Have a little more time lately for snuggling on the couch and need a list of movies the whole family can enjoy together? These 31 classic movies may not be considered classic to everyone, but I’m imagining other 80’s babies will remember watching and enjoying most of these suggestions!

Do you have a favorite movie from your childhood? 

Personally I remember browsing the aisles of Blockbuster on a Friday night, only for my brother and I to choose (yet again) to rent Adventures in Babysitting. My parents were saints to let us rent the same movie multiple times, but we just loved it.

Much like Home Alone or Hocus Pocus, I’ve been waiting to introduce some of my favorite movies from childhood to the girls. Most movie nights up to this point have consisted of animated kid movies. While I certainly enjoy The Little Mermaid, we are really excited to be at ages where we can choose movies that are truly a good fit for all of us.

David would undoubtedly say that Star Wars is his classic movie (series) of choice, so this past week we decided the time had come to introduce it to the girls. Without a hesitation, David said we’d start with Episode Four: A New Hope and watch the series in “the way God intended.” The girls were giddy to watch a movie they have heard so much about, but I was a little nervous. Would they enjoy this non-animated movie from the 1970’s? Would they get it?

Despite my doubts, we forged ahead as usual, rolling out pizza dough, setting up the picnic area, then logging into Disney+ and selecting the movie.

Our experience started off like you’d expect with little kids, with a lot of questions. Who is that? Is that a good guy or a bad guy? What planet is that? And so on and so forth. After pausing the movie multiple times in the first 15 minutes, we said no more questions, let’s just watch it. And from there, the magic happened. The girls were enthralled by the blasters, Chewbacca, and of course, by Princess Leia.

It was such a fun night, all snuggled on the couch. As soon as the credits began rolling the girls were asking when we could watch the next one, Kaitlyn was telling us how Darth Vader was by far her favorite character, and David was beaming that his girls not only watched it, but thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Our current plan is to continue to watch our way through the Star Wars saga, but we also generated a list of other, what we deem, classic movies to introduce to the kids so we don’t do our usual routine of scrolling through all the options for 45 minutes before deciding on a movie. I anticipate a little push back for some of these recommendations. I know some of them contain content and language that we don’t advocate, but now that my oldest child is 8 1/2 I’m remembering some of the things I watched way before I was that age, and I turned out just fine. However, if one of these movies doesn’t agree with you, skip it! I wanted to share this list though that David, me, and my Instagram story friends so enthusiastically helped create  

So without further delay…

31 Classic Movies to Introduce Your Kids To

1. Star Wars
2. Karate Kid
3. Back to the Future
4. Adventures in Babysitting
5. The Princess Bride
6. Hook
7. Mrs. Doubtfire
8. The Great Outdoors
9. Cool Runnings
10. Honey I Shrunk the Kids
11. The Three Amigos
12. Father of the Bride
13. City Slickers
14. Funny Farm
15. The Parent Trap
16. Troop Beverly Hills
17. Goonies
18. Indiana Jones
19. The Sandlot
20. The Sound of Music
21. The Never Ending Story
22. Three Men and a Baby
23. ET
24. Big
25. My Girl
26. Top Gun
27. Uncle Buck
28. Labyrinth 
29. Little Rascals
30. The Wizard of Oz
31. Annie

Unsure if one of these movies is right for your kids? It can be hard to tell since kids can be sensitive (or not) in different categories. Click over to Common Sense Media where you can get a breakdown of the movie and ratings from both kids and adults. It’s a very helpful resource!

Ok, fellow movie lovers, what did we forget? Chime in below with your favorites!