Favorite Family Movie Night Picks!
Last week I talked about how we make Family Movie Night work every Friday. But if we have Family Movie Night every week, how do we pick movies? Carefully! And I’m not above some judicious use of >> if needed for a good story.
Our kiddos are still young (and impressionable!!) and we try to stick with the same basic criteria for movies and TV that we use for books. It’s a lot to ask of movies in this day and age and I’m constantly hunting for good choices. We’ve developed a pretty large movie collection, since our kiddos hardly watch anything on regular TV, and we definitely re-watch movies over and over again. I bargain hunt on Amazon regularly. We don’t watch a new movie every week (ha!), but I do manage to keep a small “secret stash” of films that were less than $5 in my closet to pull out regularly as fresh content–and that’s usually less than you can rent them for if you’re questionably diligent about Redbox returns {ahem}.
Our movies are rarely new releases. I find the idea of paying $19-$25 for a movie ludicrous–especially if we’re not sure of the content. But we will occasionally order a newer film via Cable On Demand service as a special treat. (We just did this with Turbo and I’m glad it only cost us $4.99. I definitely didn’t find it worth $20.)
Here’s our Favorite Family Movie Night Picks…
Older Family Classics
The Parent Trap (You know, Haley Mills and Haley Mills–not that redheaded one.)
The Apple Dumpling Gang (Classic, family-friendly comedy.)
Adventures of the Wilderness Family (The crew came home from watching part of this at school and we caught it on cable and while I was skeptical, they thoroughly enjoyed it.)
Bible-Based
Joseph King of Dreams (This movie is excellent–higher quality of plot, animation, and music than I originally expected. Biblically accurate.)
Abraham, The Bible Collection (A little long and occasionally slow, but biblically accurate and our kiddos are very bible-literate so they were able to stick it out and enjoy this visual version of the story. And, well, I love Richard Harris.)
The Ten Commandments (Who doesn’t love this movie?)
Ben Hur (Doesn’t everybody love the chariot racing?!)
Horses and Animals
Moondance Alexander (Cute coming of age story for horse lovers.)
Flicka (I think both the older series of movies and the new one with Tim McGraw are excellent.)
Black Beauty (Excellent version!)
The Wild Stallion (I wasn’t crazy about this one, but the kids enjoyed it.)
Every Second Counts (Unexpected treasure–my munchkins love this movie!)
Grand Champion (Surprising cameos from some unexpected folks! Feel good family movie–and the cow’s name is Hokie!)
Racing Stripes (Not my favorite, but the kiddos pull it out regularly.)
Man From Snowy River (An Australian take on cowboying.)
Charlotte’s Web (We enjoy both the cartoon and the live-animal one.)
Babe (Loved this unique take on the “barnyard story”)
Dolphin Tale (This was much better than I think it got credit for!)
Balto (This one kicked off Speedracer’s dog sledding obsession.)
Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmaron (This was a favorite for years. We wore our copy out!)
Where the Red Fern Grows (There are a thousand versions of this movie! We have this one, but they’re all probably good.)
Far From Home, Adventures of Yellow Dog (Excellent boyhood adventure movie, but I find the family dynamic a little hard to understand.)
We Bought a Zoo (Ok, I don’t really think this movie is about a zoo, but that’s why my Cowboy loves it.)
Big Miracle (Again, better movie than I think it got credit for!!)
Legend of the Guardians: Guardians of Ga’Hoole (Great version of good vs evil.)
Others
We do have almost all of the major Disney animated films, but other than Brave–which is the Ladybug’s fav at the moment!–most of them wouldn’t make the kiddos top 10 list.
We also have rows and rows of John Wayne movies, and Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott westerns that the kiddos are usually allowed to watch.
7 Brides for 7 Brothers (Musicals are not Mr. Fix-It’s favorites–but the kiddos and I enjoy them.)
The King and I (The Yul Brynner one, my crew has never seen that Jodi Foster thing.)
The Sound of Music (The musicals can be hard to find and the prices are variable. Definitely use your smart shopping tips on these!)
Rise of the Guardians (Our kids loved this movie and I think it does a great job of stacking up all those “cultural myths” and putting them in their rightful perspective–as just good fun, not real.)
How to Train Your Dragon (We all love this movie. The sarcasm is a little strong but the story is unique and fun and we’ve been picking up the TV series collections and find them just as good.)
Wreck-It Ralph (Ok, I’m not crazy about some of the humor, but this was a very unique and fun story–which is unusual in film-making these days.)
The Blind Side (My munchkins adore Big Mike, and this one is a steal right now at $4.99!)
We Are Marshall (Speedracer is really into football right now. {smile})
Glory Road (BTW, I find a lot of these sports movies are a great way to introduce our country kiddos to an urban environment that is completely foreign to them right now.)
National Treasure (and National Treasure 2–we call these the “treasure hunt” movies.)
Love Comes Softly Series (All great family movies, but for all my reader friends out there–they do not follow the books! The first was my favorite because it was the closest to the original story–which I adore.)
Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Voyage of the Dawn Treader (the first is still my favorite, but the kiddos love Prince Caspian!)
Cars (And Cars 2, and now Planes. I think Planes has taken this franchise as far as it can go and still be unique, but we like these stories.)
Tinkerbell (These are more girly, but we enjoy them at our house. I think they teach good lessons about controlling your emotions, and all children can use reinforcement of that.)
Meet the Robinsons (Very touching story about family–plus a lot of adventure!)
Sahara (This was a fun movie, and while there was violence and illness in it, it was not gruesome or graphic.)
The Librarian Series (I found this series fun, but a bit tamer than Indian Jones.)
We’ve also let them watch Pearl Harbor, The Patriot, Last of the Mohicans, Dances with Wolves, The Three Musketeers, and Robin Hood, with judicious supervision and occasional editing when the movie matched with something we were reading together. And, of course, Super Heroes and Avengers…Captain America, Thor, Iron Man…we’ve also allowed the kiddos to watch Transformers (The first one, anyway. The language went significantly downhill in the second one.)
These we all watch with discretion.
We had to turn Braveheart off because it just got the boys too riled up and we found ourselves fast-forwarding through practically the whole movie! Bad choice–but I’m glad we were right there to fix it.
Anyway, these are some of our picks that I haven’t seen very often on Family Movie Night lists. They’re not all new releases, they’re not all blockbusters, and they didn’t come with $20 price tags–but they’ve help us have quality family time every week for several years now.
What would you put on the list that’s not here? Have you seen Princess of Thieves or George and the Dragon? They’re on my list to consider.
Just curious, how old are your kids? (Or how old were they during this post?) I just found your blog & am so thankful & feeling so encouraged in my parenting. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed lately & these have been such wonderful reminders on how I want to parent, with some practical tips. Thank you for sharing your life!
Our Ladybug is getting ready to turn 13 this summer and the boys are 9 and 10. This post is a few years old, but I glanced over it and it’s still pretty spot on for us. A couple of our recent unit study posts (like the recent one about astronomy) would have some more updated video selection in them, but we haven’t really changed what we expect to get (or NOT get) from media.
Thanks for reading–I’m so glad it was an encouragement to you!
Wow! This list of family movie night picks is absolutely amazing! I’ve been looking for some great movie recommendations, and this compilation has it all. From timeless classics to new favorites, there’s something for everyone on this list. Thank you so much for putting this together, it’s going to make our family movie nights so much more enjoyable. Keep up the fantastic work!
Best regards,
Gary Ford