Our pick
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)
Friday, December 18, 2026 · 11:59 PM · The Franklin Theatre, Franklin
The Read
The Griswold movie has aged into something closer to a stress documentary than a comedy — a film about hosting, debt, extended family, and the specific despair of trying to make a holiday go correctly. It plays better with an audience, and it plays best with an audience that has already had a drink and stayed up too late. The Franklin Theatre is a restored single-screen house on Main Street, which gives an absurd movie an unwarranted amount of dignity. Late Friday, everyone laughing at the same beats, nobody looking at a phone. A cheap and reliably good night in a month where most of the options cost four times as much.
The Room
The Franklin Theatre
419 Main St, Franklin TN
A restored 1937 Main Street theater that still anchors Franklin's downtown on nights when the right artist plays it.
Tickets
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Shape The Night
Before
Gray's on MainThe Gray's Drug Co. sign has been on Main Street since 1952. The building is from 1876. Michael and Joni Cole restored it in 2013 — original wood floors, tin ceilings, structural timbers. Southern food, live music upstairs on weekends. The right room for a Franklin dinner.
Show: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) at 11:59 PM
After: Late enough. One last drink in Franklin if you must.