Adam Pelling-Deeves » Family Movie Night

Posted on October 2nd, 2014 by Adam Pelling-Deeves

I’m about to become a parent and have been considering how to gradually introduce my son to the movies that I love. He’ll obviously be watching the latest releases as he grows up, but what about the ones made before he was born? The ones that future movies will always emulate.

I started to make a list, ordering films by age with each in its appropriate year. This limited the length of the list as I realised that many of the U rated films that I like are classic dramas that wouldn’t exactly hold a toddler’s interest. The number per year became a comfortable six — a bimonthly movie night — and the movies began to fall into convenient categories.

I’ve started the list at the age of two even though I don’t think a child would enjoy a feature-length storyline until the age of three. For this reason, the first six films are experimental, documentaries and silent comedies from the 1920s that cover the vast majority of cinematic techniques in use today, so even if he can’t understand the substance, he can at least absorb the style.

Obviously this list won’t be to everybody’s taste but it could act as a useful foundation for other parents to build on.

2 — PIONEERS: EXPERIMENTAL & SLAPSTICK

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927)
The Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
The Kid (1921)
The General (1926)
Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928)

3 — MUSIC: MUSICALS & DISNEY

The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
Labyrinth (1986)
Mary Poppins (1964)
Fantasia (1940)
Pinocchio (1940)

4 — ANIMATION: DISNEY, AARDMAN & GHIBLI

Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Finding Nemo (2003)
WALL·E (2008)
The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)
Ponyo (2008)
My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

5 — TRILOGIES: TOY STORY & STAR WARS

Toy Story (1995)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Toy Story 3 (2010)
Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983)

6 — OTHER WORLDS: SCI-FI & GHIBLI

Forbidden Planet (1956)
Planet of the Apes (1968)
Flash Gordon (1980)
Princess Mononoke (1997)
Spirited Away (2002)
Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

7 — WRITING: HAROLD RAMIS & DRAMA

Ghostbusters (1984)
Groundhog Day (1993)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
The Great Escape (1963)
Paper Moon (1973)
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984)

8 — ALTERNATIVE STYLES: COMEDY & ANIMATION

The Pink Panther (1963)
Airplane! (1980)
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
My Dog Tulip (2009)
Watership Down (1978)
Alice (1988)

9 — EFFECTS: RAY HARRYHAUSEN & LORD OF THE RINGS

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958)
Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
Clash of the Titans (1981)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

10 — ACTION & ADVENTURE

King Kong (2005)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Rescue Dawn (2006)
The Bourne Identity (2002)
Inception (2010)
Star Trek (2009)

11 — STEVEN SPIELBERG

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Jaws (1975)
Jurassic Park (1993)
Minority Report (2002)

12 — ROBERT ZEMECKIS & M NIGHT SHYAMALAN

Back to the Future (1985)
Death Becomes Her (1992)
Cast Away (2000)
Signs (2002)
The Village (2004)
Unbreakable (2000)

13 — HEROES & MARTIAL ARTS

X-Men (2000)
X2: X-Men United (2003)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Spider-Man (2002)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Hero (2002)

14 — (MARTIAL ARTS CTD) ALFONSO CUARON & TERRY GILLIAM

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Children of Men (2006)
Gravity (2013)
Life of Brian (1979)
Brazil (1985)
12 Monkeys (1995)

15 — THE COEN BROTHERS

Raising Arizona (1987)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
The Ladykillers (2004)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Burn After Reading (2008)

16 — CHARLIE KAUFMAN & JOHN BOORMAN

Being John Malkovich (1999)
Adaptation. (2002)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Hell in the Pacific (1968)
Deliverance (1972)
Excalibur (1981)

17 — RIDLEY SCOTT & MARTIN SCORSESE

Alien (1979)
Blade Runner (1982)
Gladiator (2000)
Raging Bull (1980)
After Hours (1985)
Goodfellas (1990)

18 — HORROR

Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The Omen (1976)
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
The Thing (1982)
Evil Dead II (1987)
Ringu (1998)