This week, we give thanks. We’re thankful for family, thankful for friends, thankful for food and football and, if you’re lucky, a Thursday off work. And hey, amid all that gratitude you’re expressing, why not also give thanks for streaming? 

The best way to do that is to queue up some seasonally appropriate movies and TV over this pre-holiday weekend. You can mark the occasion with everything from a heartwarming drama to a chilling horror film, some docu-inspo for the feast you’re preparing this Thursday, or a sitcom packed with laughs — and a few Turkey Day episodes. Happy Thanksgiving (and thanks for streaming)! 

But first, what’s new on Netflix?

A family affair. Malcolm Washington directs his brother John David in the new Depression-era drama The Piano Lesson, an adaptation of August Wilson’s play (also produced by the brothers’ father, Denzel). Not music to your ears? Get in step with The Merry Gentlemen, Peter Sullivan’s new holiday rom-com in which a dancer (Britt Robertson) stages a spicy, Christmassy all-male revue to save her parents’ bar, with Chad Michael Murray center stage. Not the moves you want? Try the motion of Our Oceans, a new docuseries about the majesty and wonder of our world underwater, narrated by former President Barack Obama.

If you have just a night … 

Try not to get carved along with the turkey. Eli Roth’s 2023 slasher Thanksgiving, a feature-length adaptation of one of the fictional movie trailers in 2007’s Grindhouse, mines the holiday for untold horrors. Patrick Dempsey, Gina Gershon, and Addison Rae star in the film, in which a masked killer marks the fourth Thursday in November by terrorizing a small town in Massachusetts. 

If you have a whole day … 

Host with the best of them. R.J. Cutler’s new documentary Martha chronicles the singular life and career of the undisputed queen of hospitality, Martha Stewart. Once you’ve heard her story, invite a few more celebrity guests to the table with Jon Favreau’s The Chef Show; all 25 episodes of the foodie docuseries see the Chef filmmaker and star prepare a meal with famous friends — and you can enjoy them à la carte.  

If you have the entire weekend … 

Settle in for a story. There’s no better weekend to call up Carter Bays and Craig Thomas’ How I Met Your Mother, in which a man named Ted Mosby (narrated by Bob Saget) tells his teenage children the story of how he met their mother — which is really just the story of his wacky younger days in New York alongside his best friends (Cobie Smulders, Jason Segel, Alyson Hannigan, and Neil Patrick Harris, with Josh Radnor as younger Ted). The gang gets up to their share of Thanksgiving hijinks during the show’s nine seasons, but even its nonseasonal episodes will resonate this holiday. After all, Thanksgiving is a time for found families, for older relatives sharing long-winded stories, and — above all — for Slap Bets. 

Don’t forget, you have one last chance … 

… to come back to life. The Matrix Resurrections, Lana Wachowski’s 2021 entry in the Matrix saga (the series’ fourth film), brought Keanu Reeves’ Neo and Carrie-Anne Moss’ Trinity back to the screen after 18 years. At the end of the month, it will unplug from your queue. 

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