This Thanksgiving, Choose Movies That Will Bring Your Family Together

As families gather this holiday season, finding entertainment that is both edifying and enjoyable shouldn’t require a culture-war battle. For years, it has. Here’s the good news: Americans are winning.

As a religious-freedom advocate and mother of a large family, I live that struggle from both angles. In my work defending conscience rights, I see how culture shapes values. At home, I face the daily challenge of ensuring my children know their Christian faith and develop well-formed consciences in a world often working against them.

For families like mine — with kids at home in countless afterschool activities and others in college — Thanksgiving weekend offers rare time together. But finding wholesome entertainment that captivates everyone? That’s been the real challenge. Movie nights should be simple, not exercises in scrolling through endless streaming menus filled with questionable content.

Fortunately, the tide is turning. A new generation of filmmakers is proving that you can beat Hollywood at its own game by offering quality entertainment with uplifting messages. 

Two summers ago, in July of 2023, Angel Studios released “Sound of Freedom,” earning over $250 million even though the Hollywood establishment tried to bury it. The film exposed international child sex trafficking while becoming a cultural phenomenon that rattled the entertainment elite. Then there are the Kendrick Brothers, longtime producers of Christian films that inspire audiences by addressing marriage, online pornography addiction, and community rebuilding.

New on the scene is the Wonder Project, a revolutionary enterprise producing its own original content for theaters as well as a subscription-based channel on the Prime streaming service offering over a hundred “value-driven” titles with classics like “The Sound of Music” and “Lincoln” alongside original productions like the “House of David” series. The platform also provides edited versions of popular films, making true co-viewing possible without scrambling for the fast-forward button.

I recently watched one of the Wonder Project’s original productions, “Sarah’s Oil,” at a nearby movie theater with my four youngest children, all close in age to the film’s 11-year-old protagonist. We witnessed something rare: a movie that held their complete attention while teaching profound lessons about courage and faith. The true story follows Sarah Rector, an African American girl in early-1900s Oklahoma, who believes oil lies beneath her barren land. She is proven right — becoming one of America’s first female African American millionaires at eleven.

What makes “Sarah’s Oil” exceptional is what it proves possible. A film tackling racial injustice and economic exploitation while remaining appropriate for children. No lectures about systemic racism. No victim narrative. Just an inspiring American story of perseverance, faith, and determination. It illuminates the good, the true, and the beautiful — something Hollywood has largely forgotten how to do.

In an age where every family member often retreats to their own screen and algorithm-curated bubble, shared cultural experiences have become almost revolutionary. Grandparents, parents, and children gathering around the same story. Laughing together, being moved together, is how values are shared across generations. It’s how family bonds are strengthened. When a film can captivate both an 80-year-old grandmother and a 9-year-old grandchild, it creates common ground for the kind of conversations that matter. These shared moments are the antidote to the isolation afflicting both young and old. Hollywood once understood this.

Counter-culture media initiatives like the Wonder Project have made smart business decisions by listening to families and giving them what they want: Content that unites, stories that inspire, heroes worth emulating.

Every family that chooses wholesome entertainment over progressive-left propaganda sends a market signal Hollywood can’t ignore. Every packed theater for a faith-based film is a referendum on the entertainment establishment. Every streaming subscription to values-driven content proves what Americans actually want.

This Thanksgiving weekend, make a statement. Choose entertainment that edifies and entertains. Be part of a movement for change that is winning. American families are taking back the culture, one movie or series at a time. Hollywood thought we wouldn’t care.

The market is proving them wrong. And we are just getting started.

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Andrea Picciotti-Bayer is director of the Conscience Project.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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