It has recently come to my attention that most Americans know what they’re watching after their Thanksgiving meal, and it is football. However, I reject this premise in favor of my own cozy worldview in which we all gather around the TV in a tryptophan trance not to watch a game predicated on violently invading others’ territory which has been shown time and again to cause catastrophic injuries to its players’ brains, but to watch films! Films with stories and themes and emotional arcs! Films that transfix and transport, that lift us out of ourselves! Hollywood magic, etc. You’ve seen the Oscars montages!
Turns out, a lot of my fellow GRAZIA editors agree. These are the movies we’re zoning out to this year.
There’s an entire slate of movies I like to rewatch every year around this time—feel-good flicks such as La La Land, Little Women (the Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, Claire Danes, and Kirsten Dunst version), The Sound of Music, The Holiday, and Elf. Over this long Thanksgiving weekend, I’m looking forward to binge-watching some newer wholesome favorites—especially musicals!—including In The Heights, Dear Evan Hansen, and Tick, Tick… Boom. It’s the most wonderful time of the year—and I like to program my entertainment around this feeling of joy and good cheer. — Danica Lo, Strategic Editorial Advisor
Admittedly, I am a self-proclaimed fan of cheesy rom-com movies. There’s a special sentimental value they hold for me, especially around this time of year. There are countless titles that I like to pick from, but none hold a candle to When Harry Met Sally. Besides giving us the iconic “I’ll have what she’s having,” line, this 1989 movie really captures the essence of what makes rom-coms so special. Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal give us a fully formed narrative which is heartfelt, comedic, sentimental and, to use everyone’s favorite buzzword, a little camp. — Josh Sokol, Multimedia Producer
I don’t know why, but I feel like old movies are the way to go as you wind down from a day of cooking and eating and dealing with your extended familial unit. Last year, for me it was The Wizard of Oz: comforting imagined idealized Americana and pretty music to soothe the synapses. This year, however, I’m planning to queue up The Lion in Winter. The film takes place at Christmas in 1183 and concerns Henry II (Peter O’Toole) and his estranged wife Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn) sparring over which of their three sons will ascend to the English throne when Henry dies. (Sound familiar?) There’s a lot of scheming and deal-making and shifting alliances, and Hepburn is titanic as the spurned but formidable queen. I mean, I’m not sure I’d describe The Lion in Winter as comforting—actually the film’s being so old (1968) kind of does some of that work for it—but it is a classic tour-de-force. And it’s vaguely seasonal. Also, my mom is suddenly quite into films about English royalty, so I think this will be something we can watch together as we each nurse our own bottle of wine. — John Russell, Contributing Editor
I come from a very long line of football fans, so like the majority of the fall season, the holidays follow suit and include a multitude of sporting events. But after a game of flag football and endless hours of the sport on TV, I usually escape away with my sister, and put on a Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks classic. We either go with You’ve Got Mail or Sleepless in Seattle and cozy up to wind down from all of the Thanksgiving madness. I’m not sure if it’s the ’90s nostalgia or holiday romance, but there is just something about seeing those two on the screen to get us excited for the Christmas season. — Kathleen Burns, Editorial Coordinator
Honestly, for whatever reason, Francis Ford Coppola’s epic mobster film The Godfather ends up playing in the background of my family’s Thanksgiving festivities every year, without fail. Half of us proceed to clean up after dinner, some fall asleep, and the rest end up morphing into couch potatoes, instinctively tuning into a film we’ve seen about a thousand times. While gruesome murder doesn’t seem to necessarily fit the bill for a cute holiday flick with the fam, my dad’s interpretation of Don Corleone’s most famous lines always lightens the mood. — Hannah Militano, Contributing Writer
