The 20 Best Movies for Kids on Netflix

Photo: DreamWorks Animation/Universal Pictures/Everett Collection

This article is updated frequently as titles leave and enter Netflix. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk.

Netflix has massive catalogs of TV shows aimed at children, but it can be harder to sift through their movie library to find something that the whole family can watch. That’s why we’re here to help. From recent Netflix Originals like Orion and the Dark to timeless family hits like Matilda or The Lego Movie, these films offer a little something for everybody on family movie night.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

Year: 2017
Runtime: 1h 28m
Director: David Soren

Fox adapted the hit book series by Dav Pilkey into a film that underperformed enough at the box office to make it unlikely we will see another. That’s too bad because David Soren’s family flick is clever and funny. It’s a sweet study of friendship, creativity, and a different kind of heroism. And it features a villain named Professor Poopypants.

*Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2

Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 34m
Director: Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn

A rare animated sequel that’s just about as funny as the first film, this 2013 sequel built on the visual wit and sharp characters from the 2009 movie. Bill Hader and Anna Faris lead a stellar voice work as Flint Lockwood are forced to return to Swallow Falls to save the day. It’s inventive and very fun.

Klaus

Year: 2019
Runtime: 1h 38m
Director: Sergio Pablos

A little movie that could, this animated Christmas adventure was so critically beloved that it competed with giants like Pixar and DreamWorks for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It’s a delightful little fable about a postman who ends up stationed so far to the north that he meets a reclusive toymaker there named Klaus. Yes, it’s a Santa Claus origin story. With lovely, old-fashioned style, this is the kind of joyous film that the whole family can watch any time of year.

Kubo & the Two Strings

Year: 2016
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: Travis Knight

Great Laika films drop in and out of the streamers, but this masterpiece has actually been one of the hardest to see. Revisit the story of a young boy on a journey to defeat his evil aunts with the power of his strings, and the partnership of a snow monkey and a beetle. Yeah, it’s crazy, but it’s also gorgeous and deeply moving, one of the best family films of the 2010s.

The Lego Movie

Year: 2014
Runtime: 1h 40m
Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

The meta-era of films that comment on their own existence that looks like it could reach its apex with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie owes a debt to this clever family film that took the concept of the LEGO toy and turned it into creative gold. Chris Pratt stars as an ordinary LEGO guy who finds himself on an extraordinary journey in a film that’s really about the power of the imagination, distilling the creative joy of playing with LEGOs into a captivating story.

Matilda

Year: 1996
Runtime: 1h 38m
Director: Danny DeVito

The musical version of the Roald Dahl classic dropped on Netflix in 2024, and now they have finally also added the clever and funny 1990s edition of this tale of a precocious kid with superpowers. Mara Wilson plays the title character and real-life couple Rhea Perlman and Danny DeVito play her parents. The TV star also directed this charming flick that kinda bombed in theaters but developed a following on VHS and DVD.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines

Year: 2021
Runtime: 1h 54m
Directors: Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe

Originally planned for a theatrical release by Sony (with the much-worse title Connected), the studio sold this off to Netflix during the pandemic…and probably regretted that decision. One of the most critically and commercially beloved animated films of 2021, this is an incredibly smart and sweet family vacation movie, a comedy that’s as much about a tender relationship between a father and daughter as it is the fact that they end up having to save the world together.

Nimona

Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 39m
Directors: Nick Bruno, Troy Quane

Based on the comic by ND Stevenson, Nimona is a queer parable about a shape-shifter who refuses to adhere to society’s rules for what she should look like or whom she should present as. When Nimona (Chloë Grace Moretz) meets a knight, Ballister Boldheart (Riz Ahmed), who is falsely accused of killing the queen, the two team up against the repressive regime. Nimona’s action is staged in a stylized blend of 2-D and 3-D animation and crescendos toward a kaiju-size climax. But the way the film foregrounds their friendship is what makes it beautiful. —Eric Vilas-Boas

Orion and the Dark

Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Sean Charmatz

The great Charlie Kaufman wrote a kids movie! This new animated Netflix original owes such a debt to Pixar films like Toy Story and Inside Out, but it carves out its own personality too. It’s about a kid (Jacob Tremblay) who’s afraid of just about everything, and how he overcomes his fear one night on a journey with the literal dark (Paul Walter Hauser). The story wraps in on itself in a way that one would expect from Kaufman, but never gets too complicated for the little ones too. Honestly, it’s better at doing the Pixar Thing than most recent Pixar movies.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 56m
Director: Guillermo del Toro

The Oscar-winning director took his visionary skills to stop-motion animation with this instant classic, a retelling of the beloved fairy tale about the wooden boy who longed to be real. With spectacular voice work, this version reimagines Pinocchio during the period before World War II, allowing him to explore his themes of innocence and violence again. It’s a deeply personal, beautiful film.

*The Polar Express

Year: 2004
Runtime: 1h 39m
Director: Robert Zemeckis

The director of Back to the Future changed animation with his first motion-capture film in this adaptation of the book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg. Tom Hanks stars in multiple roles in this telling of a boy who finds a train to the North Pole on Christmas Eve, where he learns the true meaning of the holiday. It works any time of year.

Rise of the Guardians

Year: 2012
Runtime: 1h 37m
Director: Peter Ramsey

Based on the book series The Guardians of Childhood, this imperfect but fun film was the directorial debut of the man who would go on to helm one of the best animated features ever made in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law, Isla Fisher, and Hugh Jackman lead a high-powered voice cast in the story of how imaginary children’s characters like The Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny have to save the world.

The Sea Beast

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 55m
Director: Chris Williams

One of 2022’s most surprising hits for Netflix has been this film from one of the creators of Bolt and Big Hero 6. It’s a blend of a lot of things that have been done before with echoes of How to Train Your Dragon, Moana, and Pirates of the Caribbean (with a little Kaiju too) but this is a detailed adventure film that really plays to everyone in the family.

*The Secret Life of Pets

Year: 2016
Runtime: 1h 26m
Directors: Chris Renaud, Yarrow Cheney

It may not be as big as the little yellow guys, but this is an essential building block in the history of Illumination. A pre-cancellation Louis C.K. voices a spoiled house pet whose life is turned upside down when a new dog joins the family, voiced exuberantly by Eric Stonestreet. Their conflict spills into the streets and brings in an ensemble of fun vocal performances, especially Kevin Hart and Jenny Slate.

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon

Year: 2019
Runtime: 1h 27m
Directors: Richard Phelan and Will Becher

Shaun the Sheep is an international treasure. The silent comedy star leads one of the most consistently hilarious franchises of all time in his own TV episodes and feature films. This one is a brilliant Netflix original from Aardman Animations about how everyone’s favorite ovine helps a stranded alien return to his own kind.

Sing

Year: 2016
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director: Garth Jennings

A charming little jukebox musical, Sing stars Matthew McConaughey as a koala who needs to put on a show to save his theater. It’s a simple but charming film with great tunes sung by an excellent voice cast, especially a movie-stealing Taron Egerton.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Year: 2025
Runtime: 1h 22m
Director: Nick Park, Merlin Crossingham

It’s been 21 years since a proper Wallace & Gromit movie but it turns out that the cheese-loving inventor and his trusty sidekick are as funny and clever as ever. This excellent family comedy sees Wallace invent a robot gnome (named Norbot) to help Gromit with duties around the house, but the villainous Feathers McGraw hacks the android and chaos ensues. There’s something extra-wonderful about a stop-motion film, one that requires so much hands-on work, being one of our best anti-AI movies. (Out on January 3.)

Wendell & Wild

Year: 2022
Runtime: 1h 46m
Director: Henry Selick

The director of A Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline finally returned this year with this clever and twisted tale co-written by Oscar winner Jordan Peele. The comedian also co-stars as one of the title characters, the literal demons for a girl who blames herself for the death of her parents. Selick is a master of stop-motion animation and this project allows him to stretch his visual prowess in new, gross ways. It’s a new Halloween classic (that can be watched any time, of course!)

The Wild Robot

Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 41m
Director: Chris Sanders

This award-winning adaptation of the novel of the same name by Peter Brown is a gift to viewers of all ages. A blend of Monet and Miyazaki, it stars Lupita Nyong’o as Roz, a service robot who ends up mothering a goose named Brightbill (Kit Connor). It’s a beautiful, moving piece of family filmmaking.

The Willoughbys

Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 32m
Director: Kris Pearn

Remember when Tim Burton made weird, slightly disturbing kids movies? This truly inventive 2020 comedy feels inspired by those flicks as four kids decide that they’re going to replace their apathetic parents with ones that actually care. Based on the book of the same name by Lois Lowry, this flick includes voice work by Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Terry Crews, and Ricky Gervais, and it’s probably the best family movie on Netflix that you probably haven’t seen.

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