At last, Thanksgiving is over! No more dreading that long travel to relatives or attempting to cook the perfect turkey. Now it’s time to reward yourself, and what better way to do that than to watch a good movie?
If you don’t like crowds, then avoid the movie theater. Wicked and Moana 2 are breaking box office records, which means lots of screaming kids and annoying theater geeks singing Defying Gravity. I suggest you stay in and watch any or all of the three movies below. You won’t regret it.
We also have guides to the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
Stand by Me (1986)
Thanksgiving is over, but chances are, you’re being bombarded with nothing but Christmas movies right now. Well, to heck with that, I want to go back to the lazy days of summer! And the perfect movie to do that is Stand by Me, Robert Reiner’s seminal coming-of-age classic adapted from a Stephen King short story and starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Jerry O’Connell, and Corey Feldman.
They’re a tight-knit group of friends growing up in a boring small town in Oregon in 1959. Seeking an adventure, they journey outside of their town to see if a rumor is true: is Ray Brower’s dead body lying in the woods? Along the way, the boys encounter rabid dogs, some nasty slugs, local teenage misfits led by Kiefer Sutherland, and some hard truths about growing up and moving on. Stand by Me is a summer film, yes, but it’s a movie you can watch at any time of the year. It’s just that good.
Stand By Me is streaming on Netflix.
Two Weeks Notice (2002)
It would be wrong to declare Hugh Grant a national treasure. Why confine him to just one country? He’s a gift to the world, and he makes any movie better. Currently starring in the excellent horror flick Heretic, Grant was a rom-com mainstay in the early 2000s, and one of the better ones was Two Weeks Notice with Sandra Bullock.
Grant stars as George Wade, a selfish billionaire who drives his lawyer/assistant, Lucy Kelson (Bullock), up the wall with his requests. After enduring another of George’s important pleas that turns out to be superficial, Lucy decides enough is enough and turns in her two weeks notice. Faced with a life without Lucy, George will do anything to get her back, including lying, cheating, and possibly admitting he has romantic feelings for her. But does Lucy feel the same way George does?
Two Weeks Notice is streaming on Netflix.
Family Switch (2023)
Body swap comedies tend to be good, dumb fun. Does anyone remember the 1988 comedy Vice Versa with Fred Savage and Judge Reinhold as father and son who swap bodies? Probably not, but you’ve definitely seen the Freaky Friday remake with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis (Borderlands). Well, last year, Netflix decided they wanted their own body swap comedy, but extended it beyond two people to include the whole family … and then some.
Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms star as Jess and Bill Walker, two busybody parents who are stressed out by their jobs and raising their three kids, teenage daughter CC (Emma Myers), tween Wyatt (Brady Noon), toddler Miles, and their cute dog Pickles. During a visit to the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, the family finds themselves swapped into each other’s bodies … including Pickles! Mother becomes daughter, daughter becomes mother … you get the idea.
It’s all a set-up for the usual mistaken identity hijinks that are common with these movies, including valuable life lessons about really understanding your loved ones. Family Switch isn’t good enough to go a movie theater for, but it’s entertaining enough to watch on streaming and not take it too seriously.
Family Switch is streaming on Netflix.