Ranked by IMDb average rating. Includes films tagged with Thanksgiving, from holiday-centered stories to films where it leads into the Christmas season. Detailed notes cover the top 20.
- 1
Our House
2006 · 90 min★ 7.3The highest-rated film here at 7.3, and a stranger, braver movie than the title suggests. A lonely widow (Doris Roberts) opens her mansion to a group of homeless people after one of them saves her life, and an unconventional found family takes shape inside it. The gratitude-and-belonging theme suits Thanksgiving better than almost anything else on this list, even though it is social-conscience drama rather than holiday fluff. Big-hearted and occasionally bittersweet. Proof that the best Thanksgiving stories are really about who you choose to sit down with.
- 2
A Grandpa for Christmas
2007 · 84 min★ 6.9Rated 6.9 with over 1,300 votes. Ernest Borgnine plays a retired song-and-dance man who becomes an instant grandfather to a granddaughter he never knew he had, after a family crisis lands her in his care. The pleasure here is the ensemble of old-Hollywood entertainers who orbit him like a vaudeville support squad. Thanksgiving and Christmas both pass during the story, but the real subject is the slow thaw between estranged family members. Sincere, a little corny, and carried entirely by Borgnine's charm. A warm generational mend.
- 3
Love at the Thanksgiving Day Parade
2012 · 84 min★ 6.8Rated 6.8 with nearly 2,300 votes, and one of the few films that is genuinely about Thanksgiving. Emily (Autumn Reeser) runs Chicago's Thanksgiving Day Parade and butts heads with a cynical consultant (Antonio Cupo) brought in to decide whether the thing is worth the money. Her job becomes proving the parade means more than its balance sheet. The parade really is the centerpiece, right down to a romantic confession delivered from a moving float. A warm holiday-tradition romance that actually earns the holiday in its title.
- 4
Open by Christmas
2021 · 84 min★ 6.8Rated 6.8 with over 1,700 votes. Nicky (Alison Sweeney) finds an unopened Christmas card from a high-school secret admirer and ropes her best friend (Erica Durance) into tracking down who wrote it. The story runs from Thanksgiving into Christmas as Nicky reconnects with her hometown, so the turkey-day beat is really part of the homecoming arc rather than the focus. It is a pleasant little mystery wrapped around a second-chance romance, and Sweeney and Brennan Elliott are an easy pair to spend time with. Mild and likable.
- 5
Holiday Hotline
2023 · 84 min★ 6.8Rated 6.8 with nearly 1,500 votes, and it has a genuine turkey-day engine. Chef Abby (Emily Tennant) takes an anonymous job on a holiday cooking hotline and ends up coaching a widower through one Thanksgiving kitchen disaster after another, all while quietly falling for him in real life too. The turkey mishaps are a running gag, including one bird stuck in a clothes dryer. It does drift toward Christmas by the end, but the Thanksgiving kitchen energy is real and the dual-identity setup keeps it light. Fun and easy.
- 6
Love Always, Santa
2016 · 84 min★ 6.7Rated 6.7 with nearly 1,900 votes. A grieving girl writes to Santa asking for her widowed mother to find love again, and a disillusioned author moonlighting at a letter-answering service strikes up a pen-pal romance with the mom. The calendar runs Thanksgiving into Christmas, but I will be straight with you: the holiday is more backdrop than centerpiece here. The draw is the slow-build correspondence and the quiet grief underneath it. A gentle second-chance romance for anyone who likes the heartfelt-letters formula. Sweet and unhurried.
- 7
The Christmas Shepherd
2014 · 84 min★ 6.7Rated 6.7 with nearly 1,500 votes. A missing dog brings together a children's book author (Teri Polo) and a widower (Martin Cummins), and a romance grows out of the shared-custody tangle over the pup. The story moves through Thanksgiving toward Christmas, but it is the dog that drives the plot, not the holiday, so treat this as a cozy pet-romance more than a Thanksgiving title. It is warm and easygoing, with a likable pair of leads and a very good dog. A soft landing for animal lovers and gentle-romance fans alike.
- 8
Christmas with Tucker
2013 · 87 min★ 6.7Rated 6.7. After his father's death, a 13-year-old boy spends a hard, transformative winter on his grandparents' Kansas farm and bonds with a neighbor's dog named Tucker. James Brolin anchors a coming-of-age story about grief, integrity, and a moral crisis involving a local bootlegger, which is rougher terrain than the usual Hallmark fare. Thanksgiving and Christmas both pass during his stay, woven into the rural-family rhythm rather than spotlighted. The emotional honesty is real and a touch old-fashioned. A tender, slightly unexpected watch.
- 9
Hitched for the Holidays
2012 · 87 min★ 6.5Rated 6.5 with nearly 2,500 votes. After both get dumped right around Thanksgiving, Robbie (Joey Lawrence) and Julie (Emily Hampshire) answer an ad to become each other's fake holiday dates and keep their meddling families off their backs. The ruse runs the gauntlet of Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year's, with the cultural-mashup family dinners doing a lot of the comedic work. The Thanksgiving breakup is the spark that lights the whole thing. A breezy, good-natured fake-relationship comedy. Easy to like.
- 10
The Bridge
2015 · 83 min★ 6.5Rated 6.5 with over 1,700 votes. Two new college students (Katie Findlay, Wyatt Nash) meet on their first day and grow close at a campus bookstore called The Bridge over a semester that happens to include Thanksgiving. It is a gentle, bookish young romance shadowed by family-expectation hurdles, with Ted McGinley and Faith Ford in support. The holiday is one beat in the timeline rather than the centerpiece, so do not expect a feast-driven plot. Quiet, literary, and sweet. A low-key change of pace from the usual formula.
- 11
An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving
2008 · 88 min★ 6.5Rated 6.5, and one of the very few films built squarely around the holiday itself. Adapted from a Louisa May Alcott story, it follows an 1880s widowed mother (Helene Joy) whose estranged, wealthy grandmother (Jacqueline Bisset) descends on the family after a fabricated letter, reopening old wounds before a real Thanksgiving reconciliation. A young Tatiana Maslany features. It is a period family drama about pride and forgiveness, with the feast as its emotional climax rather than its garnish. If you want an actual Thanksgiving movie, start here.
- 12
Best Christmas Party Ever
2014 · 84 min★ 6.4Rated 6.4 with over 2,000 votes. Perfectionist party planner Jennie (Torrey DeVitto) gets stuck mentoring her boss's free-spirited nephew, the heir apparent, as they put together a beloved toy-store Christmas event. The story runs Thanksgiving into Christmas, so the holiday is really a lead-in here rather than the focus. What carries it is the community-over-corporate angle and the opposites-attract friction between the leads. A pleasant workplace romance with a warm civic streak. Familiar, but comfortably so.
- 13
A Family Thanksgiving
2010 · 84 min★ 6.4Rated 6.4, and the oddball of the group. A workaholic attorney (Daphne Zuniga) cancels Thanksgiving to chase a partnership, then gets magically dropped into an alternate life as a stay-at-home mom married to a man she barely noticed. Faye Dunaway turns up. It is a body-swap-style what-if about work-life balance, with Thanksgiving as the trigger point, so the holiday matters more thematically than as a dinner scene. A bit surreal for the genre, which is exactly what makes it interesting. Gentle, strange, and surprisingly watchable.
- 14
Oh Christmas Tree!
2013 · 87 min★ 6.3Rated 6.3 with over 2,600 votes, and originally titled Fir Crazy. A laid-off marketing exec (Sarah Lancaster) reluctantly takes over the family Christmas-tree lot on a Manhattan sidewalk after her dad is hurt, and slowly rediscovers the holiday spirit she had buried. Colin Mochrie is in the cast. The story runs Thanksgiving into Christmas, so the turkey day is more stepping stone than destination, but the family-business heart is warm and the city-sidewalk setting gives it character. An easygoing, likable watch.
- 15
Harvest Love
2017 · 84 min★ 6.3Rated 6.3 with nearly 2,200 votes. A stressed Seattle surgeon (Jen Lilley) brings her son to the family pear orchard for a much-needed break and falls for the agronomist (Ryan Paevey) running the farm. The autumn-harvest setting does a lot of the work, giving it a real Thanksgiving-season feel even though the holiday is not the plot. It is a warm work-life-balance romance about reconnecting with your roots, all orchard light and farmhouse coziness. A solid, gentle pick for anyone who likes the city-doctor-goes-home setup.
- 16
Catch a Christmas Star
2013 · 84 min★ 6.2Rated 6.2 with over 2,000 votes. A widower's kids discover their dad was once high-school sweethearts with a pop superstar and scheme to reunite them, leading to a televised Christmas Eve reconciliation. The calendar runs Thanksgiving into Christmas, so the holiday is a lead-in rather than the focus. The fun is in the meddling-kids energy and the second-chance celebrity premise, which is sillier and fizzier than the average entry. Shannon Elizabeth plays the pop star. A breezy watch if you do not mind the logic getting loose.
- 17
A Time to Remember
2003 · 88 min★ 6.2Rated 6.2. A single-mother artist (Dana Delany) returns to her childhood home for Thanksgiving and slowly realizes her mother is showing the early signs of Alzheimer's, which forces the family to face old resentments before memories slip away. Doris Roberts and Louise Fletcher feature. This is the quietest, most serious film on the list, with the holiday gathering as its emotional anchor. Tender and bittersweet rather than light, and the better for it. A heartfelt watch for when you want something with real weight.
- 18
Hats Off to Christmas!
2013 · 85 min★ 5.9Rated 5.9 with over 2,000 votes. Mia (Haylie Duff) manages a shop that sells Christmas hats year-round, gets passed over when the owner's consultant son arrives to fix the business, and the two clash before they connect. The film touches Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, which makes Thanksgiving more a calendar marker than a story beat here. It is a lower-rated but cozy small-town-heart-versus-corporate romance, and the kid recovering from an injury gives it some real tenderness. Mild, pleasant, undemanding.
- 19
The National Tree
2009 · 88 min★ 5.9Rated 5.9 with nearly 700 votes. A teenager's Sitka spruce is chosen to become the national Christmas tree outside the White House, sparking a family road trip from a small town to Washington. Andrew McCarthy plays the dad. The journey runs Thanksgiving into the Christmas tree lighting, so the holiday is part of the seasonal travelogue rather than the centerpiece. It is a lower-rated, gentle family-bonding story with a sweet patriotic hook and a likable lead teen. Easy, sincere, and a touch slight.
- 20
Looks Like Christmas
2016 · 84 min★ 5.8Rated 5.8 with nearly 1,200 votes. Two single parents (Anne Heche, Dylan Neal) wage war over their kids' middle-school holiday show while also clashing over the fate of a historic local library. The story runs Thanksgiving into Christmas, so the holiday is a lead-in here, and the rating sits at the lower end of the list. Still, the bickering-parents-fall-in-love formula has its devotees, and there is a genuinely strange running gag about a Christmas tree described as roadkill. A mild, lower-tier seasonal watch for completists.
- 21
All I Want for Christmas
2007 · 86 min★ 5.6Rated 5.6 with over 1,100 votes. A 10-year-old enters a national video contest with a wish for a new husband for his widowed mother (Gail O'Grady), and the entry vaults her into the spotlight and a proposal from a wealthy man she may not love. The Thanksgiving and Christmas calendar passes through the story, so the holiday is part of the seasonal backdrop rather than the engine. The boy-meddles-in-mom's-love-life premise is sweet, the corporate-stunt plotting less so. A pleasant, slightly dated family romance. Easy and undemanding for a quiet evening.
- 22
Lucky Christmas
2011 · 86 min★ 5.5Rated 5.5 with nearly 1,400 votes. A perpetually unlucky single mother and chef (Elizabeth Berkley) buys a winning lottery ticket, only for her car to be stolen with the ticket inside, by a bumbling good guy (Jason Gray-Stanford) who borrowed it for an emergency and falls for her while trying to set things right. The story stretches Thanksgiving toward a Christmas Eve deadline, so the turkey day is a calendar marker more than a centerpiece. A cozy second-chance-luck romance with a likable mess at its heart. Warm and breezy, if you forgive the contrivance.
- 23
The Love Club
2023 · 84 min★ 5.3Rated 5.3 with nearly 500 votes. Ten years after four friends formed a pact to call each other at the first sign of romantic trouble, interior designer Nic (Brittany Bristow) is engaged to the wrong man and haunted by an old college pen pal known only as "J," so the group tracks him to a country inn. The calendar covers Thanksgiving and New Year's, making the holiday a backdrop here rather than the story. The female-friendship core is the real draw. A gentle search-for-the-one romance, sweet if a little overplotted.
- 24
The Gambler, the Girl and the Gunslinger
2009 · 95 min★ 4.6Rated 4.6 with under 300 votes, the lowest-rated film on this list. A rancher's luck runs out when his partner gambles away half their land to a con man, turning the two into feuding rivals, until bandits threaten the ranch and force them to work together. Dean Cain and James Tupper lead this comedic Western. The Thanksgiving tag is faint here; this is really an old-fashioned ranch caper. A light, broad, off-brand outing for the channel. One for completists and fans of gentle TV-movie Westerns who keep their expectations modest.
- 25
A Christmas Wedding Tail
2011 · 90 min★ 4.3Rated 4.3 with over 760 votes, and the genuine oddity of the bunch. Two single parents fall for each other after their dogs do, then try to blend a household of five kids around the holidays, with the whole thing narrated by a tough-guy Labrador whose inner monologue runs the show. Jennie Garth and Tom Arnold appear. Thanksgiving and Christmas both pass, but the holiday is set dressing for a talking-pet comedy. It is chaotic and very silly. A harmless, gimmick-driven watch for anyone who finds dog-voiceover movies charming rather than maddening.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Hallmark Thanksgiving movie?
By IMDb rating, Our House (7.3) tops this list with its found-family, gratitude theme. For a film built squarely around the holiday itself, Love at the Thanksgiving Day Parade (6.8) and An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving (6.5) are the most Thanksgiving-centered.
How many Hallmark Thanksgiving movies are there?
This guide ranks 25 Hallmark films tagged with Thanksgiving, from holiday-centered stories to films that use it as the warm-up to Christmas. We write detailed notes on the top 20.
Why are there so few dedicated Hallmark Thanksgiving movies?
Thanksgiving sits between Halloween and the huge Christmas slate, so Hallmark usually treats it as a lead-in rather than the main event. Many Thanksgiving films cover the holiday on their way into the Christmas season.
Are Hallmark Thanksgiving movies romantic?
Some are, but the genre leans more on family reunions, gratitude, and coming home than on big romance. Films like Our House and An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving are really about mending family ties around the table.
Where can I watch Hallmark Thanksgiving movies?
Most air on the Hallmark Channel in the late-fall lead-up to the Christmas slate and stream on Hallmark+. Availability rotates by season and region, so check each film's page for current details.