The 20 Best Movies on Netflix for Kids (And Their Parents)

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 parsing their library of movies for kids (or, ideally, titles the whole family can enjoy) can be pretty challenging. That’s why we’re here to help. From Netflix Originals like The Sea Beast or Orion and the Dark, to timeless family hits like Matilda or The Lego Movie, these films below offer a little something for everybody on family movie night. We’ve also included a rating alongside each one.

How We Pick Our Films

Critic Brian Tallerico watches and writes about movies and TV every day. To curate this list, he dives into Netflix’s catalogue every month to surface family-friendly titles both kids and adults can enjoy — using his taste and a lifetime of cinema study as his guide, instead of whatever the algorithm happens to be pushing. After triple-checking to make sure they’re still available, he watches each and writes his recommendation. We highlight more than just the crowdpleasers: Family movies may be intended for kids, but that doesn’t mean their artistry or ideas don’t have the potential to be just as interesting. Read on to find something to watch.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

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

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.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie watch on netflix

*Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2

Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 34m
Directors: Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn
Rating: PG

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.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 watch on netflix

*Despicable Me 4

Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 34m 
Director: Chris Renaud
Rating: PG

It’s the Minions world, we just live in it. People don’t really understand how huge these little yellow guys are. Their latest adventure, which also saw the return of Steve Carell’s Gru, grossed almost a billion dollars worldwide, and instantly shot into the Netflix top ten when it dropped. If you’re not one of the thousands of people already watching, what are you waiting for?

Despicable Me 4 watch on netflix

Klaus

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

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.

Klaus watch on netflix

Kubo & the Two Strings

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

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.

Kubo and the Two Strings watch on Netflix

The Lego Movie

Year: 2014
Runtime: 1h 40m
Directors: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Rating: PG

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.

The Lego Movie watch on netflix

Matilda

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

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.

Matilda watch on netflix

The Mitchells vs. the Machines

Year: 2021
Runtime: 1h 54m
Directors: Mike Rianda, Jeff Rowe
Rating: PG

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.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines Watch on Netflix

Nimona

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

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

Nimona watch on netflix

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Orion and the Dark

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

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.

Orion and the Dark watch on netflix

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

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

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.

Pinocchio watch on netflix

*The Polar Express

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

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.

The Polar Express watch on netflix

Rise of the Guardians

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

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.

Rise of the Guardians watch on netflix

The Sea Beast

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

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 Sea Beast Watch on Netflix

*The Secret Life of Pets

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

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.

The Secret Life of Pets watch on netflix

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon

Year: 2019
Runtime: 1h 27m
Directors: Richard Phelan, Will Becher
Rating: G

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.

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon Watch on Netflix

Sing

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

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.

Sing watch on netflix

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Year: 2025
Runtime: 1h 22m
Directors: Nick Park, Merlin Crossingham
Rating: PG

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.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl watch on netflix

The Wild Robot

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

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 Wild Robot watch on netflix

The Willoughbys

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

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.

The Willoughbys Watch on Netflix

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