I’ve been thinking about this, and I decided to rent (possibly this weekend) Yellow Submarine. My kids love cartoons and music, and they have a certain fascination with the Beatles (because I listen to them all the time).
What movies did you enjoy so much as a child that you want your kids to see it?
No question about it–The Wizard of Oz. I loved it as a kid, I loved it as a teen, and I love it as an adult. It always makes me happy when I see a young child from this generation enjoy it. My 8 year old neice, for example. I can hardly wait until my daughter is old enough to follow along (she’s 20 months old now).
Oh, and cartoons.
Song of the South. Luckily, I have the laserdisc and they have been able to watch and enjoy this movie.
Now if Disney can get off their grossly overrated and overpaid, politically correct butts and release this on DVD, then everyone can enjoy it.
We may have to sic Euty on them. 
Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Sweet and subversive.
The Princess Bride Because it is full of joy.
Another one for The Wizard of Oz. I also want them to read the books and get a broader sense of what Oz was like for me. Most of the movies I liked as a kid were kind of heavy on the fantasy and pseudo sci-fi (things like The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, Krull–a little scary, but cool stuff, Clash of the Titans, Journey to the Center of the Earth); my only fear is that my kids will be so spoiled by CGI and whatnot that they’ll totally miss the sense of wonderment I had when I first saw Falkor and see him just as a big ol’ puppet with clunky animation.
The Secret of NIMH and The Neverending Story
Star Wars Trilogy
The Dark Crystal
a few others I probably can’t think of right now…
When they were younger:
The Red Balloon, Sound of Music, Willow, Christmas Story, Little Women (newer version)and others named above. They loved Hard Day’s Night.
Now that they are older:
Hope and Glory, Little Big Man, The Sting, What’s Cooking, and such newer ones as Octoer Sky and What’s Cooking.
Oops, made some typos…well, I guess you can figure out October Sky and What’s Cooking are the newer ones. I think a lot of kids will grow up to have October Sky as one of their favorite movies. And watching What’s Cooking every Thanksgiving has become a new tradition for us.
**Yellow Submarine ( they loved it )
2001: A Space Odyssey ( they endured it cause they love me )
The Phantom Tollbooth
Swiss Family Robinson
The Good, The Bad & The Ugly ( they went bananas over it )
Duck Soup
Animal Crackers
The Point
WalkAbout
Sound of Music ( they like it )
Silent Running
The Red Balloon**
Family classics:
*Never Cry Wolf
Time Bandits
The Dark Crystal*
Movies I loved that I’ll probably inflict on my kid(s) if he/she/they seem to have inherited my sense of curiosity:
*WarGames
The Manhattan Project*
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
One of my favorites.
Oooh, I see we all had excellent taste, even as children. Here’s my list:
And, though they’re TV and thus don’t really count,
All fine viewing material.
Wow, you people are coming up with some brilliant choices. Makes me want to have children just to show them great movies. Caprese, Cartooniverse, keep up the good work, your kids have damn good taste.
When I was about 7 or 8, my brother and I saw that 2001, A Space Odyssey was coming to a theater, and we convinced our mom to take us. I was bored to tears, I wanted to see a movie with spaceships and all I was getting was these damn apes. I even remember walking around the theater a little and hiding from my brother, and there were these boxed in sections off to the side, like an opera house (the Cinema 150, for any old time Seattlites). But I never forgot it. Years later I saw the movie again on tape, and on television, and read the book, and really learned to appreciate it. It came back to Seattle when I was about 30, and I went to see it on a big screen again. It turned out to be the same theater. I sat in the same area, maybe even the same seat. And on a big screen it was incredible, I saw things I’d never noticed before. The nostalgia of the place, like deja vu magnified a hundred times, combined with the movie for one of the most profound evenings of my life.
So, like I said, keep up the good work. You never know when it will come in handy.
…The Goonies
I second The Goonies, one of the finest kids action films ever!
And even though I saw it while I was a teenager The Iron Giant is a really cool film.
MilliCal has seen and loved
Mary Poppins
The Wizard of Oz
The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad
Jason and the Argonauts
The Lost World (the 1925 version!!!)
On the other hand, she hates
Yellow Submarine
and just about anything in black and white, so she refuses to see King Kong or the older Harryhausen movies.
She loves all the Disney she’s seen. I want to show her Star Wars. She’s never seen any of them, but she loves R2D2 (she’s seen the commercials, and the Boston Museum of Science has one of the original R2D2s in an exhibit case), so she wants to see SW, but not just yet.
I’ll second BiblioCat with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang , but I’d maybe wait until they were a little older than I was when I first saw it. That Child Catcher was pretty disturbing to the five year old me.
Watership Down
Havent seen it in years, myself, but I loved it as a kid.
Not in any order; just free associating:[ul]Ring of Bright Water
My Side of the Mountain
Children of Heaven
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
WillyWonka and the Chocolate Factory
Iron Giant
The Red Balloon
Born Free
The Black Stallion
Run Wild, Run Free
The Witches
Freaky Friday[/ul]