Great Family Movies

Hi G.,

The best movies I can suggest (besides Veggie Tales and Iron Giant) are "Short Circuit" (1986), The Herbie the Lovebug movies (1968-2005), and the Shaggy DA (1976).

Enjoy!

Pete's Dragon was one of my faves when I was a kid and I got it for my 3 year old. I thought she would be too young for it but she loves it. There is an aborable song that the dragon sings in dragon language and my daughter picked up on it right away. So cute! She likes the first Willy Wonka too (she calls it the candy movie). Enchanted is a good one too!

My kids have loved The Snowman. No words in the movie ~ just beautiful music. The perfect movie for before bedtime.

These are technically not movies but my kids love them (I like them too) and they learn a lot. The "Popular Mechanics for Kids" series. Hosted by kids with totally cool science and animal stuff. Some times we go back to the T.v shows from the 80's like Little House on the Prairie and Wonder Woman... pretty cheesy but kids don't seem to mind. (Hubby and I sit in the back of the room snickering and giggling while doing a "mystery science theater" rendition of the silly "B" movie) We are also big fans of the "Veggie Tales" and "3-2-1-Penguins" series from Big Idea. They are religious in nature unless you get the sanitized TV versions. (which, in my opinion miss the point without the scripture references, and simply become "nice" platitudes) I really like watching "Nature" "Nova" and "National Geographic" animal documentaries with my kids; it is amazing the animal facts the pick up. It makes trips to the Game Park much more interactive and alive. It also give a real easy lead in to talking about a creator, creation, and how things evolve in God's creation and so on.
Happy viewing!

It's funny you should ask this, because just a couple of days ago, I got an e-mail from a magazine that I subscribe to called Above Rubies. The e-mail was a very extensive list of family "safe" movies that were recomended by the thousands of readers who subscribe to the magazine. It would take my family years to watch all of the movies on the list, and I feel confident, now that if I get one from the list, I will not likely be dissappointed. If you are interested, send me a private message, and I will forward it to you. The list is very long (17 pages I think) so I won't clutter up your e-mail unless you want me to send it to you.

G.,
My children's old time favorite is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It's an oldie but a goodie.
Here are some other favorites:
The Borrowers with John Goodman and Jim Broadbent
Stuart Little & Stuart Little 2
All of the Hayao Miyazaki films but a good one for your little one is My Neighbor Totoro - It is so cute.
Kiki's Delivery Service (Another Miyazaki film)
Everyone's Hero written by Christopher Reeve. (The only thing that may offend is when a ball is rolling down stairs and yelling "my head, my butt, my head, my butt.) It is very cute though.

What we have found is that almost all of the newer animated films have a lot of adult humor and sarcasm in them that is not really appropriate for children, but the children love them because they are animated and they don't get the humor. The bad thing is that they do repeat some of the phrases and they can be inappropriate.

I saw a response that talked about Feature Films for Families. I purchase DVD's through them and they are good. We love the one titled How I saved the President. My boys loved it.

Good luck.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! "The Old Bamboo" dance routine is still one of the best-ever choreography.

My husband and I are movie buffs, our DVD collection is outrageous lol. My husband really took a liking to Lilo&Stitch, which he cried to, and my daughter likes it alot as well. There's too many to name, but my favorite would have to be Happy Feet or Shrek. Shrek has a bit more adult content, so best bet is Happy Feet. There is singing and dancing, my daughter even has her own little happy feet dance which is hilarious!! ;p

Hope that helps.

It's an oldie but something that my kids watched over and over, Never ending story.

We like:
Happy Feet
Flushed Away
Ratatouille
Bee Movie
Fox and the Hound
Jungle Book
Charlotte's Web
Toy Story
Over the Hedge
Curious George
All Veggie tales movies are great

Hi G.,
I have two little boys, and these are their favorites:

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (Japanimation)
My Neighbor Totoro (Japanimation)
Ratatouille
Toy Story 2
Iron Giant
Veggie Tales (Minnesota Cuke)
Alice in Wonderland
Shrek (1, 2 & 3!)

Those are just a few. But what I think might make great family movies too are movies like the documentary "Winged Migration" because it is so visually stunning, and educational.
Also, starting this summer on Friday nights you can watch "Funday Night at the Movies" on TCM. The host is the voice actor for Spongebob Squarepants, and will feature older movies that the whole family can watch together!
Have fun!!

We get movies from the liabrary. My hubby and I will watch(preview) them after the kids go to bed-great wind down. the next day, I get alot done and they watch the movie.

My daughter loves the Adventures of Milo and Otis. She also likes the Air Bud movies.

Iron Giant

A robot from another plnet lands on Earth and has a malfunction. He is capable of shooting lasers, but it seems he only does it in self defense; it is an automatic response. When a young boy befriends him they both do some growing up. The best part is that the boy teaches the robot that even when he is under attack, he doesn't need fight back. "You don't have to be a gun," is what the boy keeps telling him. I like the moral of being responsible for your behavior, regardless of what others are doing, even when they are doing it to you.

"Happy Feet"! Not at all like "Surfs Up" My fam didnt like that one either. But "Happy Feet" is actually educational so darn cute!

My kids loved 'fly away home' when they were little. Sweet movie. Petes Dragon is a good one too.

I too love movies that are "G" rated as my kids can and will memorize way too much for 6 and 8. I have just found Mr. Bean's Holiday to be a real fun one to watch. With the exception of a cell phone being dropped in the urinal, it was funny. Spirit, Chicken Little, and Meet the Robinsons are also great ones to watch. Good luck finding more that are truly family friendly. I wish they would do more, everyone I talk to loves them, but it doesn't do enough for Hollywood!

P.

There are some VERY good Japanese movies you may like from the director Hayao Miyazaki. The two we've seen are "Spirited Away" and "My Neighbor Totoro". Both were fantastic - they have a version dubbed in English so you don't need subtitles. -- C.

My kids are into movies as well. Their favorites are The Wild, Toys Story,Monsters Inc., Ants, A Bugs Life, Bee movie, just to name a few. There is a lot of good movies both old and new. Hope this helps.

you've gotten some great suggestions already but here are some that may not have been mentioned yet!

we love:
sound of music
willy wonka and the chocolate factory
pete's dragon
marry poppins
annie (although, "shut up" is used a lot by the adults.)
chitty-chitty, bang-bang
the fraggle rock series on dvd
8 below (true story!)
ice age
enchanted

and for the older kids:
napolean dynamite (there's a lesson there!)
zathura
the princess bride
old yeller
bend it like beckham
(these are still safe but they deal with humor and situations that might not be understanded by your younger ones.)

We love the old disney movies. Pollyana, Swiss family Robinson, The original Parent Trap. My favorite Cartoon ones are Sleeping beauty, Robin Hood, Sword and the stone and Lion King. As far as the new ones go...well, they do have a lot of adult humor, but I love them just the same. Like bugs life and the toy storys. Most 4-7 year olds don't really know what they are saying. If ours repeat something we just tell them they are adult sayings and not for kids to say. They no not to repeat what us adults say now. Funny thing is that I grew up watching the Flindstones. When I watch it is like a whole different show...I never noticed the adult humor when I was a child or even a teen ager.

D.

All great suggestions. Favorites at our house are the Veggie Tales -- you simply cannot go wrong, and they make awesome music CDs that are SO MUCH FUN to sing along with your kids. Our little girl requests them all the time.

Also, here's a site that might be of interest to you: http://christiananswers.net/spotlight/ -- it offers reviews of movies to people who are also concerned about what their kids watch and provides a place where people can provide feedback.

Hello,
My husband and I decided to get rid of cable in 98' and have not had it since, so movies are our thing. We have three boys and we're a christian family. We really like to have wholesome movies in the house. Disney of course is great for the kids. They love it. We also love the Little House on the Prairie series. We rent them through blockbuster. When I first got them I was surprised to see how much the kids liked them but, they do. They love it. They watch it everday. I pretty much stick to movies that are rated G or PG sometimes PG13 depending on why it is rated that. I love blockbuster online because I can look at a whole bunch of movies whenever I feel like it and then I can rent whatever ones I want and have it sent to the house. There is a much bigger selection and it's easier to choose by catagory or rating.
Good Luck!

My kids love Monsters INC. and Toy Story. They also love the Dora and Diego Movies.

We too don't watch T.V. we don't have cable or anything. So we are movie nuts. For the little ones we like "Curious George" "Happy Feet" my daughter loves to dance to that one so she even gets a little movement in throughout the movie. and of course really any Disney Movie. One recently "Ratatouille" Not sure how old your girls are but my daughter loves "the little princess" "the Secret Garden" movie not cartoon. I like that she likes it so she is starting to watch real people act. Anyway, I hope that gives you a few ideas

I don't really have anything new just agreement with others. Our favorites are Mary Poppins, Curious George, Sword & The Stone, Toy Story. My kids like old musicals, sometimes we fast forward through the real "Talky" parts but they love the songs "I Could Have Danced All Night" is a fvaorite song in our house. If your looking for cartoons you can also go wtih Dumbo, Alice & Wonderland, Land Before Time and other Disney classics.

My brother goes through this with his 3 yr old. He gets tired of all the new stuff, so he goes to Movie Madness (cause they have it all!) He rents stuff like the muppet show or the muppet movies. He actually prefers the movies we watched as kids like Pete's Dragon and The Sword and the Stone. It's fun to see him get excited over the movies that we had memorized as kids. It's nostalgic!

Well I know with my son his favorites are The Robertsons, (Disney), The incredibles, and I have no idea why, but he loves the Barbie princess movies. His favorite is the Swan princess one, and Mermadia..I have tried to break it, but he just says he likes the princesses.

I'm sure most people will tell you that any of the old Disney classics like "101 Dalmations" are great family movies and I totally agree. Thus, I won't mention those. If your son likes Cars and Finding Nemo, I would recommend "Happy Feet" and "Bugs Life" as well. My son is a big Thomas the Train fan and we have all the moviews. There are two movies about Thomas that are pretty good for adults to watch over and over. One is "Calling All Engines" and the other is "The Magic Railroad." I've had kids that aren't into Thomas enjoy the Majic Railroad and I can stand to watch that one over and over. However, don't expect to be able to watch Alec Baldwin in anything else again without seeing him as "Mr. Conductor." The best thing is, you can find that movie for just $5 and it's good, clean family fun. And there are books to go with this movie (just like there are for the "Cars" movie) so that makes it a big winner for me since we read a lot. You won't think the acting is great in Magic Railroad, but the kids think it is. The Winnie the Pooh movies have all been winners in my book. Milo & Otis is a movie I picked up even though the reviews weren't good. My son loves animals so he really enjoyed this movie. This would be a good movie for your kids under 1 and your 5 year old might enjoy it too. "Garfield the Movie" is fun for kids young and old.

The Wizard of Oz
The Sound of Music
All 3 of the Disney Pixar's Toy Story
Dolphintale (excellent movie)

Hi G.! I agree with all of the posts, and wanted to add a couple that my kids (now in High School) loved and still love. My daughter asked for "Babe" every morning when she was 2. My kids also loved the "Wishbone" series from PBS, in which a jack russell terrier tells classic literature stories, and "Once Upon A Classic" that HBO put out years ago. You'll have to dig for these last two, but kids enjoy their HS English classes so much more when they are familiar with the stories and know them as fun tales instead of just assigned reading : ). Have fun, K..

Hi there, my son's latest favorite is "Alvin and the chipmunks". The last one we watched was "Kung-Fu Panda", he did enjoyed it but it didn't make it to his "Top 10". We chose what we watch but he was also exposed to some movies that are not very suitable for his age and he did fine. My thought is that it is not important what you watch but how you watch it. I'm media expert and I know about the media effect on kids. Whatever he watches you need to be there for him ready with answers. They should know what is good and what is bad, they need to learn to make good choices and it is up to us to give them that sense. For example my son loves Spider man but now instead of wanting to be Spider man he wants to be an actor and play Spider man. He knows how the movies are made, he knows why there has to be a good character and a bad character, he knows the different movies are made for different reasons and everything in them is created by their authors imagination and etc. And no, all that information doesn't spoil the "movie magic" for him. I do apply the same philosophy to the advertisements and he knows why they are showing theirs adds in the middle of the interesting movie and why when you get the thing is not as fun as it looks like on the TV, or it doesn't taste as nice as it looks. But if you try to teach him something like that be careful which advertised products you will pick up. These were my two cents. Let me know if you need more ideas or answers. We need to talk and teach them good choices, so they won't go for the "forbidden fruit" later and think is taste good only because was forbidden. This is my personal opinion and I hoped that it was helpful.
I saw some of the answers and I would like to put a P.S. here:
Some innocent movies like "Cars" gave my son the words "stupid" and "idiot". Most of the fairy tails start the story after the mother is dead and that gave him the idea that the same thing could happen with mommy (the same with "Bamby" and "Lion King"). Well, now I'm very careful when I'm getting "sentimental" with what I want him to watch. The kids just think different in these days. I never thought of that part of the story when I did watch or read the story 35 years ago.

We have LOTS of favorites - - but what may be a favorite to us, may be a bust to someone else! Hopefully this will help you though. There is a GREAT website that I always go to when I'm not too sure about the contents of a particular movie. It's www.kids-in-mind.com It's based on the fact that the movie industry's rating system is quite broad and people's individual standards are quite different. What may be objectionable to one family may not be so to another. At this site, they don't give a "review" (thumbs up/thumbs down) of the movies. What the "critics" do is rate the movie in three different categories - sex & nudity, profanity, and violence & gore. Each of these receive a number rating on a scale of one to ten. They then break the movie down, basically scene-by-scene, and describe everything that fell into each category. At times it may seem they get into minute details, but oftentimes they bring up things that I didn't even catch in a movie I've already seen! Another great thing about the site is that they list out possible discussion topics and the message of the movie. You can then make a decision based on what kids-in-mind has laid before you.
I've actually used it when my kids have wanted to watch a movie with friends and been on both sides of the yes/no. I've had instances where I've told parents "no, I'm just not comfortable with my child watching that" and I've asked parents to read the kids-in-mind review and say "no" to something that I felt was o.k. for my kids.
The bottom line is that you, as a parent, know what you want your children exposed to, what they'll "get", and what will go over their head. I've found it especially helpful when you have children that are in different age brackets.
The kids-in-mind site just gives a purely objectionable overview of the contents of the movies so you can then make an informed choice based on YOUR family's standards.
Hope you find this site as helpful as I have. Happy movie watching!!

My kids when they were toddlers, and had not seen much TV, really laughed and laughed when they saw the very old Disney cartoons. W.

My son loves to watch old Disney movies...he usually gets hooked on one and we have to watch it over and over and over again...his favorites recently have been Peter Pan and Jungle Book which are both nice because they're not incredibly long...he also loves Veggie Tales and I know I never have to worry about him repeating anything he hears there!

We loved Night at the Museum, and Jumanji. A lot of the old Disney movies are good, however, a lot of the newer ones are too rude and crude for me.

The penguin documentary - March of the Penguins was AWESOME!

Also there is a company called "Feature Films for Families" who specialize in good wholesome movies for kids and adults. Their number is (800) 347-2833. They had some good ones for us as well. The movies aren't just entertainment - they teach values such as friendship, perseverence , trustworthiness, etc.

The Never Ending Story; Pete's Dragon; Mary Poppins

I really enjoyed "The Blue Butterfly". It's a little less common, but would definately recommend checking it out. Here's the description copied from Amazon:
The Blue Butterfly tells the extraordinary story of a 10-year-old boy diagnosed as terminally ill whose dream is to catch the most beautiful butterfly on Earth the mythic and elusive Blue Morpho. His mother persuades a renowned entomologist (William Hurt) to take them on a trip to the Costa Rican rain forest to search for the butterfly leading to an adventure that will transform their lives. And so their jouney begins. A journey of courage redemption and love. A magical film about a courageous young boy and a jaded man who chase a dream and whose lives are forever changed. Now fourteen years later the young boy who was given hopefully six months to live is now a young man. This magical story is true.

We really like the Toy Story movies. Although Cars is our son's favorite.

Hi G.,

I have a 9 yr. old that I consciously try to spare from alot of the "junk" available for viewing these days, and one thing I've discovered, is that even with "family" movies, it's increasingly hard to find them without any kind of adult situation of some sort or other in them.

That being said, the older Disney classics are my favorites for their lack, and I also loved Meet the Robinsons, Spirit, Brother Bear, Over the Hedge, and the Ice Age movies(Ice Age made me cry lol).

Have fun!

K. W

The "Toy Story" movies are really good, as are "Mary Poppins" and "The Sound of Music." We just skip past a few scary/too talky parts. My daughter knows several songs by heart.

If you want something the kids can watch by themselves, I would suggest borrowing some made for preschoolers/toddler shows from the library. You would still have control to skip commercials and easily limit time in front of the TV. Caillou is a fun one about a 4 year old boy and his little sister, but there are lots of great shows to choose from.

We're into Muppet movies and also the Wallace and Gromit shorts are great. They're a half an hour each so their nice for not spending too much time in front of the screen.

Hi G. - If your son s okay with the classics, then I would go with those! I recently told my husband how much I was hoping that my children would get to see the same old movies that I did....Disney classics. So, off we went to garage sales and Outdoor markets, and found a whole bunch for a buck each! My son has fallen in love with Pinochio.

Well all kids are going to repeat something they see. Monkey see, Monkey do.. Have you had the discussion yet that they are not real and computer animated and ONLY act like this just for money and so on?

My kids favs are. Apple dumpling gang, petes dragon, oliver and company, 101 dalmations, Alvin and the chipmunks, that darn cat, wizard of oz, meet the robinsons, black couldron, sleeping beauty, American tail, a troll in central park, Extremely goofy movie, ANYTHING puppy realted like Adventures of milo and otis, Air bud, baileys billions and so on..

We love Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Wizard of Oz and the original Charlie and the Chocolate factory. I totally understand about some of the "kid" movies they make today. It's like the movie makers want to make them enjoyable for different age groups, but there are phrases you don't want your kids repeating. Some of the Veggie Tales are great movies, too. Lion King, Dumbo, some of the original Disneys are great!

There's an organization called "Feature Films for Families" that came out with some really good movies for kids. My favorites were "The Buttercream Gang" and "Rigoletto." And these new Narnia movies aren't half bad either, though I prefer the books.

What a GREAT question!!!! Wow! I totally agree with you and I have very carefully screened a LOT of movies for our kids.
Here are some wonderful movies:
THE SECRET OF HAROLD DIDDLEBOCK
THE PRINCESS BRIDE
ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD (the OLD one..not new)
Please keep me in contact. I'd LOVE to hear some of your favorites, too.
:>) J.