Whether you’re returning to the city where you grew up, visiting relatives across the country, or driving down the street to a friend’s house, travel tends to be a key component of the November and December holidays in the United States. .
In 2023, AAA estimated that 55. 4 million people would travel 80 miles or more from their homes the week of Thanksgiving, making it the third-highest forecast since the company began tracking holiday travel in 2000. While the majority of vacation travelers tend to drive (nearly 89%), about 8% take to the skies and some, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, even ride bikes or electric scooters.
The joy of the holidays is so universal that it tends to be a plot point in many beloved Christmas movies, from Kris Kringle to reindeer and sleighs in the classic ’70s stop-motion film “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” to the McCallisters. (without Kevin) walking through the airport to catch his flight to Paris in “Home Alone” from the 90s.
To celebrate Hollywood’s strategy for holiday travel, Airalo researched movies about holiday travel and came up with a list of five of the best. To make the list, each film had to be set in the holiday season, include significant plot elements around travel, and have at least a 6. 5 user score on IMDb.
In hopes of inspiring new viewing this holiday season, please note that this list does not include some old Christmas travel scenes, such as the aforementioned airport race in “Home Alone,” the Griswolds’ heartbreaking willingness to log a tree in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Holiday. ” “, or Elizabeth’s unforgettable vacation at her fictional farm in “Christmas in Connecticut. ” The films included are a varied list in genre, style and popularity, from a classic John Hughes comedy to a star-studded film from the 1940s, from a Nancy Meyers romantic comedy to an animated edition of a beloved Christmas book.
Continue reading for a cinematic holiday travel diary that can motivate your next movie night.
– Director: John Hughes- IMDb user rating: 7.6- Metascore: 72- Runtime: 93 minutes- Release date: Nov. 25, 1987
In the ’80s and early ’90s, writer-director John Hughes was known for two things: helping angels launch the careers of Brat Pack (specifically Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Andrew McCarthy, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy). ) through films such as “Sixteen Candles”, “The Beauty in Rose” and “The Breakfast Club”; and Los Angeles’ angelestives holiday video circle “Home Alone” and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. “Sure, any of those videos are probably already on your list of must-see holiday videos, but “Plos angelesnes, Trains, and “Automobiles,” a Thanksgiving travelogue, gets less publicity.
The comedy stars Hughes’ longtime collaborator John Candy as Del, a chatty shower curtain ring salesman who becomes the unexpected partner of highly nervous advertising executive Neal (Steve Martin) after his flight from New York to Chicago is diverted to Wichita, Kansas. due to a snowstorm. As the name suggests, their mishaps in trying to get home in time for Thanksgiving dinner involve almost any and all types of transportation: taxis, trains, rental cars, semi-trucks, and even the Chicago L train.
If you want to feel better about your two-hour flight delay, stream “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” on Paramount+, DirecTV, and Pluto TV, or rent it on a wide range of platforms, from Google Play to Redbox. And don’t forget to save some tissues for the ending!
– Director: Jon Turteltaub- IMDb user rating: 6.8- Metascore: 67- Runtime: 103 minutes- Release date: April 21, 1995
Between her groundbreaking role in the 1994 action mystery “Speed” and the 1996 adaptation of John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill,” actress Sandra Bullock starred in an oft-forgotten holiday romantic comedy that a Chicago Exercise L token collector named Lucy.
Lucy, a desperate romantic, longs for businessman Peter Callaghan (Peter Gallagher), whom she sees on her daily commute. On Christmas Day, he attacked on the platform and the assailant pushed him onto the tracks. To save him from an oncoming train, Lucy jumps out. to the tracks and takes you to safety. But when she accompanies Peter to the hospital, where he is in a coma, she soon finds herself in a tangled web and announces to her circle of relatives that she is his fiancée.
The romantic comedy may not involve road trips or air travel for the holidays, but it does capture the unique feeling of being in a crowded city (or train car) during the so-called “most wonderful time of year” and still feeling very lonely. Spoiler alert though, there is a very happy train moment at the end of “While You Were Sleeping,” which is available to stream on Disney+ and Paramount+.
– Director: Robert Zemeckis- IMDb user rating: 6.6- Metascore: 61- Runtime: 100 minutes- Release date: Nov. 10, 2004
While “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” may depict the horrors of the holidays, on the opposite end of the spectrum is “The Polar Express,” a fantasy-adventure movie that makes exercise magical. The film was groundbreaking in its unique use of feature capture technology. , a mix of motion capture and live-action PC animation.
“The Polar Express” begins on Christmas Eve in the mid-20th century and focuses on the titular exercise that takes young people to the North Pole to see Santa Claus himself, adding to those who are skeptical about his existence. The film, founded on Chris Van Allsburg’s 1985 children’s book of the same title, includes the voices of Tom Hanks, Daryl Sabara, Peter Scolari, and Nona Gaye, to name a few.
If you need to dream of a holiday workout filled with dancing waiters serving hot chocolate, you can stream “The Polar Express” on Hulu and Max.
– Director: Nancy Meyers – IMDb User Rating: 6. 9 – Metascore: 52 – Running time: 136 minutes – Release date: December 8, 2006
Nancy Meyers is romantic comedy royalty and when you add winter break to the mix, you have one of the warmest videos of the 21st century. His film, aptly titled “The Holiday,” is a quintessential Christmas romantic comedy, interspersed with groundbreaking journeys.
After experiencing their respective heartaches 6,000 miles apart, unknown Amanda Woods (a tough Los Angeles towage manufacturer played by Cameron Diaz) and Iris Simpkins (a London newspaper columnist played by Kate Winslet) set out in search of a new landscape. home exchange site, in the era before Airbnb, and change homes during the holidays.
In their new surroundings, a sumptuous California home for Iris and an old cottage in the English countryside for Amanda, they meet new romantic interests: Amanda connects with Iris’s brother Graham (Jude Law), and Iris crosses paths with Amanda’s mutual collaborator. . , composer Miles (Jack Black). To get on the charm of “The Holiday,” Graham has two adorable daughters and Iris meets Amanda’s neighbor, a screenwriter from Hollywood’s Golden Age played by real-life movie icon Eli Wallach.
If you need to laugh, cry, and maybe be encouraged to switch lives with a stranger this holiday season, check out “The Holiday,” streaming on Fubo, AMC, Starz, and DirecTV.
– Director: John Ford- IMDb user rating: 7.0- Metascore: 82- Runtime: 106 minutes- Release date: Dec. 1, 1948
Oscar-winning director John Ford directed this big-screen adaptation of Peter B. ‘s novella. Kyne from 1913 that bears the same name. The film follows three men (played by John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz, and Harry Carey Jr. ) who rob a bank in Arizona over Christmas and become godparents to a newborn baby as they run away. Although most of us don’t travel like the Three Godfathers Do Today: They travel on horseback, that’s how we’d get around at Christmas in the Wild West.
“The 3 Godfathers” may not be a typical Christmas movie, but for many it is an American western that tells the story of the Three Kings, a staple of many nativity scenes and Christmas traditions. To watch the movie this season, you can rent it on many platforms, adding AppleTV, YouTube, and Amazon Prime.
Data report via Luke Hicks. Story editing via Carren Jao. Text editing by Tim Bruns. Images selected through Clarese Moller.
This story originally appeared on Airalo and was produced and distributed in association with Stacker Studio.
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