Home for the Holidays is a 1995 American family comedy-drama film directed by Jodie Foster and produced by Peggy Rajski and Foster. The screenplay was written by W. D. Richter, based on a short story by Chris Radant. The film’s score was composed by Mark Isham. The film follows Claudia Larson, who after losing her job, kissing her ex-boss, and finding out that her daughter has plans of her own for the holidays, departs Chicago to spend her Thanksgiving with her dysfunctional family. The film features an ensemble cast, including Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr., Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, Dylan McDermott, Geraldine Chaplin, Steve Guttenberg, Cynthia Stevenson, Claire Danes, Austin Pendleton, and David Strathairn.
National Lampoon’s Thanksgiving Family Reunion is a 2003 television film about a Thanksgiving family reunion of the Sniders, starring Bryan Cranston as Woodrow Snider, Judge Reinhold as Dr. Mitch Snider and Penelope Ann Miller as Jill Snider. The film was released as National Lampoon’s Holiday Reunion in some regions. All Mitch Snider wants for his family is a traditional holiday feast with the relatives. The problem is that he doesn’t have any. That is until he gets an invitation in the mail from his long-lost cousin Woodrow. What follows is a full-course meal of nonstop laughs when the neurotic suburbanites clash with the hippy hicks from hell in National Lampoon’s most outrageous family misadventure yet.
Son in Law is a 1993 American comedy film directed by Steve Rash, written by Fax Bahr, Adam Small, and Shawn Schepps, and starring Pauly Shore, Lane Smith, and Carla Gugino. 18-year-old Rebecca “Becca” Warner (Carla Gugino) moves from her small South Dakota farm town to attend college at the fictional University of Los Angeles and meets Fred “Crawl” Weasel (Pauly Shore) resident advisor of Becca’s coed dormitory. After making some changes in her life Becca invites Crawl, who she becomes friends with, to spend the Thanksgiving break with her family back home. Not wanting to say “yes” to her old boyfriend, Becca approaches Crawl, who prentends to be engaged to her and soon endears himself to the family.
Tower Heist is a 2011 American heist comedy film directed by Brett Ratner, written by Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson, based on a story by Bill Collage, Adam Cooper and Griffin and starring Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy with Casey Affleck, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, Judd Hirsch, Téa Leoni, Michael Peña, and Gabourey Sidibe in supporting roles. The plot follows employees of an exclusive apartment building who lose their pensions in the Ponzi scheme of a Wall Street businessman and enlist the aid of a criminal, a bankrupt businessman, and an immigrant maid to break into his apartment and steal back their money while avoiding the FBI agents in charge of his case.