Thanksgiving Movies: When to Go to Beat the Crowds

You promised the kids a movie over the long weekend. Then you open the ticket app on Thanksgiving night and the only seats left for the evening show are in the front row, craning up at the screen for two and a half hours.

That scene is about to repeat across the country. The Thanksgiving movies this year stack three big releases into eight days, and advance sales for the first one are already running ahead of the biggest holiday hit in recent memory. The good news: box office data shows a clear pattern in when theaters fill up and when they empty out. Pick your date with that pattern in mind and you get better seats, a calmer lobby, and the same film.

The Thanksgiving Movies Lined Up This Year

The Box Office Mojo release schedule shows how tightly the slate is packed. Three wide releases aimed at families and franchise fans land within a single week.

• Friday, November 20: The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (Lionsgate), alongside Amazon MGM's I Play Rocky and Neon's Paper Tiger.
• Wednesday, November 25: Hexed, the new Disney animated film, opening the day before Thanksgiving.
• Friday, November 27: Focker-in-Law (Paramount), arriving on Black Friday.
• Friday, December 4: Disney's Behemoth! and Universal's Violent Night 2 take over the next weekend.

Notice the Wednesday opening for Hexed. Studios open family films the day before the holiday because schools are out and parents are off work. That turns the usual three-day weekend into a five-day one, and the industry tracks it that way.

Why Opening Weekend Will Be Packed

Most movies sell the bulk of their tickets in person or the day before. Franchise films are different. Fans buy early, and that early buying is the best warning sign you get.

According to Deadline's November 6 tracking report (republished on Yahoo), presales for Sunrise on the Reaping are "well ahead" of Universal's Wicked. They are also the best Lionsgate has seen for any title since the pandemic. Wicked's presales turned into a $112.5 million opening.

Forecasts moved fast. The same report lifted the opening floor to $80 million or more, up from a $60 million to $70 million range a week earlier. Bettors on Polymarket gave the film a 75% chance of passing $100 million. Deadline also had Hexed and Focker-in-Law pulling $40 million to $50 million each over the five-day holiday.

What strong presales mean for you: the prime slots (Friday and Saturday evenings, plus premium screens) sell first. If you want those slots on opening weekend, buy now rather than the day of.

This is a big jump for the series. The last prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, opened to just $44.6 million, the franchise's lowest start. It still finished with $166.3 million in North America, which tells you something useful: most of a holiday film's audience shows up after opening weekend.

How Thanksgiving Crowds Rise and Fall

Normally a big film loses half or more of its audience in its second weekend. Thanksgiving breaks that rule. With school out and families together, a film in its second weekend over the holiday barely slows down.

The weekend charts on Box Office Mojo show it clearly. When Wicked opened the weekend before Thanksgiving, it made $81.2 million over the holiday weekend, down only 27.9%. Moana 2 opened over that same holiday weekend to $139.8 million. Gladiator II, a less family-friendly film, fell harder at 43.6%.

The Hunger Games series followed the same curve. Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, also a pre-Thanksgiving opener, dipped 34.9% to $29.0 million over its holiday weekend.

Then the drop arrives

The weekend after Thanksgiving is where the crowds finally leave. School is back, travel is over, and the holiday shopping season pulls people elsewhere.

• Wicked: fell from $81.2 million to $36.4 million, a 55.1% drop.
• Moana 2: fell from $139.8 million to $51.3 million, a 63.3% drop.
• Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: fell from $29.0 million to $14.2 million, a 51.2% drop.

Those three films kept nearly the same number of theaters. Wicked was in 3,888 locations over Thanksgiving and 3,885 the weekend after. Same screens, half the people. That is the gap you can use.

A Worked Example: How Many Fewer People Are in the Room

Box office counts dollars, not people. But the same theaters are selling tickets on back-to-back weekends, so the ratio between two weekends is a fair stand-in for the ratio of moviegoers.

Start with Wicked. The weekend after Thanksgiving earned $36.4 million against $81.2 million over the holiday. Divide one by the other and you get about 0.45. For every 100 people in a Wicked showing on Thanksgiving weekend, roughly 45 came the next weekend.

Moana 2 is even starker: $51.3 million divided by $139.8 million is about 0.37, so about 37 people for every 100. Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes lands at about 49 for every 100.

Now apply it to Sunrise on the Reaping

These are projections built from past patterns, not forecasts from any studio. Say Sunrise on the Reaping opens at the $80 million floor:

1. Opening weekend (November 20 to 22): $80 million.
2. Thanksgiving weekend: a Wicked-style 27.9% drop leaves about $57.7 million. A Ballad-style 34.9% drop leaves about $52.1 million.
3. First weekend of December: a 55% drop from there lands near $23 million to $26 million.

If it opens at $100 million instead, the same math gives roughly $65 million to $72 million over Thanksgiving and about $29 million to $32 million the weekend after. Either way, the December 4 to 6 weekend would hold well under half the Thanksgiving crowd, while the film plays on nearly as many screens.

Picking Your Date: A Practical Plan

Your best move depends on what you care about most. Here is how the tradeoffs break down.

If you must see it opening weekend

Buy now and pick a matinee. Evening shows sell first when presales run this hot. An early Saturday afternoon show is far easier to land than a prime evening one, and you can still pick your seats on the map. Watch the checkout total, too, since online booking adds fees that work much like the ones in our breakdown of why a $100 ticket ends up costing $134.

If you are going over the holiday

Thanksgiving week is the hardest stretch to plan. Black Friday stacks a new opening (Focker-in-Law) on top of a second-weekend Hunger Games and a three-day-old Hexed, all competing for the same families.

• Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week are likely your quietest options, as long as your kids are already off school.
• Thanksgiving Day itself can have room at early shows, since many families are cooking or eating.
• Friday and Saturday evenings are the crush. Book these days ahead or skip them.

If you can wait a week

The first weekend of December is the sweet spot. Based on the past three holiday films, you will share the room with roughly half as many people.

One thing to check: new wide releases on December 4 (Behemoth! and Violent Night 2) can take over some premium-format screens. If you want IMAX or a large-format screen, look at that week's schedule before you commit.

Is Waiting Ever the Wrong Call?

Sometimes the crowd is the point. A fan screening of a Hunger Games film on opening night has a buzz that a half-empty Tuesday show cannot match. If you love the books, the energy of a packed room can be part of what you are paying for.

Spoilers matter too. Sunrise on the Reaping adapts Suzanne Collins's novel, so the big twists are already public. If you have not read it and want to go in blind, waiting two weeks raises the risk of a spoiler in your feed.

Studios are also fighting harder for that first-weekend audience. Even Netflix has started putting some of its films in theaters first, and creator-made films have shown that fans who arrive early can push a small release past big studio titles. Studios read opening weekend as the clearest signal of demand, so a ticket that weekend counts for more, if that matters to you.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping come out?

It opens in theaters on Friday, November 20, the weekend before Thanksgiving. That means its second weekend falls over the holiday, when family audiences peak.

What movies are coming out on Thanksgiving weekend?

Disney's animated Hexed opens on Wednesday, November 25, and Focker-in-Law opens on Friday, November 27. Both arrive while Sunrise on the Reaping is in its second week.

What is the least crowded day to go to the movies over Thanksgiving?

Early shows on Thanksgiving Day and weekday matinees earlier in the week tend to be calmest. Friday and Saturday evenings are the busiest. The weekend after Thanksgiving is quieter than any day of the holiday itself.

Should I buy movie tickets in advance for Thanksgiving?

Yes, for evening shows and premium screens on opening weekend and the holiday weekend. Presales for Sunrise on the Reaping are running ahead of Wicked's, so prime slots will sell out before the day.

The Bottom Line

The Thanksgiving box office follows a reliable rhythm. Crowds stay high through the holiday weekend, with second-weekend drops of only 28% to 35%, then fall by half or more once school is back. With Sunrise on the Reaping tracking ahead of Wicked, that rhythm should be even sharper this time.

So decide what you want. If it is the opening-night energy, book a seat today. If it is a good seat and a quiet room, circle December 4 to 6 on your calendar. The film will be the same, and the theater will be about half as full.