Once your food coma’s subsided, what better way to avoid awkward, Trump-induced conversations with your family than by sitting together quietly in a dark room? Yes, Thanksgiving weekend is synonymous with food, family, and football, but it also plays host to an impressive array of cinematic offerings, from Todd Haynes’s brilliant lesbian romance Carol (which will surely nab Cate Blanchett another Oscar nod), to the surprisingly impressive Rocky spin-off Creed, brought to thrilling life by Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan. And, of course, there’s also plenty of crap to avoid. So without further ado, here are all the movies to see—or skip—this Thanksgiving weekend.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast
To say that Todd Haynes’s Carol is brilliant would be a vast understatement, and to say it’s one of the best films of the year still doesn’t seem to do it justice. A forbidden love companion piece of sorts to his Far From Heaven, the film is set in suffocating 1950s New York, and chronicles the budding romance between a divorced-and-fabulous Jersey housewife (Cate Blanchett) and a reticent Big Apple shopgirl (Rooney Mara). While immaculately decorated and performed, thanks to the dazzling fire-and-ice duo of Blanchett and Mara, it also does as fine a job as any of capturing the agony and ecstasy of love, making Carol one of the great cinematic love stories of our time.
WILSON WEBB
If you want to see two actresses at the top of their game go see Carol, not this wholly unnecessary remake of the 2009 Argentinian Best Foreign Film Oscar winner of the same name. A pair of FBI agents (Nicole Kidman, Chiwetel Ejiofor) and their district attorney pal (Julia Roberts) completely unravel when the DA’s daughter is found brutally murdered. Thirteen years later, clues finally lead to the culprit, bringing the trio together once more. A potentially gripping thriller devolves into a hollow examination of the ethics of post-9/11 torture, wasting the talents of its three formidable leads. Sadly, as far as filmmaker Billy Ray’s oeuvre goes, this is more Color of Night than Captain Phillips.
Karen Ballard
Like The Virgin Suicides with a touch of Asghar Farhadi, the debut feature from female Turkish director Deniz Gamze Ergüven is France’s best movie of the year—a dazzling coming-of-age story about a group of Muslim girls on the cusp of womanhood who both comply and rebel against codified gender roles. Bathed in lush, surreal visuals, Mustang offers a thoroughly hypnotic experience that anyone who’s experienced the throes of adolescence can relate to. And there’s something poetic about this humanizing portrait of the female Muslim experience hitting theaters exactly a week after the Paris terror attacks—and subsequent debate over Syrian refugees.
From The Godfather: Part III to Spider-Man 3, the closing chapter of a celebrated film franchise often fails to deliver. So it’s a minor miracle that the final entry in this dystopian YA series is nothing short of gripping; a timely antiwar commentary exploring the icky marriage of fascism, reality TV, and political theater. It’s also a monument to star Jennifer Lawrence, whose fiery, bow and arrow-wielding Katniss Everdeen has not only gifted us a valiant (and desexualized) modern-day movie heroine, but also shifted the tectonic plates of Hollywood, showing the world that, when done right, audiences love basking in the glory of a badass woman.
Lionsgate
Usually, when a movie gets the spin-off/reboot treatment it’s a steaming pile of film factory-processed shit. But 2015 proved us wrong, first with the enthralling Mad Max: Fury Road and now with Creed, a spin-off of the Rocky franchise that follows Apollo Creed’s son (Michael B. Jordan) on his path to boxing glory. Whereas the previous Rocky films were about anything but boxing (family, first love, addiction, masculinity), this is a pure boxing movie—and a thrilling one at that. Thanks to the assured hand of director Ryan Coogler, the stellar turn by his Fruitvale Station star Michael B. Jordan, and a standout supporting effort by franchise veteran Sylvester Stallone as Creed’s ailing sensei, this portrait of a pugilist will bring you to cheers.
Barry Wetcher
While no doubt well-intentioned, filmmaker Patricia Riggen’s take on the 2010 mining disaster that left 33 miners trapped inside Chile’s San José Mine for over two months is an overacted, cliché-ridden mess. Not even Antonio Banderas’s noblest effort can breathe life into it, and the immensely talented Juliette Binoche deserves far, far better than her role here—as a hysterical, mascara-smeared Chilean woman. And yes, Binoche and the (very) Irish actor Gabriel Byrne both play Chileans in this, which is equal parts problematic and distracting.
Warner Bros.
It took six years—and two directors—to bring this tender tale of a young Apatosaurus (and his human caveboy companion) journeying to reunite with his family to the screen. But thanks to first-time director Peter Sohn, Pixar’s latest is a charmer that boasts the studio’s most impressive CG animated visuals to date; an endless array of stunning vistas that complements its existential quest. The Good Dinosaur doesn’t quite match the heady brilliance of Inside Out, but is worth the price of admission for its arresting images. And as far as dino pics go, it’s a heck of a lot more rewarding than the abysmal Jurassic World.
Pixar
The Night Before isn’t a bad film—in fact, it’s a mildly amusing stoner comedy featuring three very likable leads (Seth Rogen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anthony Mackie) as pals causing mischief on Christmas Eve and learning some life lessons along the way. But aside from its strange release date—an Xmas Eve flick in November?—this Tracy Morgan-narrated romp will be best enjoyed from the comfort of your couch with some nugs and slices.
Sony
Tom Hardy is, without question, one of the greatest actors of his generation; a chameleon who can make a 90-minute conference call seem nothing short of thrilling (see: Locke). Here, the bulky Brit plays BOTH Ronnie and Reggie Kray—two violent, unhinged bisexual London gangster twin brothers who hobnobbed with Sinatra, fooled around with politicians, and wreaked havoc on the East End. While Brian Helgeland has proven to be a much better screenwriter (the neo-noir masterpiece L.A. Confidential) than director, this paint-by-numbers gangster biopic is elevated by Hardy’s pair of towering performances, a masterful juggling act that will have your eyes glued to the screen.
Universal Pictures
A total piece of big-budget studio garbage that rehashes every tired Frankenstein trope you’ve already seen, while wasting the talents of its two charming stars, James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe, in what seems like a total cash-grab. Hard pass.
20th Century Fox
The Danish Girl is the latest from Oscar-winning filmmaker Tom Hooper, helmer of The King’s Speech and Les Miserables, and is packed with the director’s typical visual flourishes—wide-angle lenses, left-third framing, canvas-like walls. It’s a biopic of Lili Elbe (born Einar Wegener), a landscape painter in 1920s Copenhagen who discovers that she is a woman, eventually becoming one of the first recipients of male-to-female gender reassignment surgery. And while the narrative framework is pretty straightforward, the film is elevated by Eddie Redmayne’s tender, sensitive portrayal of Elbe, and Alicia Vikander’s absolutely stunning turn as her supportive, selfless wife, Gerda.
Focus Features
