Movie Recommendations for kids

Cafe Society
1

My kids are getting to the point where we can watch non-animated movies and not only can they sit through them, but they actually like them. I love movies. I want to share the movie watching experience I had with them as they grow but want to keep it somewhat age appropriate.

Things we’ve watched that they’ve enjoyed:

1st Mission Impossible movie with Tom Cruise
Explorers
Innerspace
Back to the Future
Raiders of the lost Ark (this was borderline because of the plot complexity)
Star Wars (all of them)
A bunch of the recent Marvel movies
Goonies
ET
They do tend to gravitate towards adventure/action movies. I found that older movies don’t hold up as well without the nostalgia value of course. One of my favorite movies, Aliens, is probably too violent for them right now. I’m considering Terminator but that may be too frightening. A kid protagonist is a bonus.

Any other recommendations for adventure type movies that aren’t too violent or sex heavy?

2

How old are they, abouts?

3

Super 8
The Addams Family
Spaceballs - they’ll enjoy it if they like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark!
Galaxy Quest? - need to be familiar with the original Star Trek
Groundhog Day
Jumanji
Zathura - similar to Jumanji

Anime:

Spirited Away
Your Name
Studio Ghibli movies in general

4

Silver Streak
For Your Eyes Only

5

Jurassic Park
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Home Alone

6

Night of the Hunter (1955)

The Magic Serpent (1967)

Latitude Zero (1969)

The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb (1993)

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

Karel Zeman films (many have been dubbed in English)

7

The Hunter (Steve McQueen, 1980)

The first two Karate Kid movies.

Mud? Not really violent until the last few minutes.

8

Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind
Mrs. Doubtfire
Forever Young
Kindergarten Cop
The Kid
Ghostbusters

9

Older movies, but still worth a shot I think:

20,000 Leagues Under The See
Jason And The Argonauts
7th Voyage of Sinbad

10

Kids are elementary school, the oldest in 5th grade. Thanks for the recommendations, keep them coming.

Of the list so far, we did see already:
Jumanji and Zarthura - really liked these. They wanted to play more board games after watching each.
Jurassic Park, and Jurassic World. They really liked them both
Chronicles of Narnia Lion, Witch, Wardrobe was quite enjoyable too. I dont think they liked the voyage of dawntreader as much
All the Harry Potter movies - i required they read the books first.
Home Alone - I loved this movie as a kid but watching again now I really thought it was terrible. Weird. The kids liked it okay.
They did watch Howl’s Moving Castle and liked it, but I asked them what they thought it was about and they couldn’t really articulate it. I think it was more for the spectacle.

I do find that I notice things much differently now watching as a parent.

11

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty from 2013 is great for a wide range of ages.

12

Godzilla or any of the kaiju films.

blondbear’s list, plus Voyage To The Center Of The Earth, Swiss Family Robinson, Around The World In 80 Days…

The Exorcist.

13

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Avatar
Shanghai Knights
Crocodile Dundee
Kung Fu Hustle
Men in Black
Mystery Men
Pirates of the Caribbean
7 Faces of Dr. Lao
Shanghai Knights
Silverado
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

14

Big Trouble in Little China

15

The Mark of Zorro (1940)

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

16

If they can sit for nearly three hours: The Great Race.

Which reminds me of Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines and Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies.

17

Night at the Museum

18

Top Gun
Airplane
Clash of the Titans - 1981 version
Beastmaster
Cloak and Dagger (Henry Thomas, Dabney Coleman)
The Neverending Story

19

WarGames (1983)

If you get Cinemax, I see they have it scheduled for Sunday the 10[sup]th[/sup].

20

Speaking of Matthew Broderick movies: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.