Ah, yes. November. We are in the thick of it now. Just a few weeks removed from spooky season and heading straight into Christmas season like a frozen freight train from jolly hell. Some people – aka my wife – feel there is no in-between for the two holidays. Once midnight strikes on October 31st, fall is but a distant memory whose spirits we can finally exorcise from our souls. Then, by some sort of sorcery or magic, all of our Halloween decorations disappear into thin air and voila, it’s Christmas time on November 1st.
Personally, I think this is bullshit.
I am a firm believer in November being entirely worthy of its own season and celebration. Think of it as a buffer period after the busyness of summer and fall, and before the chaos of the upcoming holiday season. We should also use this time to mourn the passing of the beautiful weather and prepare ourselves for the coming months of cold and darkness. Not to mention, jumping straight from Halloween to Christmas is just plain disrespectful to both holidays, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas and all of the financial burden and family stress that comes with it, but I just can’t move on so suddenly from Halloween. It’s like in The Wolf of Wall Street when Jordan Belfort’s first wife discovers he’s cheating on her with Margot Robbie’s character. He gives a brief, half-assed monologue about how horrible he feels, then immediately proceeds to tell us how he filed for divorce and moved his new girlfriend into his apartment 3 days later.
Not a great look.
So all I’m asking is this: please, just give it some time. I mean Thanksgiving is okay, right? Regardless of how you feel about the holiday itself, we can at least agree that most Americans enjoy getting together, overeating, drinking, and watching FOOTBALL all day long. So any excuse to do that on a day that isn’t Sunday is probably worth being excited over. But I understand that not everyone does love those things, so there should be some alternatives.
To celebrate the overlooked, underrated, and deserving month of November, here are some of my favorite movies to watch during this time. Honestly, I have no idea why these are considered “November movies” for me, other than it just feels right. Some of them may have an aesthetic that is consistent with November, or maybe they even take place in November. Others may be on here simply because that’s when I saw them for the first time or, for some odd reason, November is the only time of year that I might watch them. Who knows. Either way, the purpose of this short list is to help pass the time for those of us who are ready to move on from Halloween, but not quite ready for Christmas to vehemently consume the surroundings of our daily lives.
Knives Out
This one might be the most obvious on the list. Just imagine attending the most dysfunctional Thanksgiving you could imagine and then someone dies. That is this movie. It’s the perfect Halloween hangover cure, while also preparing you for your own awkward and dysfunctional family gatherings in the near future. Not to mention, the scenery and aesthetic of this movie just sing November.
The Social Network
David Fincher just has a way of making all of his movies feel like they should be watched in the dark and cold months of the year, and The Social Network is my November movie of choice.
Silver Linings Playbook
The plot for this movie spans what is essentially the entire NFL regular season (September-December) so it’s only right that it should be watched somewhere in the middle. How about in November? Touching and feel-good, this movie will always be a November-time classic.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Just think of the original Star Wars trilogy as Christmas, therefore making this movie – which sequentially takes place prior to the events of those films – the perfect Thanksgiving dinner. Also, there was this one time a few years back when I had to get surgery to repair a broken arm which I had suffered at the hands of my tiny-ass dog and a chainlink fence. The surgery took place the day before Thanksgiving, and Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi was slated to come out in early December. My girlfriend (now wife) had never seen any of the Star Wars movies, but was planning on seeing TLJ with me and my buddies. So, like any normal boyfriend would do, I forced her to sit on the couch with me on Black Friday while I was hopped up on painkillers and we watched every single Star Wars movie (including Rogue One AND Solo) in chronological order. So cool and fun, right? That’s what she said too. Regardless, every time November rolls around, I am reminded of the events surrounding that week and it always makes me chuckle and that’s why this movie is making an appearance.
The Hunger Games
If my memory serves me correctly, it seems like all of these movies came out in the month of November. I remember seeing them in theaters but had never revisited them until recently when I rewatched the first movie in the franchise. So the only time I have ever seen any of these movies is during the month of November, which is why this one is on the list.
The Wolf of Wall Street
Maybe this movie is the least deserving movie to be featured, but I just watched it again like 2 weeks ago and it kills me every time. You can watch it any time of year, so why not during November? It’s definitely the quickest 3-hour movie you’ll ever see, I guarantee that. Great for passing the time on any sick or snowy day.
The Hollow Muse 