# What's the most boring film you could show a child? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [April 5, 2025, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655 "2025-04-05T01:50:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/21 "2025-04-05T04:17:13Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Does that last condition rule out _2001: A Space Odyssey_? Bonus points if the title makes kids think they’re getting a sci-fi action adventure in the vein of _Star Wars_. Exacty what I was going to suggest. I saw it when I was about 9, and I was bored to tears. I wanted spaceships, so what’s with all the damn monkeys? But I never forgot it. Years later, I’d seen it on TV, read the book, and come to appreciate what a great movie it is. Then I had a chance to see it in a theater again, so I went. Turned out it was the same theater, and I sat as close to the same seat as I could remember. That became one of the most powerful movie-going experiences of my life. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/22 "2025-04-05T04:27:45Z")
In gradeschool we went to the cafeteria, sat in metal folding chairs, and were shown 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. I don’t remember a thing about it except that it was the absolutely most boring film I was ever forced to watch. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/23 "2025-04-05T07:47:08Z")
Network? ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/24 "2025-04-05T08:01:18Z")
The Big Chill. A fine movie if you have nostalgia for your college days. For a modern kid, it would be incomprehensible. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/25 "2025-04-05T08:23:01Z")
The four hour cut of _Berlin Alexanderplatz_? (Bit of a deep cut there…) ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/26 "2025-04-05T08:34:34Z")
**The Remains of the Day** A 2hr, 14min movie about a butler with bottled up emotions—a how-to primer on how _not_ to have fun. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/27 "2025-04-05T08:51:16Z")
_The Honorary Consul_. From what I remember, it was Michael Caine and Richard Gere talking calmly in a dark room. About what, I cannot remember, as I fell asleep during it. If it was boring enough to put me to sleep, it would undoubtedly be doubly-boring for a child. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/28 "2025-04-05T09:24:40Z")
I rambled through a long post, trying to think of a movie, before I finally came up with this: _Platoon_ It’s Oscar-winning, and I personally couldn’t take my eyes off the screen when I saw it; but I think it would be incomprehensible to kids. Even a bright kid who did follow the story wouldn’t “get” it because they wouldn’t be able to put it into historical context, and would lose interest. To get to _Platoon,_ I meandered through lots of contenders that would legitimately bore kids, but were cheating just a little for one reason or another: _Metropolis_ (highly acclaimed, but silent) _Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears_ (Oscar winner, but Russian, with subtitles) _The Philadelphia Story_ _It Happened One Night_. A lot of films from the Golden Age of Hollywood depend on extinct social mores to make sense, and might be incomprehensible to kids; however, they are “pretty”: voluptuous sets, great characters-- and might be appealing, anyway. Just not sure about them. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/29 "2025-04-05T10:24:53Z")
**Lost in Translation** - nothing happens. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/30 "2025-04-05T10:48:57Z")
I’m sure there are some kids who would not find boring the nudity and simulated sex. Just hazarding a guess here. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/31 "2025-04-05T10:57:13Z")
Best to go abstract, philosophical, and inaccessible. The less connection to the moment-to-moment experiences that are relatable to a child, the better. Waiting for Godot. Nothing happens, nothing makes sense, characters are infuriously incapable and wholly ignorant, wasting their sparse time endlessly trying to get a grasp on anything, but are clearly stuck in a repetitive loop acting in anticipation for an event that never (and will never) take place. Wholly inaccessible to a young child who has little understanding of absurdist futility of life and who only needs to navigate through the concrete realities of the real world (hunger go eat, yummy food, cool new thing, etc). ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/32 "2025-04-05T12:20:52Z")
I’ll second Castaway. What a waste of time. After my wife and I watched it I said to her “I didn’t know it would be in real-time” ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/33 "2025-04-05T13:06:29Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Also, I do not get people who think that _Citizen Kane_ is a boring film; it moves along at a brisk and sometimes frenetic pace. It slows at the end because, well. so does Kane, but it literally jumps through the epic and tragic scope of a media tycoon’s life in under two hours. I think I was in my mid-teens when _Citizen Kane_ was scheduled to be aired on TV and I was really looking forward to seeing it, based on all the reviews I’d heard/read. I started watching with my parents in the living room. They were such a distraction, making wisecracks and engaging in unrelated conversation, that I adjourned to another room to watch by myself on a small set. I’m not sure I lasted till the end of the movie, finding it dull. I should probably try seeing it again from the beginning sometime. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/34 "2025-04-05T13:47:49Z")
Some good ones here. By which I mean, tedious and unending. But… I was taken to see **Gandhi** when I was in sixth grade and actually found it interesting. > [@Tibby](#): > > **The Remains of the Day** > > A 2hr, 14min movie about a butler with bottled up emotions—a how-to primer on how _not_ to have fun. I thought of this one too. But again, it could be risky. A kid might catch on to the repressed romance between Hopkins and Thompson and get drawn in. Here’s one that did successfully bore me as a child: **The Bicycle Thief** This was for a class in early middle school. Adding to the torment, I believe there was a test on it afterward. Maybe we should include that for all of our choices. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/35 "2025-04-05T13:57:23Z")
[~~Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace~~ ….I mean, Cosmic Wars: The Gathering Shadow](https://youtu.be/NoSdRDy4EHY) A real world example from my childhood would be ‘The Conversation’ starring Gene Hackman. I found it on TV on a lazy day, looking for something to do. Found it very slow paced and dull, and midway through I lost track of the plot and had no idea what was going on. I remember thinking at the time, what a boring-ass movie. But I think I would love the movie as an adult. I just looked it up on IMDB, read the plot synopsis and checked out the actors. Quite a cast- a lot of big or upcoming names of the 70s. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola? I bet it’s a masterpiece of slow-burn suspense. Now I really want to watch this movie. Hey, it’s streaming on Freevee! ---
**Author:** ![colinfred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colinfred/32/21338_2.png) [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/36 "2025-04-05T14:02:58Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > Castaway > [@OldOlds](#): > > Castaway I presume you both mean Cast Away. Castaway is a different film. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/37 "2025-04-05T14:09:22Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Here’s one that did successfully bore me as a child: **The Bicycle Thief** OTOH, a child might enjoy it on some level if they knew it was the inspiration for _Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure_. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/38 "2025-04-05T14:12:42Z")
Wow, that was one of my favorite movies as a kid. Then again, I was fascinated by all things underwater. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/39 "2025-04-05T14:17:03Z")
The movie where Tom Hanks spends five hours talking to his balls ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655/40 "2025-04-05T14:17:19Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#): > > Network? “You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU…WILL…ATONE!” Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-boring-film-you-could-show-a-child/1016655.md?page=3)