We've started a Sunday night movie thing with the kids ages 6, 8, and 10.

I specifically wanted to start showing them more live action movies, adventures, dramas, we've got plenty of animated fare.

First Sunday we watched "Swiss Family Robinson" which the kids loved, but I had forgotten about the rivalry for the girl between the two older boys. And of course pirates are getting hurt at the end, so a little bit of intense stuff, but not too bad.

Second Sunday we watched "War Games" which had the s-word a few times and maybe one other swear, but outside of that was a great drama for the kids, they were stuck fast in their seats. We had to explain the context a little, but they totally got it. We talked about not using swears after. The opening scene is a little intense (one missle silo worker points a gun at the other telling them to launch as ordered.) It's rated PG.

We've rented "Tora! Tora! Tora!" next which is G rated but not sure how intense it will be for the younger guys, but I know our 10 year old will love it.

We talked about anything a little edgy and answered any questions that came up.

We're trying to figure out other good dramatic movies, (I know, Old Yeller, but I'll cry!!)

Looking for other live action dramas, or other movies you'd recommend for kids. What do you think?

Also I'd like to recommend some movies we loved. I highly recommend them, particularly for girls ages 10-teens.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70019062&trkid=189530&strkid=7984088_0_0
One of Hayao Miyazaki's early movies. Really amazing, rarely has a movie gotten me so emotionally charged that I've stood up out of my seat! Great strong lead girl character. Great visuals, great story. This one is somewhat gory, you may want to view first to decide how appropriate for younger kids.

Kiki's Delivery Service
http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=60027106&trkid=189530&strkid=6029576_0_0
Another of Hayao Miyazaki's. Wonderful story about finding out who you are and your place, main character is a 13 year old girl. Awesome movie.

The Cat Returns
http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70019058&trkid=189530&strkid=26683273_0_0
From the same studio of Hayao Miyazaki's, Ghibli, this movie is a hoot! Again a fantastic story of a young teenage girl gaining confidence. My boys liked this movie so much the first time we watched it, we watched it 3 times in a row that Saturday morning. Some heart stopping sequences! Very weird as well, funny stuff, but adventure all the way.

Let me know any suggestions you have for dramatic kids movies.

Lady Googlebrains

I don't know about dramatic movies per se, but there are several older Disney movies that are great for kids and adults!! "The Apple Dumplin' Gang" is one of the first movies I saw, at a drive-in no less, and remember laughing hysterically!! Don Knotts and Tim Conway star, so you can imagine how goofy it is. Herbie was always good, too. If I think of more, I'll post!

It seems like there were several Disney films that centered around some fictitous college - Medvale or something...I remember loving them as a kid. I think they starred Fred Murray. And then there were a couple starring a very young Kurt Russel...
My kids and I really liked the Cody Banks movies, as well as Disney's remake of Around the World in 80 days.

I started showing my daughter (age 9) some old musicals. Singing in the Rain is delightful!
A Chorus Line (not appropriate!!!)
The original Parent Trap? then show them a newer version?
Hopefully, they've seen The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars

We love to watch the classic musicals with the kids:
Mary Poppins
Wizard of Oz
Singin' in the rain
The Music Man
Sound of Music
My Fair Lady
Guys and Dolls (bought it but haven't watched it with the girls yet, it's been years since I've seen it)
etc.

The girls love them. Some of them do need a bit of discussion, but in general they are all very clean.

Of course, they love all the more modern movies as well. We enjoyed watching with them movies such as:
Agent Cody Banks
Spy Kids (only the 1st one, 3D was awful)
Parent Trap
Freaky Friday
Princess Bride (one of our all time favorites)
Ever After (the real cinderella story)

Ugh, I can't think. I'd have to look through our collection at home . . .

A little off topic.. Does anyone use Netflix? I am going to get the free trial to see if we like it and wanted to see if anyone here uses it and what you think about it.

Thought I'd throw out a few too.

Grease

Milo and Otis

Rabbit Proof Fence

Courage Mountain

Cry Wilderness

Also, here is a great search engine for you to check out.
Family Style

Netflix is the BEST!

We have our queue of movies all set up. For a fixed montly fee we can rotate as many movies as we like and the turnaround is FAST.

We send a movie back one day, they receive it the next and on the 2nd day we've got the next movie from our queue. It's awesome.

Easy to organize your list and share your list with friends so you can see what they're watching, and there's no such thing as late fees!

As we rotated movies, there are times when one movie will sit for months, literally, as we cycle the other ones. And that's not a problem! Woo hoo!

Went to this and dropped Blockbuster down the street like a hot potato! (After all the late fees and movies we returned that we never got around to watching.) The only drawback is if you decided you want to watch something right away, it doesn't work for that. But then the selection is amazing, not like picking over the leftovers at BB, you can find those obsure movies that suit your taste as well as all the mainstream stuff.

Highly recommend it!

Anna

First of all Netflix is great ~ we've been customers for three years now and no complaints! They always have the movies we want and the condition of the movies is always excellent (much better than checking them out from the library!) I love to support the smaller companies instead of handing over more business to the monsters like Blockbuster or Walmart.

In terms of movie recommendations, a few of my favorites have already been named, Milo and Otis, older Disney films, and Miyazaki films are all awesome, our most favorite was Spirited Away!
Another alternative to animated movies might be the stop motion pics like Wallace & Gromit they are very funny for all ages.

Have fun with your Movie night, we do the same thing and it's a great tradition that my kids look forward to every week. Picking movies is challenging however, a resource that I rely on, is commonsensemedia.org

Have a great Day

Lisa

First off...let me stipulate...we have girls (however, have caught my brothers watching some of these!)...lol

princess diaries
annie
shirley temple movies
secret garden
american girl movie
sound of music
grease (the lyrics here are iffy...lol)
spy kids
ice princess
mary poppins
bednobs and broomsticks
willie wonka and the chocolate factory the old one!
chitty chitty bang bang
anne of green gables!
ella Enchanted
polar express
ice age
narnia--the new one


love old musicals...u just have to keep an eye on the content...lol

i also remember loving the chronicles of narnia as a kid...think it was both animated and non animated.

Should i think of more...i will post!

Secondhand Lions

Got this movie from Net Flix and watched it last night. I have to say it was a great movie for kids and adults to watch together. I spent the first half laughing and towards the end wanted to cry. My 7 and 3 year old lost interest towards the end but me and my 9 year old daughter loved it!!

http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=60031209&trkid=90529

March of the Penguins...

Watched this with my kids last weekend. I am not a big nature movie fan but I have to say this was a really good movie.
We watched a version on pay per view where it had pop ups throughout the movie that told even more information about the movie. My kids loved it and at the
end my 7 year old said it was really good but a little sad at the same time. This coming from a kid who hardly ever sits still for a whole movie!

We saw March of the Penguins and really liked it too. Saw it in the theater. An amazing film.

We watched Zathura recently, and even though it only got fair reviews, it was interesting to see how the boys reacted to a pivital moment in the plot.

******spoilers below*****

These two brothers in the film are not getting along and end up swept up into space in their house because of playing this game. At one point in the movie it comes out that the astronaut that shows up as part of the game helping them is the older brother as an adult. He ended up in that situation because he had wished his younger brother away while playing the game because he was so annoying, and ended up getting stuck there because his brother was no longer their to play his turn. This gets resolved, but it was interesting to see these boys go from annoying each other to cooperating when the realized what was at stake and that they actually did care about each other.

Anna

Fly Away Home...
We are doing Father/Daughter event for our G'scouts Service Unit. This movie is about a girl who has to go live with her dad.
Helping a bunch of wayward geese (or is it duckies to you TTF ducks), navigate south. After the movie we make paper airplanes, gliders and such. See how far we can fly them, tricks and such

Its' a good flick for my 7yr old as well as 11 yr old. Kind of a father/daughter bounding thing.

Visually stunning movies with tons of movie trivia: Lord of The Rings, a bit scary for the young ones, some parables and messages regarding overcoming prejudice (Dwarfs and Fairies, Humans and Middle Earthers), human fraility/quest for power, and strong message on friendship (Frodo and Sam). We still talk about this. Harry Potter (all of them): Star Wars (all of them) are good eye candy.

A blast from the past:
Old Yellar (still gets the tears flowing)
20,000 Leagues under the Sea, love the giant squid, Kirk Douglas
Mary Poppins, practicaly perfect in everyway
Peter Pan (animated), 101 Dalamations, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Hunchback of Notre Dame and Mulan top our list. Mulan is our current favorite. Honor, family and overcoming obstacles.

The Peter Pan reference reminded me of Finding Neverland - it was way more than I expected from it, wonderful movie where you will both laugh and cry.

Also a second on Fly Away Home, the girls still both watch that one.

Another one that I rented on a whim because there was nothing I wanted to see was Pass It On Edited, I had the title wrong, its Pay It Forward.. I was very surprised. One of those movies everyone should watch. A real heart-warmer with a tear-jerker ending.

A few months ago I rented all of the "old" Star Wars movies from Netflix... the kids loved them. A more recent cute movie was Sky High w/ Kurt Russell. It is about a high school for kids of super heros. My daughters are 8.5, and they both enjoyed it. We have one of the American Girl doll movies... Felicity. Really well done. OH! Rented Benji, the original movie, a few months ago. Caitlyn just loved it. Of course when I saw it at the movies as a child, I didn't realize how much the kids can't act, but the dog is really cute. hehehe I've let my girls watch the first and the last Indian Jones movies. (That middle one was a bit too graphic and scary for little ones).

Megan

Its wonderful to see a family want to view "wholesome" entertainment as opposed to what is normally offered these day. We are a big Disney family, old disney movies are great, wouldn't say they were drama more comedy of course, but alot of fun!! We do pizza and movie night on Friday nights, or game night. The old Disney movies, The Ugly Dauschaund, Snowball Express, The Apple Dumpling Gang, and so forth, are some great funny movies. Also, dending on whether you have girls or boys (some boys may enjoy but probably wouldn't want to admit to it) The Anne of Green Gables movies are really good, very long so be prepared to maybe start earlier in the evening to watch them. May not completely hold the interest of the youngest but I have had friends whose kids as young as 4 or 5 sit and watch them. I will try to think of others, here is a great web sit for movies, tons of them and hard to find ones also...www.moviesunlimited.com may prove to be helpful for you. Another one is Hook, it is based on Peter Pan but done with people as opposed to cartoons--has Robin Williams in it, there is a part at the end though that may upset young viewers (one of the lost boys gets killed by Cpt. Hook), my 7 year old loves it and doesn't like it when he is killed but wasn't so upset that she couldn't watch it again and again, just realizes that they are actors and they may get killed in another movie also, trying to teach the whole reality thing... Good luck


Lady Petunia Purplepop

How about Indiana Jones movies (any of the 3 are good and full of adventure), Eight Men Out is also a really good one (rated PG, about the White Sox throwing the series), come to think of it most of the older baseball movies are pretty good for kids, Field of Dreams is another. And who could forget ET...There might be a little language, but nothing too serious as far as I can remember in any of them. Good luck in the hunting!