[FourPeas]

Oddly enough, one of my five year-old son's favorite is a version of The Pirates of Penzance.

[discostu]

hey I just noticed Fantasia isn't on this list. My introduction to good animation and classical music. This list gets worse every time I look at it.

[what's up]

You would think "Big" would be a kids movie...but then they've got that scene where Tom Hanks touches the girl's breast...

[socal_parrot]

Walkabout is a great movie for kids, if you get rid of all of the nudity and the suicide by the Bushman at the end. I always liked Jenny Augutter though.

[apollo11]

No Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?

No Mrs. Miniver?

Strongly recommended for teenagers (watching with parents): Hope and Glory, a wonderful tale of a family during the Blitz.

[DonnDe]

I remember going to Cat Balou when it first came out (1965). Some older neighbor kids took me (I was 6 years old). All I can say is, WOW. Big silver screen cleavage, even if it was Jane Fonda's. Stayed for a second showing -- sat in the front row. Found it very educational and certainly appropriate for this 6 year old.

[Gottwnz]

I can't believe that the Emperors new groove didnt make it, "dat was da bomb dogg."

[Chunga]

Lucas!

[Moleman]

"Put that post back where it came from or so help me..."

~Mike Lisowski, Monsters Inc

[Verginius Rufus]

"Harvey" and "Arsenic and Old Lace" are not exactly kids' movies, but would be more suitable for children than many of those listed. They omit "An American Tale" (animated movie by Steven Spielberg) and the classic "Bambi Meets Godzilla."

[TYBEEISLAND]

My kids really liked Buddy, with Renea Russo, and John Coltrane. Based on a true story about a gorrila. Stuart Little was a cute kids movie too! Beautician and the Beast, was also funny, and my kids loved Willow

[chilepepper]

The Red Balloon

Am exquisite file done back in the fifties -- the first movie i remember seeing and one of the first ones i showed my two kids. Done by the French back when they were still our allies...

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

Here is the accompanying article (that was posted at the original website) -- along with the movie titles...

- ConservativeStLouisGuy

____________________________________

Beyond Disney - Erin Hanafy

"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb," Stanley Kubrick's brilliantly savage satire of the Cold War, seems a strange choice for kids, but a new book lists the black comedy about nuclear war among the top 100 picks for children's movies.

In "The New York Times Essential Library: Children's Movies" (Henry Holt and Company), film critic Peter M. Nichols looked beyond Disney and traditional forms of children's entertainment to assemble a collection of films that are stimulating for the whole family, including adults.

"I sort of picked them as sort of a survey course in the 8-12 age range," says Nichols, a father of three who has written The New York Times film column "Taking the Children" since 1994 and has covered film and video for the newspaper since 1988.

"The idea behind the book was to kind of give kids through their families a cross section of films that were more or less representative of great films," he says.

Nichols doesn't ignore Disney's contribution to children's entertainment, including classics such as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) as well as more recent hits like "The Little Mermaid" (1989), "Lilo & Stitch" (2002) and "The Lion King" (1994). But he also includes live-action musicals that can be just as magical as their animated counterparts: "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), "Fiddler on the Roof" (1971), "West Side Story" (1961), "Mary Poppins" (1964), "The Music Man" (1962), "My Fair Lady" (1964), "Singin' in the Rain" (1952) and "The Sound of Music" (1965).

Nichols' most interesting choices, however, come from the days before the MPAA's rating system was in place. Before the "R" rating, films' content was much tamer in terms of profanity, overt sexuality and graphic violence, and thus the children-friendly offerings from that time are more diverse.

In the case of 1964's "Dr. Strangelove," Nichols says older children appreciate the slapstick humor, as when the president of the United States (Peter Sellers) breaks up a scuffle between American and Soviet officials by saying, "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room."

The book includes less subversive choices from the era that pack an equally strong dramatic punch, such as "The African Queen" (1951), "The Longest Day" (1962), "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962), "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "Shane" (1953) and "Casablanca" (1942).

"Some of the really great old classics stand up very well with kids, even black and white ones, even say 'Casablanca.' It turns out if you go and look in surveys of older films that kids like, that's right up there," Nichols says. "They like the characters, they like him, they like her, they like kind of the jaunty way it goes about things."

In addition to classic dramas, the list favors genres like animal films, such as "Babe" (1995), "The Bear" (1988), "The Black Stallion" (1979), "National Velvet" (1944), "Jurassic Park" (1993) and "The Secret of Roan Inish" (1994); and space films such as "Star Wars" (1977), "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" (1982), "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977) and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951).

A three- to four-page passage is dedicated to each film, with information on scenes that might require explanation, and any material that might be objectionable, to help parents make decisions about what is appropriate for their child.

The passages also offer plot summaries and often offer behind-the-scenes tales, such as the grammatical change in "Apollo 13" that turned astronaut Jim Lovell's "Houston, we've had a problem" into Tom Hanks' "Houston, we have a problem." Nichols also describes Disney's efforts to tone down the more gruesome aspects of the "Snow White" fairy tale, which originally killed off the stepmother by forcing her to dance wearing iron slippers hot from the fire.

To offer an amusing glimpse at long-forgotten objections to beloved films, Nichols also includes excerpts of film reviews from the time. The tongue-lashing Pauline Kael gave "The Sound of Music" in 1965 is a good example: "We may become even more aware of the way we have been turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs."

Kael's opinion aside, Nichols' collection favors films that avoid the saccharine phoniness that abounds in children's entertainment. The films were chosen based on their appeal to the whole family, including adults.

"I was aiming for films that didn't go too far over the line, but that would require in many cases some real thought on the part of kids," he says.

Nichols hopes to update the "top 100" list in future editions, and says films like "Winged Migration," filmed from the point of view of a bird in a flock, and "The Triplets of Belleville," an imaginative animated film from France, are potential adds to the list. Unfortunately, quality films for children are rarer than he'd like.

"I think that a lot of things (today) are really junk. They're very formulaic, it just seems like you're just watching the same films over and over again, and this is particularly true of the 'preteen' films. It's pretty appalling. It's just factory line stuff," Nichols says.

[Lady Heron]

45. "Jurassic Park" (1993)

Oh my, who came up with this list???? An 8 year old seeing this??? There are a bunch on this list I would not let young children see!

[sphinx]

Eight to twelve is quite a range. Some of these movies are obviously over the heads of eight year olds, but a bright twelve year old is another story.

[BSunday]

I hope the people who made this list do not have children of their own. they are clearly crack addicts.

[Teacher317]

A Christmas Story isn't on the list?!?!?

[FairWitness]

95. "Walkabout" (1971)

One of my favorite movies, but I would not recommend it for 8-12 year olds! Three "children" (2 white and one aborigine)wandering arond the outback with lots of beautiful Australian scenery, but also lots of images of death and dying (including the suicide of the children's father which necessitated their wandering around the countryside) - a very "dark" story IMHO.

[Mr. Mojo]

100. "Yellow Submarine" (1968)

Gets kids to see the world from the perspective of an acid-head.

I loved it.