Movie night; In our house we consider ourselves professionals. Furniture is rearranged to make space for bean bags, mattresses and pillow mountains the size of Everest. Every movie night ‘veteran’ knows you can never stock pile too many pillows, in the event that one of the little humans get the idea to sabotage the popcorn eating frenzy with a pillow fight.
I can’t remember the last time I went to the cinema to watch a movie that required parental guidance, no siree. Our family is 100% Disney / DreamWorks / Pixar fan’s, intermingled with a strong love for the classics. Our taste in movies is very specific – we need at least 2 catchy pop songs, a hero is a strong requirement, a cheeky villain, a lovable pet (or robot will do), obscene amounts of foolishness and some tender and cliche moments along the way to make the whole family go “awww” in unison.
We’ve complied some absolute classics for those days you feel like all you ever watch is Frozen, Here’s our top 10 favourite family movies of all time:
1) MegaMind (2010) DreamWorks Animation
Though he is the most-brilliant supervillain the world has known, Megamind (Will Ferrell) is the least-successful. Thwarted time and again by heroic Metro Man (Brad Pitt), Megamind is more surprised than anyone when he actually manages to defeat his longtime enemy. But without Metro Man, Megamind has no purpose in life, so he creates a new opponent, who quickly decides that it’s more fun to be a bad guy than a hero.
The heart warming mispronunciation of words and excellent verbal jousting makes this one of our top favourites.
2) Penguins of Madagascar (2014) DreamWorks Animation
Plucky penguins Skipper (Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller), Rico (Conrad Vernon) and Private (Christopher Knights) — the most elite spies ever hatched — join forces with a chic undercover organization known as the North Wind. Led by highly trained, handsome and arrogant Agent Classified (Benedict Cumberbatch), this special inter-species task force must stop a many-tentacled villain, Dr. Octavius Brine (John Malkovich), from destroying the world.
Be ready, The jokes never stop, you may find that a few extra abs have formed after watching this film, there is simply no containing the laughter.
3) The Road to El Dorado (2000) DreamWorks Animation
Two con-men (Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh) get hold of a map to the lost City of Gold, El Dorado. After stowing away onto one of the ships of the Spanish explorer Cortez, the pair escapes and eventually find the city. There a priest (Armand Assante) proclaims them to be gods in a scheme to win control of the city for himself. Meanwhile, they meet a beautiful girl (Rosie Perez) who helps them in their ruse.
The films wit, banter and adventure is truly the whole caboodle.
4) Book of Life (2014) DreamWorks Animation
In the Mexican town of San Angel, Manolo (Diego Luna), Maria (Zoë Saldana) and Joaquin (Channing Tatum) have been friends ever since childhood. Although their lives have taken different paths — Maria was sent to Europe, Joaquin joined the military, and Manolo studied to become a bullfighter — one thing remains the same: Manolo and Joaquin both want to marry Maria. Little does the trio know that battling husband-and-wife deities have made a high-stakes wager on the love triangle’s outcome.
The soundtrack for this film is simply wonderful, that coupled with the fantastic story and great characters makes for a heart melter.
5) Jumanji : Welcome to the Jungle (2017) Columbia Pictures
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a new take on 1995’s Jumanji. This time, instead of entering a board game, the players enter a video game. The popular stars, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan, are likely to appeal to audiences of all ages.
On a personal note; Jack Black (also known as “J.B.”, “Jables”, or “Jablinski”) has always been a family favourite and in this movie it’s no exception. He plays this role to perfection.
6) Pink Panther (2006) Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Columbia Pictures.
When the coach of a French soccer team is killed, his ring featuring the legendary Pink Panther diamond goes missing. Luckily, Chief Inspector Dreyfus (Kevin Kline) has a plan: assign his most intelligent, most driven officers to track down the thieves in secret, while publicly assigning the bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Steve Martin) as head of the case. Clouseau seems hopeless, until his various mistakes and misjudgments miraculously put him on the real killer’s trail.
The brilliance and comedic genius of Steve Martin makes this movie an absolute must see, if you love it try part 2 for next weeks movie night.
7) Asterix: the Magic of the Secret Potion (2018)
Asterix, Obelix and Miraculix set out to find a druid to whom Miraculix can pass the mystery of the potion onto. While the three seek a worthy successor, the evil Heretix works out a dark plan to get hold of the recipe.
It’s not possible to go wrong with an Asterix and Obelix film/animation but this one in particular was absolutely hysterical. We watched the French version with subtitles however the English dubbed version is also available.
8) Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (2013) Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures
We’ve found that it is rare to have a part 2 compete with its initial counterpart , but with this film there seems to be an exception. It’s spectacularly funny with, original humor.
The story continues when Flint’s genius is finally recognised by his idol Chester V. Inventor extraordinaire Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) joins Chester’s company, where he can work full-time on technologies to help mankind. However, Flint soon discovers that his most-famous machine, which turns water into food, is still operating but now creates animal/vegetable hybrids. With the fate of humanity in Flint’s hands, he and his friends set out to save the world from tacodiles, shrimpanzees and other deliciously dangerous creatures.. adventure ensues.
9) Swiss Family Robinson (1960) Walt Disney Productions
Never has there been a better family adventure than that of Swiss Family Robinson.
The adventure starts with the family leaving their homeland, on route to New Guinea, caught in a storm they are shipwrecked and find refuge on a small, deserted island where adventure follows adventure. From Pirates to incredible tree houses, tigers to taming elephants, the film is unforgettable and classic, even in 2019 this movie is still a must watch.
10) Roman Holiday (1953) Paramount Pictures
Ann (Played by Audrey Hepburn) is a princess frustrated with her regimented life and responsibilities in the palace. She decides to run away and see what the outside world has to offer. She meets Joe (Gregory Peck) who takes her around Rome on the tour of a life time.
This black and white film is such a beautiful story. Just note that the attention span of most younger kiddies doesn’t tend to be very long when it comes to black and white films or classics , because of this we would recommend this film for kids 8 years and older.
That’s all for now folks!
Faqs:
What are the most watched Children’s movies?
Finding the most watched Children’s movies of all time isn’t possible as tracking every viewing even in the modern area is almost impossible. We can however look at the Highest Grossing Worldwide Box Office movies for Kids and make a fairly good assumption that they are the most watched Kids movies of all time.
1) The Lion King (1994)
2) Frozen 2 (2019)
3) Frozen (2013)
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So glad this list wasn’t just a bunch of recent Disney releases as we have watched all of those at least 5 times by now! You listed some truly classic films that children will definitely enjoy just as much. Now that the weather is starting to get a little warmer, I’m even more inspired to have outdoor family movie nights so this list came at a great time! We spend way too much time flipping through the different movie options on Netflix that by the time we actually pick one, everyone is half asleep haha.
We are a bit old school like that 🙂 The classic family films really have a lot of depth to them.