Netflix.
Ordinary People (1980)
Nothing says Thanksgiving more than movies about extremely dysfunctional families. And Ordinary People, the 1980 movie directed by Robert Redford, is the granddaddy of them all; it won Best Picture in 1981, and created a new subgenre of dramas set during the holiday that revealed all the fractures and tension in a typical familial unit.
It’s the fall season, and the Jarretts seem like a normal, all-American family. They live in a beautiful suburban house near Chicago, and both parents, Calvin and Beth, seemingly have a loving relationship with their son, Conrad. Yet something is seriously off — Conrad is too thin and fidgety, Calvin is too nervous, and Beth’s smile is just a bit too strained. It’s gradually revealed that all of them are still dealing with the loss of Buck, the eldest son of Calvin and Beth, whose death drove Conrad to attempt suicide in the recent past.
I wouldn’t describe Ordinary People as a happy movie, but it’s not a depressing one, either. Not really, as Redford allows his characters to grapple with grief in their own ways, and comes to a conclusion that is open-ended and hopeful. The Thanksgiving holidays are rarely perfect, and Ordinary People is a good reminder of that old axiom, “Be grateful for what you have.”
Ordinary People is streaming on Sling TV.
The Ice Storm (1997)
I wasn’t alive in 1973, but it feels like I was after watching The Ice Storm. Ang Lee’s 1997 drama is an effective time capsule of a particular time and place, when the counterculture movement was just seeping into suburbia, President Nixon’s criminal activities were coming to light on the evening news, and toe socks were the latest fashion craze. It’s also a fraught time for the Carvers and the Hoods, neighboring families in an affluent Connecticut town, whose fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters swap more than just recipes and homework answers.
The Ice Storm takes place during the Thanksgiving holidays, which allows Lee a tight time frame to examine two families caught up in a cultural movement they don’t know much about and sexual feelings they don’t know what to do with. Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, and Sigourney Weaver, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, and Elijah Wood turn in career-best performances, and the chilly, flute-and-wind-chime score by Mychael Danna will haunt you for years to come.
The Ice Storm can be rented or purchased on Amazon Prime Video.
Steel Magnolias (1989)
Steel Magnolias is typically thought of as a summer movie, as it begins and ends in that season, but there’s a key stretch set during the holidays. More importantly, it’s just a great drama to watch at any time of the year, and that’s due to the pitch-perfect performances by Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, Darryl Hannah, Shirley MacLaine, and Olympia Dukakis.
That’s a lot of personalities for one movie, but Steel Magnolias needs it. Originally a stage play set in one location, the film focuses on a tight group of friends in Louisiana who observe the wedding, marriage, and motherhood of young Shelby (Roberts). But as is the case with these things, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows as tragedy and heartbreak test the mental resolve (their inner steel, if you will) of these not-so-delicate magnolias.
The 1989 movie isn’t subtle, but it is a funny and layered portrait of female friendship that really hasn’t been equaled in the years since its release. One year before Pretty Woman, Roberts showed the star quality that would last for decades, and Field is her typical stern, serious self that’s just right for her caring and overbearing mother role. Best of all is MacLaine, who gives her character Ouiser an endearing and honest crankiness that makes you want to be her when you get old.
Steel Magnolias is streaming for free on Pluto TV.
The Family Stone (2005)
It’s a stretch to say that The Family Stone is a great drama; hell, I’m not sure it’s even good. But it is entertaining, and it will make you feel more grateful for the family you have. That’s because the Stones are truly awful people. The movie doesn’t know this as it presents the wealthy New England family as beacons of liberal purity. But all of them act terribly to Meredith (a severe Sarah Jessica Parker), a city slicker who has the audacity to ask sensible questions, to not wear flannel all the time, and to clear her throat when she gets nervous.
Meredith wants to marry Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney), the family’s eldest son, and while it’s clear they are mismatched, it’s also evident that the Stones don’t like anyone who doesn’t fit their limited worldview. Meredith is a career woman so naturally, she needs to be “fixed” by the Stones, who encourage her to let her hair down, act like a fool, and maybe cheat on Everett with another son, Ben (Luke Wilson)? And Ben is no prize: he weirdly and passive aggressively shows off his boner to Meredith early on and doesn’t appear to have any prospects besides being a righteous dude.
So why am I recommending this movie? Because it’s fun to side with the film’s “villain,” and even though Meredith is gradually assimilated into the J.Crew-clad clan in the second half, the movie takes on a perverse kind of fascination with its obsession with pairing everyone up (because single = death, I guess?) and its shameless use of the “Dying Woman” cliché that was popularized by Ali MacGraw in Love Story. Do people like this actually exist in real life? And if they do, what do they think when they watch movies like The Family Stone?
The Family Stone is streaming on Hulu and Peacock.
