Movies (non-Disney) for Young Teen Girls

I don't know if you've ruled out Pixar along with Disney, or if you're just tired of animated films in general, but I love the Incredibles - strong female characters, not like every princess movie where the girl has to be beautiful and has to be saved by the prince. Also, although this may be a little old for them, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. if you want to find out more on the appropriateness of a movie's content before you rent it, search parent previews and they'll grade the movie on content and let you know potential "dealbreakers", things you might feel should be completely off-limits.
http://www.parentpreviews.com/movie-reviews/crouching-tig...

Try the Love Comes Softly series...like little house on the prairie with Katherine Heigel before she got famous.

I really liked the Drew Barrymore version of Cinderella -- "Ever After". She is a strong woman and there is some fun history in it (the Mona Lisa and such). I'm 31, but my video shelf is stocked with lilo & Stitch, The Sound of Music, and Anastasia (animated).

You could try musicals, like The Sound of Music with Julie Andrews (a personal fav as a tween girl, and I am 25 now), and Funny Girl.
I also enjoyed The Indian in the Cupboard, which might be a little young, or Little Women.
Dr Quinn Medicine Woman (the TV series), is on DVD, and that is a perfect family show.
Good Luck and God bless!

I absolutely loved and still love the following:

Cheaper by the Dozen (old version)
Yours, Mine and Ours
I Remember Mama
Meet Me in St. Louis

Hi L., There is a great org. called Feature Films for Families. I have gotten some great movies from them for my pre-teen grand daughter. No violence, no sex just good clean entertainment. Grandma Mary

Hi L.,
My kids (though younger than yours) love musicals...The Sound of Music is their fave, and Annie...also Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, all the old ones! The Parent Trap...Not into the tween/teen years yet, so I may have been no help to you! Sorry!

J.

I'm new here, just a warning. My kids are older but I know what I allowed them to watch. The various Pixar movies (Toy Story and beyond...) And if you are contemplating Netflix which is what we have, go for it. They have the rating system and a good description of the movies. Highly recommend! I also suggest thst if you want to look for good kids movies try http://kids.yahoo.com/movies for suggestions.
We watched the Disney Channel and PBS when my kids were young.

Have you ever seen the Anne of Green Gables series that PBS did back in the 90's? It was beautiful and they also did a follow up with Anne of Avonlea. Highly recommend them. I loved the entire series and I was in HS and college at the time. HTH

I really liked "What's Up Doc?" with Barbra Streisand.
Also "The Princess Bride"
When your girls are a little older, there's Degrassi on TV (and probably DVD at the library). It's a great teen issues show of kids from 6-12th grade, and very helpful for talking about issues together. They don't avoid any issue though!

miyazaki is a Japanese animator we arecrazy about. Especially spirited away, howl's moving castle, return ofthe cat, and totoro.

Hi,
My girlfriend and I loved the Anne of Green Gables books and movies! The Secret Garden is a great story, too.

T.

I grow up enjoying and loving 80’s teen classics and remember watching them with my mom. Well, now I am almost 30 and still love to watch them even I have seen them billion times:

The Goonies
The Breakfast Club
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Better Off Dead
Dream a Little Dream
Heathers
Sixteen Candles
Stand By Me
Say Anything
One Crazy Summer
Pretty in Pink
The Legend of Billie Jean
Footloose
The Outsiders

Other fun to see 80’s movies:

Coming to America (this is one of my favorite)
Ghostbusters
Back to the Future
Beetlejuice
Airplane!
Baby Boom
A League of Their Own
When Harry Met Sally...
The NeverEnding Story
The Princess Bride
The Storyteller (bunch of great short stories)
You've Got Mail
Big
Turner and Hooch
Sleepless in Seattle
My Girl

A little of 90’s:
Ever After - A Cinderella Story
10 Things I Hate About You
Philadelphia
Forrest Gump
Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

I can go on and on with this......
Hope you find one that you and your girls will enjoy!!!

Full House-all 7 seasons. I used to watch when I was young & my three daughters love it. They sell the DVDs online, Target, etc.

One movie that is not disney that we love to watch is Flicka. It is about a horse. Even my 3 year old loves to watch this. Enchanted is also a very good movie

Some of the other responses were really great, giving you a ton of titles. I have a few that I show my sixth grade class in school...October Sky(non-fiction), Two Brothers...I can't list them all now, but my advice is to go to your local library where you can take out 10 videos/DVD's at a time for free. They have an awesome selection (well, my library in Levittown does) and you don't have to spend a fortune on movies. I do this with my two daughters and for my classroom and it's great! Good luck!

My daughter loves the Harry Potter movies, RV, Dr Dolittle, the 2006 Pink Panther, College Road Trip, Cheaper by the Dozen, the Herbie remake, the Freaky Friday remake, Grease, Hairspray ...

Anne of Green Gables (I think it was made for PBS)
Little Women (there's several versions out there so it'd be fun to watch them all to compare)
Crossing Delancey (might be better for your 13 yr old - my mom watched it with me and we both love it.)

Not sure about what movies to watch as my daughter is only 5.. but Ive had Netflix for about 5 years now.. and you can do searches based on ages which should make it easy for you to find movies... it will also give you suggestions based on movies you've watched and rated. So its pretty cool.. not sure if blockbuster has the same feature but its possible.

Good Luck

Hi L.,

Here are a few suggestions, hopefully you haven't seen any of them yet:

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Ever After - A Cinderella Story
Fly Away Home (not sure if this is the same one you've already watched)
Never Been Kissed
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Sister Act
Jumanji
Night at the Museum
Little Women
Clueless
Secondhand Lions
Dirty Dancing
American Dreamer
Any of the old musicals... Grease, Sound of Music, South Pacific, West Side Story, A Chorus Line, etc.
Any of the Jane Austen remakes... Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, etc.

Those are just a few I could think of off the top of my head. I hope this gives you a few ideas, and I look forward to seeing what else is suggested!

The Princess Bride
my all-time favorite since I was 8 (when it came out). I literally haven't met anyone who doesn't love this movie. (Although I'm sure they are out there)

Ooh...my favorite kind of movies! I don't usually like movies with profanity, nudity, sexual content or anything else that makes me worry that my daughter might be in the room. (Actually, I don't even like scary music...but that's a whole 'nother story. ;-))

Movies I LOVED as a young teen/ teen:

Pride and Prejudice (BBJ version)
Emma (with Gwyneth Paltrow)
Anne of Green Gables (the TV series)
Penelope (with Christina Ricci...ADORABLE!)
All the old Chronicles of Narnia from TV

That's all I can think of for now...

HI my daughter is five but these are some of her favorite movies: Ever After, Bridge to Tarabithia; both Princess Diaries; all the Harry Potter movies; She also likes old cartoons, we have some dvd's and vhs tapes of chip and dale cartoons, old micky mouse, goofy and donald duck. Oh and the Muppet Show, we have the first season.

Hi L.! The couple of movies that came to my mind right away (Escape to Witch Mountain, Escape from Witch Mountain, etc.) I realized are Disney (sorry). Does she like history? I've always loved the musical/comedy 1776 since I was a little girl.
I also have a suggestion - do you ever borrow movies from your local library? You save $$ and you can keep movies for up to a week. The library may have a section just for the type of movies you are looking for as well.
Best of luck! - K.

HI L.,
The Anne of Green Gables series is awesome. My daughter and I loved watching them even when she was in high school.
Another great movie is the sisterhood of the traveling pants and now the sequel is out but not yet on DVD.
And if you havn't seen the Bee movie that is good too.
M.

Hmm...I used to love Wonder Woman and the Bionic Women..dating my age..lol.

13 Going on 30, Anything from the Hallmark Channel, and Enchanted happens to be my favorites.

I guess it depends on what type of messge you intend to send to your daughters about women and how they are portrayed.

Nanc

Here are some of our family favorites:

The Ultimate Gift
Five People you Meet in Heaven
the original Swiss Family Robinson
anything with Errol Flynn
Citizen Kane
Gone With The Wind (long but worth it)
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
Movie Musicals such as Anchors Away, Singing in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, anything with Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire
The Sting (Redford & Newman)
Snow White, made in 2000 with Miranda Richardson as the Evil Queen
Try something from the Marx Brothers too, if you're into old comedies. A Night at the Opera, Duck Soup might be a good place to start. They did formula movies, so after two or three, they seem to be reworking a theme.

My kids are 13, 11, 9 and 6 so most of these would likely work for your young ladies!

R.

Hi L.

I'm not sure if these two are Disney movies but I really loved Sound of Music and Mary Poppins when I was growing up. In fact I would love to own copies but I just can't find them anywhere.

Hope this helps T.

How about exposing the girls to a bit of International cinema?

The movies below are true masterpieces, very entertaining and have great moral messages….and get ready to cry a bit, the stories are just beautiful!

“Children of Heaven” is a 1997 Iranian film. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998. It deals with a brother and sister and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes. My favorite foreign movie ever. Perfect to teach young people about other cultures and the effects of poverty.

“The Story of Qiu Ju” (1992) by Zhang Yimou. The tale of a Chinese peasant teen dealing with bureaucracy while looking for a young boy in a large city. Won the Golden Lion for Best Picture at the 1992 Venice International Film Festival. Cute and funny and also very interesting in its description of Chinese life.

“Milo and Otis”. Japanese movie full of real baby animals. Milo gets lost and Otis goes in his search. Narrated by Dudley Moore. Absolutely adorable movie for kids 2 to 100!

In a couple of years try watching: "Women in the verge of a nervous breakdown" by Almodovar (Spain). Comedy of errors totally wacky. Antonio Banderas is in it as a young man.

As for American movies, nobody mentioned already “Adventures in Babysitting” 1987. It’s an American comedy full of adventure and crazy situations appropriate for your girls age.

L.

Adisa had a lot of really greta suggestions - almost ALL of my favorites from when I was younger *sigh*

Anyway - some more off the beaten track sugegstions for a little younger audience may be:

Little Princess (one of my favorites!)
Neverending Story
ET
The Sound of Music
Princess Diaries
Pollyanna
Savanna Smiles
Labyrinth
The Witches
The original Parent Trap
Tuck Everlasting
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Honey I Shrunk the Kids
Homeward Bound
Adventures of Milo and Otis
Chicken Run

Also - a very short lived TV show finally out on DVD is My So Called Life

Hi L., I have 3 daughters who are now in their 20's. We have 2 favorite movies which we have been watching since they were in their teens. We watch them even until now - at least twice a year if not more. One is "While You Were Sleeping" which is a Sandra Bullock film. And the other is one is "Return to Me." Of course, just like any other PG movie, any lines or scenes you feel is inappropriate should be mentioned to be inappropriate while watching any movie - that way, the proper moral criteria can be imparted to the our kids. And together with my 2 boys, we all love "The Princess Bride" with Mandy Patinkin. There are more out there. Wish I had all the time in the world to rattle them off here. Good luck!

hi L.!

here are some of my favorites that i think are appropriate for girls that age; but you might not easily find them in local video places. have you considered Netflix? it's very cheap and they have a much wider variety of movies.

Whale Rider
Seabiscuit
March of the Penguins
ET

also if you use nextflix it automatically reccommends movies it think are in the same zone as what you've liked in the past; very helpful!

good luck!