Happy Thanksgiving! Here are some of the best best falls within Thanksgiving-themed movies.

Let's face it, when it comes to Thanksgiving movies, the plot is pretty standard. The main character is either coming or going home for the holidays, and a number of obstacles ensure the person making the trip is miserable. At the same time, they learn a lesson about the value of family and friendship.

With this being said, there is another aspect that seems to hold true within these heart-warming films, and that is the fall. The fall is usually the part of the movie where someone - usually an older or main character - takes a spill, resulting in family panic, the loss of a turkey, or sometimes nothing at all.

6. The Daytrippers: A young wife, played by Hope Davis, takes her entire family into New York City to try and find out about a potential affair discovered over the Thanksgiving weekend. The mom faints in the middle of the street, while running after her accused-cheating husband. Despite the fairly weak fall, the fact that she ends up laying in the middle of a NYC street is pretty gross.

5. Planes Trains and Automobiles: A classic travel flick starring Steve Martin and John Candy. This movie has more than one solid fall, but one of the lesser ones is when Steve Martin takes a massive spill while chasing Kevin Bacon. The fall itself is not a complete face-plant, but it has almost all of the characteristics, including the full extension of the arms and a loss of baggage. The actor playing Martin comes pretty close to getting hit by a car as well; Martin can be thankful his stunt double didn't die while performing this mediocre fall.

4. Pieces of April: A movie about a rebellious daughter (played by Katie Holmes) who invites her family into her small New York city apartment for Thanksgiving dinner - with a side of hilarity and drama. Oliver Platt, who plays the loveable Dad, is not the one taking the fall. Instead, the turkey falls on the floor. It would suck to fall on Katie Holmes' floor, turkey or not. In all honesty I'm not surprised she dropped it; that thing looks like it weighs 50 pounds.

3. The Ice Storm: A movie about a divided nuclear family trying to have a real Thanksgiving. The father, played by Kevin Klein, is having an affair. Klein himself takes a massive fall in this move after tripping over a table, and hits his head on the opposite couch pretty hard. A pretty good fall for an otherwise somewhat serious movie.

2. Planes, Trains and Automobiles: Steve Martin takes another brutal fall in this movie while trying to manuver a slippery slope. After a few lame steps he ends up sliding down the hill and landing, soaking wet, on the road below. This fall is classic as the audience can see what's going to happen from a mile away. The best part is probably at the end of the slope, where the actor playing Martin falls off a fairly high wall, adding to an already decent fail.

1. Alice's Restaruant: A movie based on Arlo Guthrie's song, and a story about a series of events that were said to have taken place on the 1965 Thanksgiving weekend, this movie was supposedly responsible for getting Guthrie out of the draft. In once scene, an epic fall occurs when the stunt double playing Arlo Guthrie's character is thrown out of a bar by a hippie-hating bartender. More Thanksgiving movies should have massive bar fights where an angry bartender throws a hippie through a window. It just makes for better film.

There you have it! The top five Thanksgiving film falls. Remember: stay full and stay on your feet this Thanksgiving.


Morgan Modjeski is a fourth-year English student at the University of Manitoba and has done work in both print and online media. He is also the culture editor at the Manitoban, the University of Manitoba students' newspaper and has been called a nice guy on more than one occasion. Follow him on Twitter