Great non-animated movies for kids around 8 years old

my kid is finally graduating from Pixar and Disney territory, loved The Blues Brothers and School of Rock.
Suggestions for others? I'm not fussed about swearing or cartoony violence, but seriously dark or scary stuff will freak him out.

I was thinking maybe a Marx Brothers movie - but I haven't watched them in years... Would kids still like them?

Singin in the Rain

Superman II

My kid hasn't been able to deal with most black and white movies I try to present to him, but then again he gets pissy about whether the tv is on an SD vs. HD station too.

80s movies in general can be great for this age: Goonies, Back to the Future, etc. I'm sure I can come up with better though. Let me think on it.

I loved Night at the Opera when I was that age even though I didn't get every joke.

Peter Sellers-era Pink Panthers?

Yup

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

Monty Python films

re: b&w, my kids laughed like drains at Flying Deuces

Hah - was going to suggest It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World

also

The Princess Bride
Honey I Shrunk the Kids
Hairspray (original version)
Matilda
Grease

Yeah a lot of these are movies I watched around that age. What are today's equivalents?

The Spy Kids series are all pretty great

Sky High is really good

Fantastic Mr Fox altho thats animated technically

Have you guys seen Aliens in the Attic? That's a recent PG family movie that might work for someone around his age. Kinda straddles the line between kids flick and teenage hijinks. I just went to rewatch the trailer, and the trailer didn't make it look hella appealing, but we got a lot of laughs out of it a few years back.

Holes

Spiderwick Chronicles, although there's some stuff on the scary/intense side.

Good Burger

The '80s were great for this sort of thing:

Great Muppet Caper
Neverending Story
Last Starfighter
Flight of the Navigator
Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters has ghost bj as I was recently reminded

To be fair though, I didn't really realize that was what was supposed to be going on in that scene until I was an adult.

Why did I say "to be fair though"?

why not try showing them some fucking Bresson/Rivette/Erice/whatever - you know, good films that might develop their minds a little more acutely than fucking Ghostbusters

There we go.

Lol

All ozu all the time

I plan on only exposing my children to films that will, in adulthood, reduce them to a frothing, spittle-flecked mess at the mere mention of Ghostbusters.

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/XCumH8LRo1A/hqdefault.jpg

Buster Keaton/Harold Lloyd/Jacques Tati movies also a good idea imo

haha i had some ~molding~ ideas myself but not, admittedly, bresson

ykno, north by northwest etc

oh that's a good shout

makes every james bond movie irrelevant

I was thinking Running On Empty for some reason, but I'm not sure how much it would resonate with someone so young.

first thing i thought of was indeed back to the future tho. still can't think of a better answer. i remember watching it as a kid more vividly than i remember star wars.

BTTT3 is quite vivid for me. Fittingly (?) I've seen 2 and 3 but not the o.g.

*BTTF

3 is way underrated! great climactic setpiece. great mary steenburgen.

look, if lil dude had his way we'd be watching youtube clips of Pokemon video game play so I'm doing what I can in the acutely developing his mind with movies department.

I don't know if others have the same experience - but my kids relationship to TV and movies is so different than what I remember in myself. For the most part they would rather just have their hands on a computer or phone - because we don't let them do that much - than sit down and watch something... though they do get into it once they give it a chance. Bresson would be a very tough sell.

Aliens in the Attic has video-game relevant plot elements.

I'll second Sky High. My 5 year old also loves the two Scooby Doo live action flicks, and quite surprisingly this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/50/Peter_Pan_2003_film.jpg

i always liked the OG ninja turtles movie as a kid, its pretty tame iirc

I'd like to recommend A Little Princess if you think your son would watch a movie called A Little Princess.

OH. I knew something was slipping my mind: the Babe movies! So good!

Yeah - Babe went over well last year. Spaceballs also hit the spot.

Yeah, def. show the kiddies Au Hasard Balthazar. Nothing 8-year-olds like better than seeing an animal abused until it dies.

The Night at the Museum movies were a pretty big hit with our guy, but I don't think I ever sat through them.

Oh, and he was also super into Beverly Hills Chihuahua too. I didn't really go for that.

there is some violence in the 1940 Thief of Bagdad, but I think 8-year-olds still love it

why not try showing them some fucking Bresson/Rivette/Erice/whatever - you know, good films that might develop their minds a little more acutely than fucking Ghostbusters

― avicii usque ad arse (imago), Thursday, June 19, 2014 5:13 PM (55 minutes ago)

you sound fun

Back to the Future

Zazie dans le métro, if he doesn't rebel at subtitles. Seriously, it's a live-action Looney Tunes cartoon.

No mention of Spielberg and Lucas on purpose? I had very mixed feelings about Star Wars and Indiana Jones series but I think I liked Jurassic Park a lot.
I have mixed feelings about Jackson's Lord Of The Rings too, but it might be good as a standard kids film.

I remember seeing quite a few black and white b-movies as a kid. That Darned Cat made such a strange impression, maybe I should seek that out.

No mention of Spielberg and Lucas on purpose? I had very mixed feelings about Star Wars and Indiana Jones series but I think I liked Jurassic Park a lot.
I have mixed feelings about Jackson's Lord Of The Rings too, but it might be good as a standard kids film.

;_____________________________________________________________________;

Way too dark and violent for under 10 imo

mostly just loathsome tbf

Better than bresson

hehe *friendly cuff around the shoulders* yer alright Outis

jackson's lotr films are some of the least kid-friendly fantasy films i can think of. well, his hobbit films are even worse.

I don't remember LotR being that violent, I'd worry more about the scary stuff. I'd prefer kids watched LotR because it has some cool stuff in it that I might have appreciated.

I don't want to have kids but it's really tough deciding on what might be a bad influence. Some people object strongly to the violence in Indiana Jones and a lot of old cowboy films because it's often depicted so casually and inconsequentially.
Actually Indiana Jones had some scary stuff too (melting people, insects and rapidly aging guy).

Parents tend to worry less about violence, it's just about inescapable in movies(kids seem to love superheroes these days) and videogames.
Somehow nudity was almost invisible to me as a kid, I could see it in the film's but it just didn't register as NUDITY yet. It's weird.

Imago, maybe I'm mixing people up again but I don't remember you being the pusher of high culture. Spirits Of The Beehive might be fine but Valerie has a really creepy vampire and a guy attempting rape on a naked girl who is 13 or 14.

I watched Monty Pythons Holy Frail a million times when I was six or seven. Watched the tv show quite a bit too.

Second Bill & Ted was really troubling.

I'm the one who defended Tideland (although THAT one I wouldn't show to a child, probably), but on the whole I'll bat for sophisticated material, yeah

Really creepy shit is all over kids' films. I wouldn't call that an attempted rape either - it's more allusive and metaphysical than that - the menace is the key. Dangerous territory, I know, but the whole thing is a fairy-tale. I may have remembered it wrong though?

Would agree with the Monty Pythons, to an extent, yeah. Holy Grail especially.

now I'm wondering if a child would enjoy The Seventh Seal

lord

I respect your Tideland defending sir. I'm not really a fan of the classic art house stuff, with some exceptions.

I meant Holy Grail not Holy Frail. Gah, what a weird spell correct.

Holy Frail has some pretty brutal stuff. The limb looping duel is perhaps easier to take because it's so absurd but the slashing of the old historian is pretty nasty. Gilliam as the old magician scared me.

Pretty sure that was an attempted rape in Valerie.

I actually can't think of many films I straight up loved as a kid.

I think a Bunuel season would be brilliant for kids, all this fucking marvel crap! What good does it do?

oh hush xelab! you're getting me excited

(My favourite director, of course - kid-suitable might be....um.....The Phantom Of Liberty? yeah that one)

(It's like a Monty Python film, but better)

It does worry me that there is no sign of superhero films dying down, I fear that they might get that terrible grip on films that they managed on comics from 60s onwards (cause it died down a bit in the late 40s and through the 50s).

TBH I didn't watch The Exterminating Angel until my mid 20's but I feel like there is a generation that will never watch it.

I almost typed that one. As I said elsewhere recently, the finest disaster movie. Perhaps beyond most kids tbh - early or mid 20s is about the right age to see it, maybe (or at least, teens)

The Peanut Butter Solution

Why did The PB Solution get aired on Canadian TV constantly? Was the government giving it away for free?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnpShrF5tXs

'tis the bad news bears ye seek

Off the top of my head

Little Monsters
Homeward Bound
Mac And Me
The Dark Crystal
Monster Squad
Where The Wild Things Are
Big
Spy Kids
The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen
Neverending Story
The Indian In The Cupboard

Little monsters might be the only one that's a little too scary, idk

Holy Frail has some pretty brutal stuff. The limb looping duel is perhaps easier to take because it's so absurd but the slashing of the old historian is pretty nasty. Gilliam as the old magician scared me.

it also has the scene with the spanking and the oral sex, if you don't feel like explaining that to a kid.

Nobody explained it to me, I just assumed it was something sexy, didn't really bother me. Maybe some kids today might do an internet search for "oral sex". At that time I thought John Major was cool because he had glasses and white hair; also that people who bought a car instead of a tractor were total suckers.

There was a popular dance tune in the 90s full of a woman making moaning orgasm sounds, I don't know if my brother knew better about what those sounds were, but we thought it was funny because it sounded like a woman either giving birth or taking a massive shit. Much preferred the latter.

wow!

Which part you wowing at?

the taking a massive shit!

This thread really shows that ILX needs to start a parenting blog.

TEN CZECH SURREALIST EROTIC HORROR MOVIES YOUR 8-YEAR-OLD NEEDS TO SEE

KIDS AND ORGASM SOUNDS: DON'T WORRY THEY'LL THINK YOUR TAKING A MASSIVE SHIT!

GIVE YOUR CHILD THE NIGHTMARES SHE DESERVES

(not knocking you nutbars - enjoying the demented recommendations and solid ones equally)

:D

Something that was really big when I was a kid was guys like Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, don't know if there are any modern equivalents to that. I think they toned down the second Ace Ventura to take advantage of the younger audience.
Probably why some scenes were cut from my old vhs copy of Dumb And Dumber.

Only person I can think of along those lines today would be like, Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop, the Zookeeper). I think my kid saw those, but he watched them without me.

Like, Steve Carrell or somebody? I don't know.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/Fred_the_movie_dvd_cover.jpg

Oh, that. Yeah, hell no.

I've been surprised at the stuff in some 80's films that probably wouldn't go today. We watched Gremlins and I remembered that that was the movie that PG-13 was created for. My kid loved it though.

He's watched all the Marvel superhero films. The only one that I thought went over the top with the violence was the most recent Captain America film though. He liked the Tim Burton (and, sadly, the Shumacher) Batman films; he won't be watching the Nolan ones for some time.

Young Frankenstein went over well, for classic films. Been meaning to watch Time Bandits with him.

What I had forgotten when I sat down to watch Gremlins with my kid was that it blows the lid on Santa in a highly traumatic fashion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_AW_sny6kY

E.T. and Close Encounters obv, for converting yr kids to interstellar Christianity.

Movies my kids have loved between ages of 6 and 12:

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Wizard of Oz
ET
Duck Soup
Seven Samurai
Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Getting away from feature films for a bit... there are some pretty funny Three Stooges and Little Rascals two-reelers out there. Custom-built for 8-year-old boys.

(My favourite director, of course - kid-suitable might be....um.....The Phantom Of Liberty? yeah that one)

― avicii usque ad arse (imago), Thursday, June 19, 2014 6:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes I think a lot of kids can relate to the episode with the dude banging his aunt

Monster Squad
My Science Project
Big Trouble in Little China

3 stooges seconded. Search: a plumbing we will go