Discover over 100 fun family movie ideas for an epic movie marathon night! Perfect for holidays, breaks, or weekends—featuring Disney classics, musicals, adventures, and more!
Whenever you are looking for something to do with your family, a movie marathon is a really fun activity to consider.
Kids love movies and love to spend time as a whole family. You can easily elevate the fun with some popcorn and fun drinks.
A movie marathon is a great activity whenever the kids are home from school for an extended period. Whether you are coming up on fall break, Christmas break, Spring break, or summer time, a movie marathon is a great way to spend some time together.
Below are some great movies for you to consider for your movie marathon. Be sure you consider each movie for your own individual children. All parents have different standards and children have different tolerances.
An excellent resource if you are ever wondering if a piece of media adheres to your standards or not is Common Sense Media.
A fun tip is to move your movie night outside! This is always fun and novel. We once watched Jumanji outside…it took it to a lot more intense level!
Disney Movies
Disney movies are typically safe and entertaining for any age. With the use of Disney+, you can easily find movies that will work for the ages of your kids. We have the classics, Disney princess movies, and new favorites.
McKenna was very sensitive toward movies for a very long time. There was probably at least a year where the only movie she could handle watching was Cinderella.
When doing a movie marathon, it is fun to have a theme. So you could go with Disney princesses, Disney Pixar, Disney movies that feature animals, classic Disney…there are a lot of ways you can group them. You could also watch them in chronological order.
Here are some great Disney movies to consider:
- Cinderella
- Frozen
- Moana
- Little Mermaid
- Beauty and the Beast
- Sleeping Beauty
- Snow White
- Mulan
- Lion King
- Aladdin
- Peter Pan
- Cars
- Tangled
- Bambi
- Finding Nemo
- Jungle Book
- Frog Princess
- Lady and the Tramp
- Wall-E
- Raya and the Last Dragon
- Encanto
- Luca
- Fantasia
- The Incredibles
- Toy Story
- Monsters, Inc.
- Up
Just to name a few. It is worth noting that Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Monsters, Inc. all have several movies that are all entertaining in their series. This makes them a great option for a movie marathon night since you can watch more than one in the same theme. These are series where the sequel is just as good or better than the original.
Musicals
Musicals are another genre of movies that are typically family-friendly for all ages and also interesting to all ages. Some of my favorite musicals to watch as a family include:
- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
- Newsies (both the original movie and the Broadway version on Disney+ are amazing)
- The Greatest Showman
- Matilda
- Mary Poppins
- Annie
- Wizard of Oz
- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory / Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- High School Musical
- Decendants
- Enchanted
- Sing
- Singing in the Rain (though this isn’t always entertaining for little ones)
- Wicked
Note that not every musical is suitable for preschoolers and teenagers alike. Some are more mature and more suitable for just the tweens or teens.
Also, most Disney movies are musicals, so keep those in mind.
Some musicals I enjoy with older tweens and teens are:
- Haispray
- Les Miserables
- Little Shop of Horrors
- Hamilton
Look for musicals on Disney+, Netflix, and Amazon Prime
Adventure Movies
There are a lot of fun adventure movies for family movie night. Many adventure movies are more suitable for older children than younger children.
We are generally big sticklers on our kids not watching PG-13 movies until they are 13 years old (we have made a couple of exceptions). It can be hard to find Adventure movies that are available before that age.
Here are some ideas rated PG:
- The Chronicles of Narnia
- Coco
- Jumanji (the original version. The remake has a lot of language)
- Dolittle
- Night at the Museum
- Never Ending Story
- Hook
- National Treasure
- Holes
- Secondhand Lions
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (this might creep out your kids at a young age)
- Indiana Jones (but…probably more of a PG-13)
- Back to the Future (buuutttt…I personally would rate it PG-13)
- Jungle Book (live action)
Here are some ideas rated PG-13 that are more suitable for older kids:
- The Hobbit
- Lord of the Rings
- Jungle Cruise
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Jurassic Park
- Enola Holmes
- Ready Player One
- Mulan (live action)
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
- Jumanji: The Next Level
- Men in Black
Star Wars
Star Wars is a favorite series at our house and probably Brayden’s very favorite. This is one series where we have allowed PG-13 movies to be watched before the child is 13.
We let our kids begin watching Star Wars movies in 5th grade. We start with the original trilogy (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi). These are actually all rated PG but we start with these in 5th grade.
We then move on to the “first three”–the Phantom Menace (PG), Attack of the Clones (PG), and Revenge of the Sith (PG-13).
Revenge of the Sith has the most disturbing scene in all of the movies, so this is one you could skip if you do not think it is suitable for your child, or you could skip that scene (Anakin and the lava…).
We then do the next movies as they have come out recently. The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and the Rise of Skywalker (all PG-13 but very mild). We also do Rogue One and Solo (again, PG-13 but benign).
This is of course a very fun idea to do close to May the 4th! Stream the franchise on Disney+
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a huge hit at our house. We are partial to the books. The movies are not great representations of the books, but we still enjoy them. It is fun to see what you have been imagining (like Hogwarts!)
Harry Potter is similar to Star Wars in that it starts out PG and progresses to PG-13. This is one we require to be actually 13 before moving into the PG-13 movies. You can make it through the first three movies as a whole family.
Marvel
Marvel movies are fun for kids with all of the superhero characters to cheer for. These are largely more appropriate for teenagers than anything younger than that.
You might find some movies okay for the older tweens, like Spider-Man, Captain America, and Captain Marvel.
My teens have enjoyed going through the movies from beginning to end, especially with the Avengers movies.
Lord of the Rings
We had a staycation this past spring break and decided to knock out the entire Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series. It was really fun to watch them all so close together.
Various Movies
There are a lot of other great movies out there that are fun to watch as a movie. I couldn’t possibly name every good one out there, and surely there are some I have never seen! Here are some ideas to get your mind thinking:
- Wild Robot
- LEGO Movies
- The Princess Bride
- Little Women (I am partial to the original version)
- Secondhand Lions
- Matilda
- How to Train Your Dragon (a great one if you want multiple movies from one series)
- Kung Fu Panda
- National Treasure
- Despicable Me (another one with several movies)
- Mrs. Doubtfire
- Zootopia
- Parent Trap
- Inside Out
- The Muppet Movie
- Charolette’s Web
- Free Willy
- Bad Guys
- Spies in Disguise
- An American Tail
- The Land Before Time
- Pride & Prejudice 2005
- Cool Runnings
- The Sandlot
Christmas Movies
If you are doing a movie marathon over Christmas or winter break, you might be looking for some Christmas movies to binge.
>>>Read: Top 20 Family Christmas Movies to Watch With Your Kids
I have the entire post above full of good ideas for Christmas movies for families, but some that must be considered are:
- Polar Express
- Elf
- Home Alone
- A Christmas Story
Halloween Movies
Halloween movies are a fun category to binge with kids in the month of October. I have an entire blog post dedicated to Halloween movies for families here: Halloween Movie List for Families
St. Patrick’s Day Movies
Really. You can find a theme for basically any time of year. Here are green-themed movies to watch around St. Patrick’s Day. Green-Themed Movies for the Whole Family
Conclusion
This post has an extensive list to get you going for a fun family marathon movie night. I would love to hear if there is a movie or series that you think is a must-watch for families! What have you watched in your family movie marathons? Share in the comments.
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This post first appeared on this blog in November 2021