My daughter’s SO has a 10-yr old daughter that wants us to send her as many ‘horse movies’ (or cowboy-ish) as possible. The young lady does not have cable TV, 'Net, or such type entertainment other than a Playstation. Pretty basic life as far as entertainment goes.
What we want to do is get her as many movies as we can (per her wishes), and she already has seen Black Beauty, fwiw. I have* Seabiscuit* as well.
I would appreciate any/all suggestions. Doesn’t have to be horse-specific, so to speak. Even stuff like John Wayne’s Young Cowboys (think that’s the name) would be fitting - not too violent, but mild R-rated is fine per the mother.
Might be tough for a 10 year old… sure, the horse lives, but it gets stabbed through the chest first.
Black Stallion, Miracle of the White Stallions, the Silver Stallion, Into The West, Misty, Sylvester, Casey’s Shadow, Flika, Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken. Older movies for the most part, but we used to show them to the kids at my last job where I was an equine therapist.
War Horse might be a little old for her, but worth a look. Phar Lap is another borderline one; I saw it when I was about her age and it stuck with me, but it’s sad.
All sound good to start off with. Many, many thanks! Totally forgot about National Velvet - that shoulda been a no-brainer for me, as well as Horse Whisperer :smack:
The girl lives a hard life and these should help cheer her up quite a bit. Appreciate the quick responses…
I vaguely remember In Pursuit of Honor, where a group of horses escape America to freedom in Canada in the 1930s.
Kinda like the slaves in the Underground Railway.
It seems to be PG-13, which is too old for a 10-yr-old, but maybe later. On the other hand, had I a daughter under 19 I wouldn’t let her see anything fiercer than My Little Pony.
[ Incidentally, this Trumpo extension than replaces his images with kittens also converted something called ‘When Trumpets Fade’ below. ]
For animation, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is a must see. It’s rated G, but there’s some grim scenes, like some mild animal abuse, and an attack on a Native American village and a horse being shot on screen (no blood), falling into a river, and appearing to die, but a ten year old should be able to handle it. There’s action, love, a score by Hans Zimmer, smooth animation on the horses, beautiful backgrounds, and a happy ending. Some scenes:
One neat aspect is that it’s a movie about animals, but they don’t talk to each other in English. They communicate with body language and horsey noises. The only time the main character talks is an occasional narration to the audience.
“A Time for Drunken Horses” is a wonderful film, but probably hard to get. It’s a Kurdish film, about a child who is being taken over the mountains from Iran to Iraq to see a medical specialist, accompanying smugglers through the snowy winter passes in a blizzard. They have to get the horses drunk with contraband alcohol to keep them moving. Very gritty film, intensely realistic characters, but memorably touching. Subtitled.
Racing Stripes. My now-11 daughter is both horse-crazy and zebra-crazy, so this was her favorite for a long time. (Her bedroom is still amazingly zebra-stripe themed, and we had to put the foot down quite firmly to shake her of the fixed idea that she could have her room repainted in fluorescent zebra-stripes. :eek:)
Not a movie, but look for the Canadian TV series “Heartland.” Based on a book series of the same name, it’s about a family ranch dedicated to healing abused and mistreated horses.
