It’s time once again to pop in your copy of April Fool’s Day. Not the remake but the classic original horror movie that has a big laugh at our kill-craving expense. For 30 years now (the anniversary of its release was on Monday), it’s been the single feature mandated for viewing on April 1st. Maybe you also like to watch other twisty “gotcha” type movies on this day, but April Fool’s Day is the only one that has to be watched on April Fool’s Day.
There are others required on other dates. We have to watch Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day (February 2nd) and Independence Day on Independence Day (July 4th) and Halloween on Halloween (October 31st). Thanks to director Garry Marshall, our calendars have been filling up lately. He’s already given us the obligatory eponymous movies for New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day, and in just over a month we’ll have our annual assignment for Mother’s Day.
There are still a whole lot of days in the year that aren’t filled in with a specific movie yet. Most of them because they’re not assigned to a holiday. Fortunately, Hollywood is starting to claim dates for their classics, as if to make sure we watch those titles at least once each year. Star Wars has May 4th. Last fall, October 21st was designated Back to the Future Day, but that might have only been a one-time event. This year, though, April 26th has been declared Alien Day, and it can now be that forever.
Alien Day seems rather forced with its date. It’s not based on day that sounds relevant to its movie — a la “May the Fourth (Be With You)” — or a significant time stamp from its plot. Fox chose April 26th because the fictional moon where the Xenomorphs originate from in Alien and Aliens is labeled LV-426. That means we make similar movie holidays out of any number noticed on screen. Sadly, February 37th is not a date, because that would be The Shining Day (fans can take February 17th for the occasion, though).
We’ve started a movie calendar below that will hopefully eventually give us 366 essential titles for every year, including leap years. Of course, there are plenty of holidays that don’t always fall on the same date, so that could create a conflict down the line. But we invite you to suggest movies to occupy the dates that aren’t filled in.
JANUARY
1: New Year’s Day (Henry Jaglom, 1989)
2: January 2nd (Matt Winn, 2006)
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8: (500) Days of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009)
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12: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) – HAL 9000 was born on 1/12/97
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16: The Night of January 16th (William Clemens, 1941)
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FEBRUARY
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2: Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)
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14: Valentine’s Day (Garry Marshall, 2010)
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29: Leap Day (Anand Tucker, 2010)
President’s Day: President’s Day (Chris LaMartina, 2010)
Ash Wednesday: Ash Wednesday (Edward Burns, 2002)
MARCH
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6: The Big Lebowski (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1998) – Day of the Dude, because of its original release date
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15: The Ides of March (George Clooney, 2011)
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APRIL
1: April Fool’s Day (Fred Walton, 1986)
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5: Star Trek: First Contact (Jonathan Frakes, 1996) – humans make first contact with aliens on 4/5/2063
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9: April 9th (Roni Ezra, 2015)
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15: Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) – the Titanic sank on 4/15/12
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26: Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
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MAY
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4: Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
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22: Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008) – Harvey Milk Day in California
23: Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008) – the monster attacks on 5/23/08
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28: Dazed and Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993) – last day of school
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Mother’s Day: Mother’s Day (Garry Marshall, 2016)
Memeorial Day: Memorial Day (Samuel Fischer, 2011)
JUNE
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5: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes, 1986) – fans believe the day off took place on this date
6: Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994) – Forrest’s birthday
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13: Friday the 13th (Sean S. Cunningham, 1980) – Jason Voorhees’s birthday
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19: Maximum Overdrive (Stephen King, 1986) – Earth passes enters the tail of Rhea-M, causing machines to kill
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Father’s Day: Father’s Day (Ivan Reitman, 1997)
JULY
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4: Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996)
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8: Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975) – the shark is finally defeated
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14: July 14 (Rene Clair, 1933)
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AUGUST
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8: August. Eighth (Dzhanik Fayzlev, 2012)
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18: Avatar (James Cameron, 2009) – Jake Sully and the Na’vi battle the Earth army on 8/18/2154
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27: The Town (Ben Affleck, 2010) – date of the robbery is 8/27/10
28: Everybody Wants Some!! (Richard Linklater, 2016) – the first day of the end of summer break
29: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991) – Judgment Day was 8/29/97
30:
31: Oslo, August 31st (Joachim Trier, 2011)
SEPTEMBER
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5: Back to the Future Part III (Robert Zemeckis, 1990) – Hill Valley was founded 9/5/1865
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8: Howard the Duck (Willard Huyck, 1986) – Howard arrives on Earth
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11: September 11 (Youssef Chahine, Amos Gitai, Shôhei Imamura, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Claude Lelouch, Ken Loach, Samira Makhmalbaf, Mira Nair, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Sean Penn, Danis Tanovic, 2002)
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25: Demolition Man (Marco Brambilla, 1993) – the last murder in Los Angeles happened 9/25/10
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Labor Day: Labor Day (Jason Reitman, 2013)
OCTOBER
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12: The Time Machine (George Pal, 1960) – H.G. Wells meets the Eloi and Morlocks on 10/12/802701
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21: Back to the Future Part II (Robert Zemeckis, 1989)
22: October 22 (Richard Schenkman, 1998)
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31: Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)
Columbus Day: Columbus Day (Charles Burmeister, 2008)
NOVEMBER
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5: V for Vendetta (James McTeigue, 2005) – “Remember, remember, the fifth of November!”
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12: Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
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DECEMBER
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7: Pearl Harbor (Michael Bay, 2001)
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21: 2012 (Roland Emmerich, 2009) – the world ends on 12/21/12
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23: Home Alone (John Hughes, 1990) – Kevin is left home alone
24: The Night Before (Jonathan Levine, 2015)
25: A Christmas Story (Bob Clark, 1983)
26: Buffalo ’66 (Vincent Gallo, 1998) – Billy Brown’s birthday
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31: New Year’s Eve (Garry Marshall, 2011)
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