Family movie night is great aside from trying to figure out what to watch for family movie night. You start with the DVDs, find that you don’t want to watch any of them the third time, and then move on to the streaming apps. And you keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling until the evening is ruined. If you subscribed to Amazon Prime, we did the hard work for you. Prime Video doesn’t have a huge collection of family-friendly movies, but it does have some notable titles. We reviewed the best family movies on Amazon Prime this month.
Looking for more family movies? We’ve also compiled a list of the best family movies on Netflix, the best family movies on Hulu, and the best family movies on Disney +.
Table of Contents
Last Action Hero (1993)
Comedian Arnold Schwarzenegger? You bet. This ridiculous family comedy plays Arnold as a character in a movie … in a movie. Danny Madigan (Austin O’Brien) finds solace after his father’s death by watching action films about the resilient LA cop Jack Slater (Schwarzenegger). When he gets a magic movie ticket from a theater manager, Danny is sucked into the big screen and quickly becomes Slater’s sidekick. Unfortunately, there is an evil villain afoot who wants to get hold of the ticket and step into the real world.
Rotten tomatoes: 40%
Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austin O’Brien, Charles Dance
Director: John McTiernan
Valuation: PG-13
Running time: 131 minutes
The Bears of Bad News (1976)
Give the family a taste of the classics! The bears of bad news is one of the best baseball films of all time and is fun for the whole family. Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau) never made it to the minor league, and now he’s unlucky, drunk and angry. This is the perfect recipe for training a little league team, according to Councilman Bob Whitewood (Ben Piazza), who wants to punish the league for excluding his not-so-talented son from the game. Buttermaker accepts the job, but soon realizes that he and his team want to be the mockery of the league. However, the traditional league overlooked starrug Amanda Whurlitzer (Tatum O’Neal) because of her gender. Now Buttermaker will turn to Amanda to lead the rest of the underdogs to stardom.
Rotten tomatoes: 97%
Stars: Walter Matthau, Tatum O’Neal, Ben Piazza
Director: Michael Ritchie
Valuation: PG
Running time: 102 minutes
Pinocchio (2019)
That’s a far cry from your grandfather’s Pinocchio – the PG-13 remake is beautiful, dramatic, and thoroughly adorable for older kids and parents looking for a movie the whole family can enjoy. The classic and familiar beats are here, from the wooden boy trying to get real and a growing nose, but there are plenty of new story elements to appreciate as well (some taken from the original 1883 book and excellent performances. Fun fact: The most of the special effects are done with denture makeup instead of CGI!
Rotten tomatoes: 83%
Stars:Roberto Benigni, Federico Ielapi, Rocco Papaleo
Director: Matteo Garrone
Valuation: PG-13
Running time: 125 minutes
The Little Perfect Things Map (2021)
An original film from Amazon, The card of the little perfect things is a comedy for young adults reminiscent of Netflix Russian doll Show – but much friendlier for teens and tweens. Mark (Kyle Allen) comes to terms with his life over and over again on the same day when he finds another teenage girl, Margaret (Kathryn Newton), who is going through the same incident. Love, humor, and mystery emerge, creating a high-profile teen time loop game that is a great choice when no one knows what to watch.
Rotten tomatoes: 77%
Stars: Kathyrn Newton, Kyle Allen, Al Madrigal
Director: Ian Samuels
Valuation: PG-13
Running time: 99 minutes
Cats (2020)
No not that Cats! this Cats is luckily a fully animated funny time about a family of cats living in a high-rise apartment. Blanket, the householder, must overcome his fear and distrust of all things outdoors in order to save his son Cape. The following adventures are perfect for families of all ages, and finding the legendary cat town of Peachtopia includes a variety of quirky characters and quests.
Rotten tomatoes: 84%
Stars: Dermot Mulroney, Nicole Tompkins, Nick Guerra
Director: Gary Wang
Valuation: PG
Running time: 87 minutes
Storm Boy (2019)
In Storm boy, Geoffrey Rush plays Michael Kingley, a retired businessman who is beginning to experience fleeting visions of his past. As the film progresses, we learn that Michael spent his days on a largely uninhabited part of the South Australian coast in his youth. Here he rescued and developed a close bond with an extraordinary pelican whom he believed to be Mr. Percival. A fairly faithful adaptation of a novella by Colin Thiele and the second film adaptation of the source material, Storm boy is a loving and heartwarming film that will enchant the whole family.
Rotten tomatoes: 69%
Stars: Jai Courtney, Geoffrey Rush, Finn Little
Director: Shawn Seet
Valuation: PG
Running time: 98 minutes
Troop Zero (2020)
In 1977, in rural Georgia, a little girl (McKenna Grace) dreams of one day going into space. So when a national competition offered her the chance to be included in NASA’s gold record, she seized the opportunity. The only problem is that she has to be part of the Birdie Scouts to compete. In a rush to compete, she gathers a ragged troop of outsiders like her, only to unwittingly make friendships that will last a lifetime.
Rotten tomatoes: 68%
Stars: Viola Davis, McKenna Grace, Jim Gaffigan
Director: Bert & Bertie
Valuation: PG
Running time: 97 minutes
Benji (1974)
Benji is a stray dog who doesn’t need an owner. He likes to roam free in his friendly Texas town, where people give him treats and he can pet the local cat as often as he likes. But when two children Benji loves are kidnapped and held as a ransom, Benji takes it upon himself to save the day. Who needs Lassie when Benji is around?
Rotten tomatoes: 86%
Stars: Frances Bavier, Edgar Buchanan, Peter Breck
Directors: Joe Camp
Valuation: G
Running time: 86 minutes
Belle and Sebastian (2015)
Based on the 1965 novel Belle et Sébastien by Cécile Aubry, our story follows Sebastian (Félix Bosseut), an orphan boy who lived in 1943 with an adoptive grandfather and his niece in the German-occupied French Alps. Sebastian spends his days in the shadow of the view. Returning home from such an outing, he encounters a towering stray dog he calls Belle. The two immediately fall in love, but just when there is trouble. A Nazi patrol strolls into Sebastian’s villa to cut off local French resistance that is transporting Jews to Switzerland. Nicolas Vanier’s film weaves a beautiful story of camaraderie, humanity and an authentic portrayal of an era marked by hardship.
Rotten tomatoes: 100%
Stars: Félix Bosseut, Tchéky Karyo, Margaux Châtelier
Directors: Nicholas Varnier
Valuation: G
Running time: 99 minutes
Heidi (2017)
Alain Gsponers Heidi is the latest adaptation of the Swiss novel by Johanna Spyri from 1881 about an orphaned girl named Heidi who wanders through the valleys of the Swiss Alps with her grandfather. The child’s way of life is completely uprooted when they are forced into the care of a middle-class Frankfurt family, where they long for a carefree country life. Perhaps this comes closest to the original text, as an adaptation has ever approached, with Anuk Steffen providing a serious and emotional portrayal of the title character. The talented cast is rounded off by a large number of other great German actors, including the late Bruno Ganz and Anna Schinz. If you and the little ones can get along with closed captioning, this is an incredible foreign language entry for the whole family.
Rotten tomatoes: 100%
Stars: Anuk Steffen, Bruno Ganz, Anna Schinz
Directors: Alain Gsponer
Valuation: G
Running time: 111 minutes
Explorer (1985)
Ben Crandall (Ethan Hawke), a youth from San Francisco, dreams again and again of flying through the sky in a manufactured spaceship that resembles a circuit board. Finally, Ben tells the child prodigy school friend Wolfgang (River Phoenix) about his dream visions. With the help of a third friend, Darren (Jason Presson), the three guys actually construct the circuit board and use the device to create an electromagnetic field around an old tilt-a-whirl car they built for their aircraft. Explorer is a fun movie that quickly became iconic after its release. According to director Joe Dante, the production was notoriously rushed by studio managers and released just a week later Back to the Future, the mega movie hit of the year.
Rotten tomatoes: 77%
Stars: Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, Jason Presson
Director: Joe Dante
Valuation: PG
Running time: 109 minutes
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