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Jack Black in a scene from Gulliver's TravelsPhoto credit: hy*draulx

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.

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