The Best Offbeat Thanksgiving Films To Watch

You'd think that a holiday centered around thankfulness, togetherness, sumptuous food, football, and lots of sales would inspire dozens of warm and fuzzy stories typical of the Hallmark Channel. But just like the variety of stuffing, veggie casseroles, and pies adorning dining tables nationwide, Thanksgiving also has its share of dysfunction. Even poor Charlie Brown's plans to visit his grandmother for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner spiral out of control once his friends invite themselves over beforehand, causing Snoopy to whip up popcorn and toast for the Peanuts gang between sparring with lawn chairs.

Bring together people who haven't seen each other in a while — or who have a tough time being under the same roof in the first place. Add a stranger, a transportation delay — or several — and a kitchen mishap. Fold in some reheated arguments, leftover heartache or regrets, and voila! The perfect recipe for onscreen conflict, or at least character growth. Whether it's the story's centerpiece or a little something happening on the side, Thanksgiving brings relatable laughs, poignant drama, screwball comedy, and even some dark twists, especially in these offbeat tales.   

Best friends Abby (Kat Dennings), grieving a breakup with her girlfriend, and Molly (Malin Åkerman), in the midst of a divorce, plan to spend a quiet Thanksgiving together with Molly's infant son. But their low-key get-together erupts into a "friendsgiving" after Molly's beau of two weeks (Jack Donnelly) learns about the dinner, and she invites him out of guilt. One invite spawns another until the small meal grows to include Molly's mom (Jane Seymour), another ex, and various friends, including Wanda Sykes and Aisha Tyler. 

"Maybe I don't want to spend the day stuffing my face with sugar and regret," Molly explains as the guest list grows. Abby thought that was the whole point.

Think of 1983's The Big Chill without the funeral, adding more whiskey, chaos, raunchy humor, and healing. The New York Times said writer-director Nicol Paone's debut "takes a surprisingly charming and hilarious approach to a traditional holiday."  

Director Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde) co-wrote this comedic satire, the rare film adapted from a song: Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant Massacree." Alice's Restaurant follows Guthrie (playing himself) as he's disqualified for the draft after being arrested for littering on Thanksgiving Day. He actually tries to avoid serving in the Vietnam War earlier in the film, without success. When the city is closed for the holiday, he and his friends have no place to put the trash from their VW microbus, landing him in jail with people a lot more violent than he is. 

Arlo eventually writes a "singing commercial" celebrating the titular restaurant where various characters come together to celebrate community and friendship, although the Vietnam War framework adds a somber touch. The film includes a fair amount of seasoning in the drug humor from that era, along with Arlo's particular turns of phase, such as "It seems that schools have a habit of droppin' out around me." 

The multicultural Fairfax District of Los Angeles is the overall setting for What's Cooking?, a film that drops into four households throughout the Thanksgiving holiday. Director and co-writer Gurinder Chadha and her husband and co-writer Paul Mayeda Berges skillfully thread together generation gaps and cultural clashes within families that feel relatable, regardless of a viewer's race or ethnicity. Alfre Woodard and Dennis Haysbert play parents whose college student son now wants to avoid a professional career. Joan Chen plays the peacekeeping mom in a Vietnamese household where grandma and the teens all have strong opinions. Mercedes Ruehl plays a Latina mother whose adult children invite her to dinner, not realizing that her estranged husband also will be there; she also failed to mention she was bringing a date. And Lainie Kazan and Maury Chaykin play a Jewish couple hosting their daughter (Kyra Sedgwick) and her lover (Julianna Margulies) for dinner, along with an aunt who "accidentally" asks tactless questions. "The melting pot will simmer a little," one critic wrote, but with characters this vividly drawn, full of humor and life, "there is actually a tingle of pleasure in seeing how this Thanksgiving ends."

It's safe to say that few introductions to a sweetheart's family go as poorly as the one Lesly (Tori Spelling) endures on Thanksgiving in The House of Yes. Lesly's fiancé, Marty (Josh Hamilton, Eighth Grade), introduces her to his mother (Geneviève Bujold), brother (Freddie Prinze Jr.), and twin sister Jackie-O (Parker Posey), who is fascinated with the Kennedy assassination, the former First Lady — and Marty, to an uncomfortable and incestuous degree. 

Directed and adapted by Mark Waters from the play by Wendy MacLeod, The House of Yes divided critics but earned Posey a Sundance Award for her all-in performance, complete with sheath dresses, pillbox hat, and pearls. It also has some wry dialogue amid the "knowingly overripe... kitsch melodrama," such as when the mother says, "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go baste the turkey and hide the kitchen knives."

Writer-director Will Slocombe cooked up holiday tension with Cold Turkey, an indie dramedy about a free-spirited daughter (Alicia Witt) who returns home to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family after making other plans for 15 years. She clashes with her sister (Sonya Walger), her brother (Ashton Holmes), her father (Peter Bogdanovich), and his younger wife (Cheryl Hines). Dad, with a backstory similar to that of Slocombe's own father, was a strategist behind the occupation of Iraq and now an ostracized academic. While he drinks all day, Nina's siblings ask Dad for money, adding to the pressure, which erupts over the dinner table. Family reunions of this sort tend to follow particular rhythms onscreen, New York Magazine noted, but Witt is a standout at creating a character "who makes lilting music out of taunting people, plucking at their emotional scabs like banjo strings. Her hatred is so stylized that when raw feeling bursts through her façade, it scares her as much as everyone else." She makes Cold Turkey "a simmering piece of holiday dystopia with a good, scorching boil-over."

Late film critic Roger Ebert and his family adopted this comedy from writer-director John Hughes as their regular Thanksgiving viewing. Two businessmen — meticulous advertising exec Neal (Steve Martin) and affable Del (John Candy), a salesman of shower curtain rings — endure all sorts of detours trying to reach Chicago in time for the holiday. The pair's impeccable chemistry while they grate on each other's nerves drives the humor, but the film is also heartfelt amid its blend of buddy movie and road picture peppered with laughs and salty language. Revisiting the film in 2000 as one of his "Great Movies," Ebert wrote: "The buried story engine of Planes, Trains and Automobiles is not slowly growing friendship or odd-couple hostility (devices a lesser film might have employed), but empathy. It is about understanding how the other guy feels... Strange, how much poignancy creeps into this comedy, and only becomes stronger while we're laughing."