This week on “Picture Perfect,” with Thanksgiving fast approaching, we’ll have music from films about family, community and country.

Aaron Copland’s music for “The Cummington Story” (1945) sets the tone. The short semi-documentary, made for the Office of War Information, relates the gradual acceptance of European war refugees into a cautious but fundamentally decent New England community. The score is pure Americana, with some of the material later finding its way into Copland’s Clarinet Concerto and “Down a Country Lane.”

Thank you, amazing YouTube, for making the complete film available online!

James Horner’s music for “Field of Dreams” (1989) is cut from the same cloth, or at any rate it is a square in the same folksy counterpane. Horner clearly wrote the music under the influence of Copland’s “Our Town.” The film itself is a male wish-fulfillment fantasy, in which a man finds redemption and a new understanding of his father in the enchanted cornfields of America’s heartland.

“The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946) tells the tale of the three war veterans struggling to readjust to civilian life. It isn’t easy, but with the support of family and friends, there’s plenty of hope for the future. Hugo Friedhofer wrote the Academy Award-winning score. The orchestrations were by Copland protégé (and composer of “The Big Country”) Jerome Moross.

Finally, Daniel Day-Lewis elevated Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” (2012) to greatness with one of the most amazing performances ever captured on film. Day-Lewis’ gentle but shrewd Man of Destiny would go to any lengths to hold the country together. John Williams tapped into America’s proud musical heritage, clearly influenced by Copland and Ives, to create a score of stirring nobility.

I hope you’ll join me for these musical reflections of family, community and country this week, on “Picture Perfect.” You can listen to it this Friday evening at 6, with a repeat Saturday morning at 6, or you can catch it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org.