Top 5 Movies From Your Childhood to Watch With Your Kids

While there's no shortage of streaming services to watch what you want, when you want to watch it -- there's still the problem of WHAT to watch.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've turned to favorites from my childhood for movie night. Here's what we've picked as our favorites:

1. Who Framed Roger Rabbit

We go way back to 1988 for this Robert Zemeckis film. I remember going to the movie theatre to see this with my mom and brother. The live action/animation effects were top notch in 1988, and the merging of Looney Tunes and Disney characters would be unlikely to happen today.

2. The Goonies

Steven Spielberg's 1985 film The Goonies still holds up as a coming-of-age friendship and adventure story squarely aimed at 11-13 year old boys (though I've always enjoyed the film too). Goonies never die, and Josh Gad hosted a reunion of the cast via Zoom just last week.

3. Big

If you ignore the obviously problematic romantic storyline between Adult Body Josh and Susan, this 1988 film is full of fun. From the famous piano scene at F.A.O. Schwartz, to the magic of the Zoltar machine, there's a lot to capture your kid's imagination. Also, my son now aspires to live in a sweet loft in New York City with an indoor trampoline.

4. The Dark Crystal

I remember this 1982 film both as entertaining and unsettling. After watching again as an adult, my review is still the same. My kids asked to watch this one after seeing the rebooted Dark Crystal series on Netflix. Storyline aside, the puppetry in Dark Crystal is worth watching for.

5. An American Tail

The song "Somewhere Out There" remains one of my favorite movie songs ever, but watching An American Tail as a grown-up made me sympathize so hard for my parents, who had to sit through watching this with me more than a few times. First of all, the story is SAD. Super sad. And Fivel has a way of rivaling Caillou for the whiniest voice ever committed to animation.