Home Alone
bilbo/moviestillsdb
The main appeal of this classic holiday film for kids is the wish fulfillment of having the house to yourself followed by the Looney Tunes-esque violence that little Kevin McCallister inflicts on the home invaders. As an adult though, the highlight of the film is the incredible Catherine O’Hara, whose journey from Paris back to Chicago to save her child is both hilarious and quite touching. In particular, her scenes with John Candy are some of the best of either’s career.
Also, the handful of scenes where Kevin interacts with the old neighbor, particularly their conversation in the church, will be sure to get the tears flowing.
The Parent Trap
Zayne/MovieStillsDb
Both movies — the 1961 original starring Hayley Mills and the remake that brought Lindsay Lohan into pop culture relevance — are worth a revisit. However, it’s the 1998 version that provides the most enjoyment for an older audience. Setting aside the general absurdity of the “sister swap” premise, there are so many things in this movie that hilariously don’t hold up to any kind of scrutiny. Outside of the fact that these parents thought the answer to their divorce issues was to split their twin daughters up, the idea that we are meant to root for these twin girls ruining their father’s engagement with someone whom he seems genuinely happy with is hilariously unhinged.
Hocus Pocus
Liz21/MovieStillsDb
Hocus Pocus is a perfect movie for the Halloween season. Kids love it because of the broad comedy provided by the three witch sisters as our trio of young heroes save the day. For older audiences, there are a handful of scenes that are borderline out of pocket and make this film a total hoot upon rewatch. The scene where the Sanderson Sisters meet “the devil” and his surly wife, played by real-life brother and sister Garry and Penny Marshall, stands out as one the funniest in the film. Even funnier, it will soar completely over the heads of the target audience.
Shrek
kewin/moviestillsdb
Spawning several sequels and spinoffs, Shrek was a phenomenon when it premiered back in 2001. On top of being a massive box office success, the Dreamworks film also permanently changed animated features, popularizing the use of pop music and pop culture references in the genre.
Shrek was also brilliant in the way the writers and animators loaded the film with jokes “for the parents” that were funny. The brief appearance by Robin Hood and his Merry Men is a notable stand-out, where the jaunty robber sings of his interests in a “saucy little maid” and concludes that he “likes to get….paid.”
The Muppet Christmas Carol
daffyduck2000/moviestillsdb
The genius of The Muppet Christmas Carol lies in the casting of Michael Caine. A lesser actor might have made the mistake of trying to match the zaniness of his Muppet co-stars. It would be the easiest choice to make.
Not Michael Caine. His turn as Ebenezer Scrooge is played completely straight. You could lift every part of his performance out of this movie and drop it directly into a West End production of A Christmas Carol and nobody in the audience would bat an eye. It is a shame that the Muppet of it all kept his performance here from getting any kind of awards buzz (like, for real).
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
darcy/moviestillsdb
A young viewer will delight at the wonders found inside the chocolate factory, the Oompa Loompa songs, or even the simple morality of the film’s message. As an adult, you can admire the brilliant performance of Gene Wilder. There’s just a hint of malevolence to the performance hiding beneath the veneer of the charming showman that makes it so you can’t take your eyes off of him.
Additionally, the scenes that lead up to entering the factory, as the world descends into Golden Ticket madness, are delightful social commentary on the consumer culture we are all forced to participate in.
A Goofy Movie
timothy2/moviestillsdb
Released by Disney in 1995, A Goofy Movie wasn’t initially a huge box office hit. However, the movie did eventually find an audience on home video and now is a sort of cult classic with a rabid following.
It’s a beautiful father-son story, told via the classic trope of the road picture. Goofy is, well, a goof of a Dad desperate to try and connect with his teenage son Max before it’s too late. Max, on the other hand, is desperate to be cool and afraid of turning into his father.
As a kid the movie is fine, but as an adult, the story packs a heck of an emotional punch.
Stand By Me
wolf/moviestillsdb
“I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”
Stand By Me’s final lines are among the best in movie history. For younger viewers, Stand By Me is an exciting and occasionally harrowing coming-of-age story. For adults, though, the movie is a wonderfully nostalgic journey back to the time when we reached that threshold that marked the passage from childhood to adulthood.
Credit to director Rob Reiner for the perfect casting. The four lead actors give remarkable performances. If even one of them had been weak the entire thing would completely fall apart.
The Iron Giant
loytopires/moviestillsdb
The Iron Giant is the perfect movie to go back to as an adult. Released in 1999, the movie was not a box-office success by any stretch of the imagination. This was likely due to the slow pace and complex themes not often found in an animated film made for a young audience. As adults, though, we can revisit it and appreciate director Brad Bird’s moving adaptation of the 1968 novel The Iron Man.
The movie has an anti-gun and anti-war message that unfortunately continues to be as relevant today as it was in 1999.
Hook
Conner/MovieStillsDB
Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Robin Williams, Julia Roberts, and Dustin Hoffman, Hook serves as a sequel to the original J.M. Barrie Peter Pan novel Peter and Wendy, and in the years since its release has developed a rabid cult following. However, when it was initially released the movie was slammed by the critics, and even the director himself has since said that he does not look back on the film kindly. There is clearly a sharp divide of opinion that seems completely dependent on one’s age when they first watched the movie.
Hook is included on this list to encourage people to revisit it and see if their opinion on it has changed, for either the better or the worse.
