10 Classic Movies to Enjoy With Your Kids

Hannah Keefer

I'm a freelance writer, storytelling enthusiast, and aspiring high school drama teacher. I watch all the movies I can.

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13 Responses

  1. Jandy says:

    I knew The Court Jester would be on this list! So great. This is essentially how I grew up, too, watching old movies. I was actually thinking about it yesterday, and I think most of my really early favorites were dog and horse movies – National Velvet, Lassie Come Home, Justin Morgan Had a Horse, A Dog of Flanders, etc, with Danny Kaye’s Hans Christian Andersen thrown in for good measure – but still all classic-era movies. I graduated to The Adventures or Robin Hood and Bringing Up Baby by the time I was ten or so, though! When it comes to movies appropriate to show to kids, the Production Code actually gives a distinct advantage to studio-era films – nothing’s gonna be too extreme content-wise to show them, and they might pick up on something they like!

  2. Kate @ Teaching What Is Good says:

    Oh so much fun!! Memories for sure.

  3. Nigel Druitt says:

    It’s telling of our disparate upbringings that Oz is the only movie on this list I’ve seen.
    Some work to do, I guess!

  4. Michael Romeo says:

    How about The 5000 Fingers of Doctor T? The only live action Dr. Seuss movie. Also, Monkey Business starring Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers and Marilyn Monroe.

  5. MovieMike007 says:

    Great list, I’ve used many of those films to turn my sisters kids onto older movies. Once you’ve watched “Arsenic and Old Lace” and Bringing Up Baby” you can’t help but want to see more Cary Grant movies.

  6. brandmed says:

    This book is a great resource for introducing kids to old movies:
    http://www.amazon.com/The-Best-Old-Movies-Families/dp/1400096863

    As a kid, my introduction to old movies came from the Walt Disney catalog. I was growing up during the Disney renaissance era but there were still theatrical re-releases of the older Disney canon as well as home video releases. To me, it made no difference if the movie was new or old as long as it was Disney. Once I saw things like Snow White and Pinocchio, it was easy to jump over to things like Wizard of Oz from there and so on. Now, as an adult, I’d usually rather watch an older movie than most new ones.

  7. robin says:

    do you own some of these movies? I have only seen a few and would love to see some of them!

  8. Delina Wille says:

    What a fun list! I have seen about half but need to watch the others :) Some more great titles are old Doris Day films like With Six You get Eggroll, Calamity Jane, and Move Over, Darling. Some older ones we also enjoy are Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Father Goose (another great Cary Grant), the original Yours, Mine and Ours, The Ugly Dachshund (a favorite at out house) and many of the older live action Disney films. Thanks for sharing this list!

    • Seven Brides for Seven Brothers almost made the list — my sister was bouncing back and forth between that and The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer. Father Goose is another tremendously fun movie. I actually haven’t seen very much Doris Day, so I’ll have to check some of those out!

  9. Snow says:

    I love this list!
    We have two young boys and and are always on the lookout for some fun movies. Sometimes the kids get caught up on a movie and we find it difficult to move on. We watched ‘How To Train Your Dragon 2’ and ended up dressing up like dragons, eating dragon cake for birthdays, playing dragon games(http://www.schoolofdragons.com/), telling dragon tales ….it was a Summer of Dragons last year!
    ‘Bringing Up Baby’ – I am going to try and source that movie next!