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A good family movie isn’t the same as a kids’ movie. The ones on this list work for a seven-year-old and for the parent sitting next to them, and sometimes the parent ends up crying more. They manage that by being funny, scary, and sad in the right amounts without talking down to anybody.
I tried to mix things up, so you’ll find a talking pig, a flying nanny, an alien, a forest spirit, and a very polite bear. Some are almost a hundred years old and others are only a few years old but all of them carry the sweet sense of nostalgia. Here they are, ranked from great to the one I’d show a family first.
10
‘Babe’ (1995)
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Image via Universal Pictures</figure>
Babe is a little pig who gets won at a county fair by Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell) and learns he’d rather herd sheep than end up on a dinner table. Christine Cavanaugh voices him, and Rex, the grumpy sheepdog who isn’t sure about the new arrival, is voiced by Hugo Weaving. Babe was produced and co-written by George Miller, the man behind Mad Max, and the animals on screen are a mix of real ones and animatronics. About 48 piglets were used to play Babe, since they grew too quickly to stay the same size.
The film earned seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and won for visual effects. Cromwell, who got a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, reportedly became a vegan after making it. Hoggett barely talks for most of the film, but his quiet pride in Babe at the sheepdog trials, ending with the phrase “that’ll do, pig,” is one of the most touching moments in any family movie. It’s gentle, odd, and oddly moving.
9
‘Mary Poppins’ (1964)
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Image via Walt Disney Productions</figure>
A magical nanny, Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews), floats down on her umbrella to look after two kids, Jane and Michael Banks, whose father, Mr. Banks (David Tomlinson), is too busy with his bank job to notice them. Bert (Dick Van Dyke), a chimney sweep and one-man band, leads them through painted sidewalk drawings and rooftop dances. Mary Poppins took Walt Disney about twenty years to make, because P.L. Travers, who wrote the books, kept refusing to sell him the rights.
Andrews was making her film debut, and she won the Oscar for Best Actress after losing the part of Eliza in My Fair Lady to Audrey Hepburn. The Sherman Brothers wrote the songs, and “Chim Chim Cher-ee” won the Oscar for Best Original Song. The film got 13 nominations in all and won five. Van Dyke’s Cockney accent has been teased for decades, and he’s laughed about it himself, but his energy is a big part of what makes the movie so warm.
8
‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ (1982)
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Image via Universal Pictures</figure>
Elliott (Henry Thomas), a lonely ten-year-old in California, finds a small alien stranded on Earth and hides him in his closet. His brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton) and little sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore) join the secret, while the government closes in. Steven Spielberg directed E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and he shot it in order, so the kids’ tears at the end were real. Melissa Mathison wrote the script, and the camera stays low, at a child’s eye level, for most of the movie.
Thomas got the part after an audition where he improvised a scene about the government taking E.T., crying so convincingly that Spielberg told him he had the job. Mars turned down the use of M&Ms in the film, so Reese’s Pieces got the spot and sales soared. Carlo Rambaldi built E.T., and the creature’s face reportedly blends features from Einstein, Hemingway, and Carl Sandburg.
7
‘The Sound of Music’ (1965)
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Image via 20th Century Studios</figure>
Maria (Julie Andrews), a young nun who can’t quite follow the rules, is sent to look after seven children of a stern naval captain, Captain von Trapp (Christopher Plummer). She teaches them to sing, wins over their father, and then the Nazis arrive in Austria. Robert Wise directed The Sound of Music, and he shot it on location in Salzburg. The film won five Oscars, including Best Picture, and became the highest-grossing film of its time.
The famous opening shot of Andrews spinning on a mountaintop took many tries, since the helicopter’s downdraft kept knocking her over. Plummer has joked that he hated the movie so much he called it “The Sound of Mucus,” though he later softened. The real von Trapps didn’t hike over the mountains to escape, they took a train to Italy. Even so, “Do-Re-Mi” and “Edelweiss” have outlasted almost every other movie song.
- The first film not in the English language to win Best Picture, in the Academy’s
92-year history to that point. - It took four Oscars in one night: Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and International
Feature. - It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2019 by a unanimous jury vote, the first Korean film
to do so. - The Park family’s modernist house was not a location. It was built from scratch on an
outdoor lot.
- Seven Oscars, including three acting wins for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee
Curtis. - Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win Best Actress.
- The visual effects were handled by a team of fewer than ten people, most of them
self-taught. - Ke Huy Quan had all but left acting for two decades before this role brought him back.
- Seven Oscars, including Nolan’s first wins for directing and for Best Picture.
- Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. both took their first Academy Awards for it.
- Kodak engineered a black-and-white 65mm stock that did not previously exist so Nolan could
shoot those sequences on IMAX. - A three-hour, R-rated drama about theoretical physics that passed 950 million dollars
worldwide.
- Four Oscars, among them Best Picture and Best Director for Iñárritu.
- Emmanuel Lubezki’s win here was the middle of three consecutive cinematography Oscars,
after Gravity and before The Revenant. - Antonio Sánchez’s improvised drum score was ruled ineligible for the score category,
which caused a minor uproar. - The long-take illusion was built from a handful of extended shots joined by hidden cuts.
- Four Oscars: Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem.
- Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel, with much of his dialogue carried over
intact. - Carter Burwell’s score runs about sixteen minutes and is nearly inaudible by design.
- Roger Deakins was nominated twice that year, for this and The Assassination of Jesse James,
and won for neither.
6
‘Toy Story’ (1995)
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Image via Pixar Animation Studios</figure>
Woody (Tom Hanks), a cowboy doll, is the favorite toy of a boy named Andy until Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), a shiny new space ranger who thinks he’s real, takes his place. The two end up lost in a gas station and a neighbor’s backyard, and have to work together to get home. Toy Story was the first fully computer-animated feature film, directed by John Lasseter at Pixar, and it took about four years to make. The film was built from roughly 114,000 individual frames.
Woody was originally written as a much meaner character, and early Disney screenings were so negative that the whole story was reworked. Randy Newman wrote “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” and Don Rickles voices Mr. Potato Head. Lasseter received a special Oscar for the film. Pixar was nearly broke when it started, and the success of this movie changed animation forever.
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‘Finding Nemo’ (2003)
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Image via Pixar</figure>
Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks), a nervous clownfish, loses his only son, Nemo (Alexander Gould), when a scuba diver catches him and carries him off to a dentist’s fish tank in Sydney. Marlin sets off across the ocean with Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a blue tang with terrible short-term memory. Andrew Stanton directed Finding Nemo, and the idea came from his own fear of being an overprotective dad, along with childhood memories of staring at a fish tank in a dentist’s office.
Dory’s part grew bigger once DeGeneres was cast, and Stanton noticed that her improvised, scattered way of speaking worked perfectly for the character. Pixar animators took scuba lessons to study how water and light behave underwater. Barry Humphries voices Bruce, a shark who’s trying to give up eating fish, and Willem Dafoe plays Gill. The movie won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
4
‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939)
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Image via Warner Bros.</figure>
Dorothy (Judy Garland), a Kansas farm girl, gets swept up by a tornado into the land of Oz, and has to follow the Yellow Brick Road to find the Wizard, hoping he’ll send her home. Along the way she picks up a Scarecrow, a Tin Man, and a Cowardly Lion. The Wizard of Oz switches from sepia to full Technicolor the moment Dorothy steps out of her house, and the effect was stunning in 1939.
Buddy Ebsen was first cast as the Tin Man but fell ill from the aluminum makeup, and Jack Haley replaced him. Toto, played by a female terrier named Terry, was reportedly paid more per week than many of the Munchkin actors. The studio almost cut “Over the Rainbow” from the film for slowing the pace. It won Oscars for Best Original Song and Best Original Score, and still lost Best Picture to Gone with the Wind.
3
‘My Neighbor Totoro’ (1988)
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Image via Studio Ghibli</figure>
Two sisters, Satsuki and Mei, move to the countryside with their father so they can be closer to their mother, who is recovering in a hospital. In the nearby forest they meet Totoro, a huge, furry spirit who doesn’t talk much and rides a flying top. My Neighbor Totoro has no villain at all, which is rare for a children’s film, and the tension comes from the girls worrying about their mother. Hayao Miyazaki wrote and directed it at Studio Ghibli.
Miyazaki’s own mother spent years in hospital with spinal tuberculosis, and that memory shaped the story. The film was released as a double feature with Grave of the Fireflies, and it didn’t do well at first. Then Totoro merchandise took off, and he became the Ghibli logo. The Catbus, a giant cat that doubles as a bus, is one of the most original creations in any animated movie.
2
‘The Lion King’ (1994)
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Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures</figure>
Simba, a young lion cub, is the heir to the throne until his evil uncle Scar (Jeremy Irons) tricks him into believing he killed his father, Mufasa (James Earl Jones), and he runs away to the jungle. There he meets Timon (Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella), who teach him to stop worrying. The Lion King borrows from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and Disney animators studied real lions brought to the studio to get their movements right.
Elton John and Tim Rice wrote the songs, and Hans Zimmer composed the score, with the opening “Circle of Life” setting the tone. The wildebeest stampede mixed hand-drawn animation with computer-generated herds. Elton John and Rice won the Oscar for “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” and Zimmer won for the score. It became the highest-grossing hand-drawn animated film ever, and Mufasa’s death still gets to people decades later.
1
‘Paddington 2’ (2017)
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Image via StudioCanal</figure>
Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw), a polite bear from Peru, is living happily with the Brown family in London, until he’s framed for stealing a rare pop-up book he wanted to give his aunt for her birthday. He’s sent to prison, where he wins over the inmates, including a gruff cook, Knuckles McGinty (Brendan Gleeson).
Colin Firth was originally cast as Paddington’s voice but was replaced by Whishaw, who captures the bear’s kindness perfectly. Grant has said it’s among his favorite roles, and he’s hilarious in a series of disguises. The movie held a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes for a long time, and the scene in which Paddington turns the prison laundry pink is one of the funniest in recent memory. It’s a rare film that believes being polite and kind can change everyone around you, and it makes you believe it too.
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