KIDS’ MOVIES

After enduring the new Transformers movie the other night, it got me thinking about kids’ movies I’ve watched with my eleven-year-old, or his older sister and brother when they were kids, or even when I was a kid.

So last night’s helping-me-fall-asleep alphabet list was of favorite kids’ movies I’ve caught either in the theater or on TV over the years.

ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD, ANTZ
BUGSY MALONE, BIG, BILLY ELLIOT, A BUG’S LIFE
CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS (Spencer Tracy as a Portugese fisherman!, but still brilliant after more than half a century), A CHRISTMAS STORY, CROOKYN (Spike Lee’s filmic memoir of his childhood), CHICKEN RUN
DROP DEAD FRED
E. T.
FINDING NEMO, FLUSHED AWAY
GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE
A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA, A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, HARRY POTTER (all of this series but especially the first)
THE IRON GIANT, THE INCREDIBLES
JUMANJI
KUNG FU PANDA
LITTLE FUGITIVE (this early inependent film is finally getting its due)
MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (the original black-and-white with Natalie Wood as the child), MARY POPPINS, MY LIFE AS A DOG, MONSTERS INC., MONSTERS VS. ALIENS
NATIONAL VELVET, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS
OLIVER!
THE PRINCESS BRIDE, THE PARENT TRAP (Lindsay Lohan when she was still an amazingly talented kid actor)
QUEST FOR FIRE (not exactly a kids’ flick but fascinating to them)
THE RED BALOON
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, THE SECRET GARDEN (both the 1940’s black-and-white Hollywood version of this classic children’s story and the more recent English version from the ‘90s), SPY KIDS, THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH
TOY STORY, TOY STORY 2
UP
V?
THE WIZARD OF OZ, WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND, WILLIE WONKA AND THE CHOCLATE FACTORY (The original with Gene Wilder), WHALE RIDER, WALL-E
X?
YOUNG TOM EDISON, THE YEARLING, YELLOW SUBMARINE
ZATHURA (the underrated space game fantasy)