I suspect none of my kids has seen a single Star Trek episode, but Galaxy Quest was one of our movie night movies, and they all enjoyed it. They certainly understood the generic geekinessof fandom.
You are deploying a level of moviegoing sophistication that kids don’t usually have though unless they have seen a series like Star Trek where week after week the main characters survive while the disposable characters notably do not.
Anyway, we are in furious agreement as to your overall conclusion as reflected in your last few lines.
Mostly that, I think
Monsters vs Aliens. Animated sci-fi action comedy.
When I was 9 or 10 or so my father asked me one day in an excited voice if I wanted to see Robin Hood and Captain Blood with him. I had heard of neither and thought they were new movies. We went to the local old movie house - the Majestic, for you fellow Madisonians - and discovered to my shock that they were old movies. But wonderful ones.
Maybe have one night be dealer’s choice where you have to watch what someone else chooses.
Bend It Like Beckham would be my suggestion. I can’t believe it is a 19 year old movie having been released in 2002.
Yes! Secret of Kells and Wolfwalker, as well.
It’s a superb movie and we watched it with the kids recently but they are older than the OP’s kids.
I guess you have to consider whether explaining to an 8 year old about gay relationships and negative attitudes thereto by some in the community is something you want to do - might be healthy, might be awkward, attitudes will differ.
They may have vetoed Chicken Run, but The Wrong Trousers is far better. My grown kids still love it. Give it a try. It’s the short movie that really got Wallace & Gromit famous. Their other movies never thrilled my kids, but The Wrong Trousers is the one to watch. It’s short, and grabs you right from the start.
Other perennial kid favorites have been The Journey of Natty Gann (Meredith Salinger and John Cusack), Monkey Trouble (Thora Birch and Harvey Keitel), My Dog Skip (Frankie Muniz, Luke Wilson, Kevin Bacon), Kindergarten Cop (Ahnold), and Babe (James Cromwell) . And we second The Black Stallion. All of these have aged well. My kids really liked The Iron Giant as well, though I can hardly remember it. Oh, and Spy Kids.
When they get older, Kickass is a blast.
Was Life of Pi mentioned? I just watched it yesterday, and it has some spectacular CGI scenes! Might be a bit scary for the little one, but maybe not.
Ooh, I kinda like that. Even if it’s once a month, rotating through the family. Pitch it as, “Hey, you know how I keep vetoing Tinkerbell and ‘The New Mattel Toy Line Advertisement: The Movie’? I have a proposal that’ll let you choose those for movie night…”
No mention of Monsters, Inc yet?
How about ‘Men in Black’ ? The original. It has sci-fi, comedy and action.
OMG, that Psycho Goreman looks delightful. Probably have to wait a couple years for the little guy, though. Looks kind of intense for him. But I really want to see it myself, and I think the older kids would get a kick out of it.
The Martian is fantastic, and one of my wife’s all-time faves, but we’re waiting a bit on it because the book is required reading for the summer for our eldest, so we want to wait until after she’s read it.
Spaceballs was the bible for me and my friends around age 9-10. As an adult hypocrite, I don’t really want to expose them to the sexual jokes yet. (“virgin alarm,” “your schwartz is as big as mine,” “she’s gone from suck to blow” etc.) And I don’t want the little guy to be repeating “I knew it, I’m surrounded by Assholes.” Maybe in a couple years.
Big Hero 6 has been seen and loved. ditto for Kubo and the Two Strings. Will consider Song of the Sea and Over the Garden Wall. Also Gravity Falls, I’ve heard nothing but good things about. We have considered branching out to a series rather than a movie, so if nothing else, we don’t have to decide what to watch next for a while (that was the beauty of the MCU. Weeks on end where we knew what we were watching next.)
Loved Contact, though I think it will bore the kids. Edward Scissorhands I loved in my teen years, but remember very little about. I think I watched Munchausen but was disappointed by it, unless I’m conflating it with something else.
My wife vetoed Isle of Dogs after looking it up online. I’m not sure why. Does a dog die in it? That would be a hard pass for her.
If only it were that simple. There are definite voting blocs, but they aren’t always kids v. adults.
Kindergarten Cop has been suggested by my wife. I don’t remember it very well beyond a few quotable lines. Yes, there are kids in it, but is it kid appropriate?
Monsters, Inc. is one of the few Pixars the kids won’t watch. Not sure why. Maybe they think the monsters are actually scary. Wife and I love it.
Men in Black is a real good suggestion… looks like I have to pay for it or hit the library.
I think my son was a little older when he saw Rear Window specifically, but at age 8 he was enraptured by his first Hitchcock, The Lady Vanishes.
My son is a gift, though, when it comes to watching movies with him. From toddlerhood to about age five, he loved anything with fake apes, and the faker the better. So old movies like Gorilla at Large, he loved, and I showed him the 1933 King Kong, just stopped it before the end.
Starting around 6 (same age as me), he really got into the old Universal monster movies, and I had them all on DVD.
We showed him Star Wars (just the original) when He was 6 or 7, and he became obsessed with R2D2. Everything there is an R2D2 version of, we have.
During the pandemic, when he’s been 13/14, we’ve been watching a lot of mystery and suspense films, from any time period. He has seem Mystery of the Wax Museum, Gaslight, Rear Window, Witness for the Prosecution, Psycho, Murder by Decree, Murder on the Orient Express, & Deathtrap, and loved them all. He even began reading Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie. I overheard him on Skype trying to convince one of his friends trying to read Hercule Poirot. (No I don’t eavesdrop-- I knocked on his door, and went in to bring him clean laundry.) When we watched Wait until Dark, it was his pick.
He also has recently seen a lot of my favorite Disney films from my childhood. He liked them. I don’t know that he loved them, but he enjoyed them. He was a little old for them, but there were so many new films when he was 5-9, that I didn’t show him Escape to Witch Mountain and Candleshoe back then.
He also likes a number of films that are not mystery of suspense. He absolutely loved Victor/Victoria & 9 to 5, and even likes some old B&W screwball comedies.
So, there are a bunch of films that have been enjoyed by a genuine child, albeit, one with the ability to judge a film not by its vintage alone.
My son certainly has things that annoy me or frustrate me, but he is really great here. He is very good at multi-generational gatherings mixing with people because he knows who Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, and classic rock musicians besides the Beatles are. He even knows who Benny Goodman is.
I am not sure what to do to get a child over than hump. Probably don’t go too old too fast-- don’t get too ambitious and show them B&W, which is a shame, because they miss out on things like Gaslight, which explicates the term “gaslighting someone.”
Alien is probably too intense for your 8-yr-old, which is too bad, because I’ll bet the older kids would love it (I saw it in the theater when I was 12, and it was not too intense for me).
Here is a film I have shown to my religious school classes as recently as 2015, and they enjoyed (aged 11-13): My Bodyguard (1980).
I also concur with a lot of the suggestions here, especially Galaxy Quest.
I would really suggest pushing them gently toward older movies. There are so many good things they are missing out on, and this is the perfect time to do it. Order pizza, or get some other treat to make sure they watch the first 25% of the movies. I’ll bet by then they will want to watch the rest. Once you have shown a few things to them, see if telling them “It’s the same actress/actor/director as in that [other movie] you liked” won’t get them to stay.
FWIW, I checked out of most of the last Lord of the Rings movie, and I saw it in a theater.
Some Like it Hot. Possibly the most timeless comedy of, er, all time. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis witness the Valentine’s Day Massacre and have to get out of town, fast… and the only way they can manage it is to join an all-girl orchestra on a trip to Florida. A little on-screen gun violence. and clean, though they do obliquely reference shacking up (and, ultimately, what might be the first same-sex marriage discussion in a mainstream movie!).
Single best closing lines ever:
“Osgood, I’m a MAN!”
“Nobody’s perfect!”.
Another favorite here, though you’d have to explain the concept of East Berlin to the kids: “One, Two, Three”.
“I know what it means! Scarlett’s gonna have PUPPIES!”.
Oooh - if the kids have seen the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, remind them that Bautista is Drax - that might get them interested.
The kid is cute and precocious, of course. Bautista is put-upon and ultimately charmed. All in all it’s fairly formulaic, but entertaining nonetheless.
Galaxy Quest: Are the kids at ALL into Star Trek? Not that the movie isn’t funny in its own right, but the homage to Star Trek is not at all subtle and that definitely adds to the enjoyment.
If Explorers is a hit (and it should be) check out Flight of the Navegador.
I movie-traumatized my kids on purpose. One of them turned out okay anyway. 
Yeah, if you’re open to series, there are some wonderful kid-friendly ones, and Gravity Falls is near the top of the list. We stick to series for the most part, both because they’re in easier time-chunks (so we can watch a single episode every night) and because it keeps us from having arguments.
In addition to Gravity Falls, some favorites with our kids have included:
- Great British Baking Show. It’s really as good as you’ve heard, although if your family isn’t really into food, that might take away from the joy.
- Avatar. Very funny, tons of action, fantasy–should hit all the right buttons.
- The Legend of Korra: A sequel to Avatar, not quite as good but still very good.
- The Dragon Prince: Yet another excellent animation.
- Galavant: Super silly quasi-medieval fantasy with 2-3 musical numbers in each episode.