Your responses to my request for family-friendly entertainment were overwhelming. Thank you all.
At first I intended on vetting the list and commenting on the various titles, but there were far too many. And so, you’ll have to look into these yourselves prior to viewing. Imdb.com seems to be a useful resource for that. I’ve also appended a useful comment at the end.
Here’s the list, in no particular order:
The Astronaut Farmer
The Andy Griffith Show
Leave it to Beaver
Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood
Daniel Tiger (pre-school)
Heartland
Touched by an Angel
The Shack
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
The Sound of Music
Smile of a child
Davey and Goliath
Masha and Medved (Masha and the Bear)
Fiksiki (Fixers)
Zig and Sharko
Larva
The Waltons
The Caine Mutiny (Particularly the ending. For older kids.)
The Brady Bunch
The Courtship of Eddie’s Father
Captain Kangaroo
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood
The Donna Reed Show
You Can’t Take It With You
It’s A Wonderful Life
Kiri and Lou
Soul
Coco
WALL-E
Encanto
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
Odd squad
Nature Cats
Zootopia
The Goonies
Moana
Pingu
Hidden Figures
Big Fish
Bankruptcy of Little Jack
Dreamer (2005)
Tyson’s Run
City Lights
The Secret of NIMH
Fiddler on the Roof
Chariots of Fire
Cosby Show
Avatar the Last Airbender (the TV show, not the movie)
Where the Lillies Bloom (1974)
Sweetgrass
Toy Story
Wreck-it Ralph
Inside Out
Sarah & Duck
Puffin Rock
Tumble Leaf
Tales of Peter Rabbit
Madeline
Shaun The Sheep
The Gruffalo
Stick Man
Room on the Broom
Peter Rabbit
Brambly Hedge
Greyfriars Bobby: The True Story of A Dog (1961)
Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009)
Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet (1940)
Young Tom Edison (1940)
Edison the Man (1940)
The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)
Madame Curie (1944)
The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)
The Magic Box (1951)
Sergeant York (1941)
Blossoms in the Dust (1941)
Carbine Williams (1952)
Houdini (1953)
The Benny Goodman Story (1956)
The Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)
The Great Imposter (1961)
The Miracle Worker (1962)
Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)
Mister Roberts (1955)
A Pull on the Heart Strings
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
The Shop Around Corner (1940)
The Biscuit Eater (1940)
Penny Serenade (1941)
How Green Was My Valley (1941)
National Velvet (1945)
The Yearling (1946)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Marty (1955)
Pittsburgh (1942)
Stranger in Town (1943)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Family Ties
Boys’ Town (1938)
White Banners (1938)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
Great Expectations (1946)
Life With Father (1947)
I Remember Mama (1948)
Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)
Old Yeller (1957)
Swiss Family Robinson (1960)
The Bishop’s Wife
Arrowsmith (1931)
San Francisco (1936)
Hurricane (1937)
Captains Courageous (1937)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Night Train to Munich (1940)
King’s Row (1941)
To Be or Not to Be (1942)
A Night to Remember (1943)
Lost Weekend (1945)
Anna and the King of Siam (1946)
The Winslow Boy (1948)
All My Sons (1948)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
The Next Voice You Hear (1950)
People Will Talk (1951)
O. Henry’s Full House (1952)
Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)
The Quiet Man (1952)
Titanic (1953)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
Sherlock Holmes (1942–46)
Saboteur (1942)
Double Indemnity (1944)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
Fate is the Hunter (1964)
The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)
Treasure Island (1934, 1950, 1989)
Tarzan’s New York Adventure (1942)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Pygmalion (1938)
My Favorite Wife (1940)
Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
Arsenic and Old Lace (1942)
Mr. Lucky (1943)
Dear Ruth (1947)
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)
It Happens Every Spring (1949)
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Harvey (1950)
The Man in the White Suit (1951)
Angels in the Outfield (1951)
Rhubarb (1951)
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)
The Kid from Left Field (1953)
Babe (1995)
Knute Rockne–All-American (1940)
The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
The Jackie Robinson Story (1950)
Jim Thorpe–All-American (1951)
Follow the Sun (1951)
The Pride of St. Louis (1952)
The Bob Mathias Story (1954)
Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)
Running Brave (1983)
Hoosiers (1986)
Pistol: The Birth of a Legend (1991)
When Worlds Collide (1951)
Forbidden Planet (1956)
The Time Machine (1960)
The Invisible Man (1933)
Mysterious Island (1961)
Mighty Joe Young (1949)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
This Island Earth (1955)
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
Gulliver’s Travels (1939)
Lady and the Tramp
Dumbo
Winnie the Pooh
The Velveteen Rabbit
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Brave Little Toaster
Children of Heaven
The Red Balloon
**
At first, we just read to them. Then we started using audiobooks, especially when driving on long trips, or when they needed entertaining while we were busy. THEY called this “watching movies”, and generally preferred it to “real” movies, because they got to imagine everything just as they thought it should be, rather than having some director’s vision forced on them.
Some suggestions for audiobook series that they (and our whole family) loved:
The Hermux Tantamoq series by Michael Hoeye
Swallows and Amazons, by Arthur Ransome (some of these might be “too scary”, but not most of them)
When the kids were a bit older, classic Young Adult Sci-Fi from the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. Robert Heinlein, E.E Doc Smith, H. Beam Piper (Little Fuzzy was a HUGE favorite), etc.
**
Paul Rosenberg
freemansperspective.com