our family is kind of crazy for movies.
we always have been.
i have loved to watch movies since i saw my very first one…. ET.
i have told craig “movies are my love language”
i love escaping into a movie.
one of my favorite places is a dark theater… two hours with nothing to do but be entertained.
i have even started going to movies by myself because i just want to see one and i have the time.
my plane ride to and from africa had personal tv screens in the seat backs with 100s of new movies to choose from and i thought it was absolutely fabulous! 10 hours with nothing to do but watch movies. i was SO HAPPY.
every year in my kids stockings i add new dvds.
we have a pretty big collection of dvds.
i asked them which were the ones they liked the most out of our choices.
the list was long.
so… maybe this will help you with stocking stuffers?
or an idea for a movie night?
i didn’t add any big Disney movie because we all know about those.
Frozen, Tangled, Toy Story… yada, yada, yada – they are all awesome and everyone knows that.
these are other movies, some new and some old and we let our kids watch these.
maybe you wouldn’t… but you get that choice of course. 🙂
I’m pretty sure that at least 90% of these movies are under $10 too.
Cheaper by the Dozen Jumanji 
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
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The Parent Trap The Sandlot Shrek
Father of the Bride 
Night at the Museum 
Napoleon Dynamite
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Evan Almighty Nim’s Island 
The Little Rascals
Holes 
Facing the Giants
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Annie
National Treasure 
The Emperor’s New Groove
Here Comes the Boom The Blind Side 
Back to the Future
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School Of Rock 
Earth to Echo Journey to the Center of the Earth
Chestnut: Hero of Central Park
The Princess Bride
The LEGO Movie 
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Matilda The Goonies
Jurassic Park
The Karate Kid Eight Below 
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The Pink Panther Ramona and Beezus
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Avengers The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Spider-Man 
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Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone 
Enchanted 
my kids are older… these movies are mostly for that next stage after animated movies.
probably the most bad language is in the Goonies… 80’s movies are dumb like that.
but it’s the goonies!!
i had to put it on the list.
what is your favorite family movie?
what did we forget?
is there a movie i need to know about?
let’s hear it.
Maya hoffmann - i LOVE emperores new grove
Jenny Mullins - I love this list! I feel like my family 11 year old boy and 9 year old girl would enjoy movie nights at your house! We love fairy tales. So here are two movies we recommend Ever After – A Cinderella Story with Drew Barrymore and Mirror Mirror with Julia Roberts.
I also love Little Women with Winona Ryder or any version of this story at Christmas time.
So really I have 3 recommendations.
Thank you for this list, there are few we haven’t seen and I know we will enjoy soon!
Jenn - The Great Outdoors! My whole family loves that movie 🙂
Rachel B. - Apollo 13—my 7 year old and 4 year old love it!
Stephanie - Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken. Disney made it and it is based on a true story about a “diving girl” (diving horses off of a pier in Atlantic City) in the 1940’s. Fabulous family movie. Buy it! Watch it! You’ll love it!
Michelle Whitlow - So many of those are our favorites, too! Goonies, ET, Back to the Future, Matilda…etc. In fact, we went to see the Goonies house in August when we were in OR 🙂 I’m getting my son The Last Starfighter & my oldest daughter Quarterback Princess (I probably haven’t seen that one since the 80s!). We’re big movie fans in our house, too! And Guardians of the Galaxy will be making it’s way to our home this month as well!
Sarah - Life has been dreary lately with some teenager drama going on.
I love looking at your blog, with ALL the fabulous color combinations! It helps to brighten my days.
Anyway I just had to tell you how excited I am to start a new quilting project with rainbow colors! When I cut the fabric strips and made a nice pile, it reminded me of your rainbow of colors on your blog.
Thanks.
Brook - My oldest daughter and nieces love The Labyrinth with David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly.
Tanya - ET was my first movie too 😀 I wanted yarn bows in my hair like Gertie. 😉
We L.O.V.E Annie at this house and I just introduced the kiddos to the original Parent Trap this weekend. My mom intro’d us to all of the musicals really young and I plan to do the same thing.
Can’t go wrong with Goonies!!
Tina J - Great List!! Daddy Daycare, Dr. Doolittle, Adventures in Babysitting, the American Girl Movies!
Erin - Thank you for this post. I’m bookmarking it. My kids are 13, 11, 8, and 4. We are always looking for movie ideas (especially for the older 3). I had forgotten about a lot of these!
Jenn - My 13 year old daughter and I just watched Walter Mitty and LOVED it!
Have you seen “The Mighty Macs”? One of my favorites.
s - I love RV.
jaimie - home alone
Debi Meyers - AND … “Little Women” with Winona Ryder, Claire Danes… the Christmas opening is my favorite 🙂
Karen in NYC - Hi Meg, it’s Karen in NYC.
That’s so funny about Walter Mitty. I saw it in the theaters last year with 16-year-old Ross, and we loved it but felt like we were the only people in the world who saw it.
Your list is great. You and your family would also love these:
Must-See Adventure:
Star Wars (The original from 1977)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
1960s and 1970s Fun:
Freaky Friday — the 1970s version starring Jodie Foster
The Parent Trap – the 1960s version starring Hayley Mills
80s Fun:
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (which includes the swearing that so many 80’s movies have)
Big
Hilarious:
Airplane!
Top Musicals:
West Side Story
Sound of Music
Fiddler on the Roof
Comedies in Black and White:
Bringing Up Baby
Some Like it Hot
The Two Best Christmas Movies in Black and White:
Miracle on 34th Street (the old one starring Natalie Wood as a child)
It’s a Wonderful Life
I have a separate list of great movies to watch with teenagers, that I guess everybody but Annie is ready for.
Sarah - Thank you for this – perfect timing! The Chronicles of Narnia link takes me to the Goonies movie, but I could be doing something wrong. 🙂
Debi Meyers - oh!
“Cool Runnings” about the Jamaican Bobsled team 🙂
Debi Meyers - great list, Meg… Secondhand Lions! Holes! Here Comes the Boom!
If you are a family that enjoys slower, noble, great tenderness against harsh realities: “The Book Thief”, and “The Straight Story” (know your kid. My son at 7 loved it. contemplative)
Musicals:
Fiddler on the Roof, Oliver Twist, Sound of Music, Cinderella (so fun…with Brandy & Whitney Houston)
Boys Adventure:
Mark Twain’s “Roughing It” with James Garner
Christmas:
“A Dog Named Christmas” Hallmark movie
“The Homecoming” (pilot for The Waltons series)
Slightly ‘scary’ movies:
so for older kids, but again, excellent themes.
“Lady In The Water”, “Signs”, and “The Village” (<— this has a bloody scene, but is one of our favorite love stories of all time, and AMAZING SOUNDTRACK).
all 3 have creatures lurking in the dark… jumpy, tense… 🙂
heidi e. - What a great list! And I love the idea of a dvd in their stocking! We just watched Cool Runnings, and it was hilarious! Now we run around asking each other ‘Sanka, ya dead?’… hahahaha
Stephanie - Oh! I LOVED Second Hand Lions. And laughed SO hard at Over the Hedge. Thank you for recommending Earth to Echo. Maybe we will do that for our next family night. I feel like we are running out of acceptable movies. One I loved when I was a teenager was The Journey of Natti Gann. I haven’t seen it since the early 90s, but I love a good adventure.
Rachel - Nacho Libre!!!!!!! 🙂 Mary Poppins!!!!
Great movies listed!
FLWendy - Funny how your list is full of what we have in our DVD library. What about adding some Studio Ghibli films? We have Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. All great films. My children loved them when they were young and still love them today (late teens, early 20’s).
Brittany - Great list!! Our kids love the Nanny McPhee movies!
Jenn - Father of the Bride 2 and Sister Act 2!!!! Apparently, we love sequels!
Jill - We are huge fans of Christmas movies…. so many! But one that few people seem to know about is “Prancer”. A beautiful movie! You should watch it!
Cathy Shealy - We like Robots (also with Robin Williams) RV, again with RW, You’ve Got Mail, Holiday, Christmas with the Kranks (we actually wore one of these out a few years back). Ratatouille
Heather S. - Our girls are 10 and 12 and we are all gaga here over the National Treasure movies (and desperately hoping they’d get done with number three soon). And yes – totally agree on the bad language with Goonies. We watched it with our girls a year or two ago and just thought, “seriously, what is up with all the bad words?” Such a classic, though!
Stacey - All of those and Secondhand Lions!
Peg Graham - Prancer, Fly Away Home, Little Women, While you were Sleeping…
Amy - It’s super old but my kids think The Court Jester with Danny Kaye is the funniest thing ever. Its free on Amazon Prime. They also love Surf’s Up.
Colleen - Hook is a great film (with thoughts of Robin Williams,) Akeelah and the Bee and Flyaway Home (for Annie)
Southern Gal - You’ve got a great list! We would add Secondhand Lions! Superhero movies especially Thor and Captain America; animated, The Croods, Over the Hedge; Christmas movies Elf and Home Alone.
Libby Herwig - Elf!!!!!!! The first Harry Potter also. We like the rest but they get quite dark.
Angela - These are great! Some are new to us. I would add Mrs. Doubtfire and Star Wars- the original trilogy.
Amy - We love Second Hand Lions and we recently watched Million Dollar Arm and it was great! Thanks for the list!