Beginning next week, with American Thanksgiving, Hollywood enters its most diverse period of the year - doling out last-minute Oscar contenders, quality family fare and other too-good-for-summer movies. The last six weeks of the year are a brief opportunity for grown-up films to take a bow.
But a word of caution: Not all holiday movies are what they seem. The ballet drama Black Swan, for instance, is not for your kid's dance class; and Jack Black's Gulliver's Travels is less than Swiftian.
With that in mind, we offer this genre decoder - kind of like a descriptive insert in a box of holiday chocolates - divvying up the season's offerings into award contenders (AWD), inspirational movies (INS), adventures (ADV), romances (ROM), family films (FAM) and backstage dramas (BSD) - and identifying as well each movie's subgenre appeal.
To start the decoding, click on the photo gallery.