Fall Movie Recommendations

Bex Rizo (She/Her)

Editorial Team Member

Seeing as it’s that time of the year again, I thought I should recommend my top five fall/Halloween movies. So, the following information is about my personal favorite fall movies, along with how I would rank them.

5. Coming in at fifth place, I have to put Coraline. This movie has always been a favorite of mine as a kid. I would beg my family to watch this anytime the question: “What do you want to watch?”  was posed. I am pretty certain most people are familiar with this movie but I’ll go ahead and explain the plot anyway. Our protagonist is a little girl named Coraline (not to be mistaken with Caroline) after moving into a new home with her parents she discovers the house has a small doorway which at night leads to an alternate world. In this world, everything is like her real life but better. Instead of parents that ignore her and wacky neighbors she can’t stand, her parents are caring even giving her everything she wants and her neighbors are more normal and have attractions in their houses. The world seems amazing and she even wishes to stay rather than returning to her real life, but after learning her “other mother” wants to sew buttons into her eyes, she knows she must find a way to escape fast. Overall, this is a very good watch and is a classic I often rewatch, especially in the fall months. 

4. My fourth place movie pick is The Corpse Bride. This Tim Burton film gives a new take on an old story. It follows a young man named Victor who is engaged to a young woman named Victoria. They have both been arranged to be married by their families, but upon meeting, find they do like each other. Victor is nervous about the wedding ceremony, and during the rehearsal keeps messing up his vows. Because of this he takes a walk into a forest and practices reciting his vows. After using a twig to practice putting the ring on Victoria's hand, what he thought was a twig becomes a human hand and pulls him down to the underworld. The hand belongs to a young woman named Emily who, after getting married to someone, was murdered and betrayed by him. Thinking Victor meant to propose to her, she is sad to find out this is a mistake. Regardless, Victor knows he must return to the world of the living in order to marry Victoria in time, otherwise another will swoop in and steal her away. This movie is one of my favorites because the art is beautiful, and the comparisons between the living world and dead are striking. I highly recommend this movie. 

3. In third place, the movie I would recommend is The Nightmare Before Christmas. This is another classic I am sure many are familiar with. The story follows the story of a skeleton man named Jack Skelington who lives in Halloween Town. In Halloween Town, everyone loves everything spooky and scary and counts down the day til Halloween every year, planning it extensively. Jack, however, becomes bored with doing the same thing year after year. Because of this, he decides he wants to try out a different holiday. This leads to him kidnapping Santa Claus and eventually having to make things right after the plan eventually goes downhill. It is definitely one of my favorites. I don't think a year goes by that I don’t watch it at least once.

2. The second place title for this movie ranking is the movie Paranorman. I love this movie for so many reasons, one of them being the unique storyline. This movie, although popular, is probably one of the lesser known movies on this list. It follows a young boy named Norman. Norman has the unique ability to see and communicate with ghosts. Because of this, he is a bit of an outcast. His family thinks he’s strange, and he often gets bullied at school, while only having one friend. As the story progresses, we find out the small town they live in has a curse over it. The only thing keeping the curse from happening is Norman’s uncle who has the same abilities as Norman. After his uncle passes away, it is then up to Norman to prevent the curse from happening. So he must go on a journey with an unlikely group of people to try and save their town.

1.The movie that goes on the top of my list is The Fantastic MR. Fox. I always enjoy watching this movie no matter the season but even more so during the fall season because it just gives off a distinct fall theme. The movie follows a family of foxes, one of them being the main character who is unhappy with his current life. He was a former bandit of sorts who stole chickens from farmhouses. After a close encounter, his wife asks him to retire and find a new job because she is also pregnant. He agrees to retire, but can only keep it up for so long, and a few years down the road, he secretly gets back into his old life behind his wife’s back. This inevitably causes issues for the other animals in his community once they farmers get wind of being stolen from. He then has to figure out how to put it all back together. This movie is a great watch. The style is iconic and it has extremely humorous moments along with heartfelt moments remisant of real-life scenarios.

There are plenty of other movies I could recommend, some of which are not animated, but these are the five I deemed best to add to this list. It was hard to narrow it down to only five, but I guarantee you will not regret watching any of these movies this fall season.