22 Family Movies Not To Watch With Your Family On Thanksgiving

Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Still Alice

The second Julianne Moore entry on the list but CERTAINLY NOT THE LAST!!! This isn’t actually that great of a movie, as it’s mostly a character-driven exploration of identity and loss, but the performances more than make up for the lack of explicit plot. We follow Alice, a linguistics professor, speaker, and all-around genius at the top of her field, as symptoms that seemed benign start threatening all she knows about herself and her place within the world. She forgets a word here and there, gets lost on a jog through a campus she should know like the back of her hand, and soon enough, is diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer’s. Which, to add to this feel-good film, she learns is genetic and puts her children at risk.

Throughout the rest of the film, we watch as she navigates her career despite losing the one thing that she has felt in control over her entire life- her intellect. But more gut-wrenchingly, we watch as she breaks the news to her three children. They understandably all have a tough time dealing, but her relationship with her most troubled and out-of-touch daughter, Lydia (played by Kristen Stewart), is the one emotionally redeeming element in the movie. Watching them get closer and seeing Lydia understand her mother more wholly only as she slips away is tough. But in a movie largely about time, and what we do with it when we become pointedly aware that it’s fleeting, it’s more lovely than it is heart-breaking.

Especially avoid if: You’re super close with your mom, OR you’re not close at all with your mom. In either scenario, this movie will make you unpack and reassess the realities of your current (and, even more terrifying, future) relationship in a way that’ll make you wish you’d never watched it in the first place.