75 Best Family Movies You Can Watch Right Now

Twinsters is a documentary about a young Asian American actress, Samantha Futerman (also co-director), who is contacted over the internet by a young French-Asian woman, Anaïs Bordier, who has been shown a video of Samantha on the internet — and cannot believe their remarkably similar physical appearance. After initial perplexity and uncertainty, Samantha and Anaïs are soon embroiled in excited correspondence and travel to meet one another in their respective countries — eventually confirming via DNA testing that they are in fact long-lost twin sisters given up for adoption 25 years earlier in South Korea. A remarkable true story with a wonderfully beating heart, Twinsters does a lovely job of not just spelling out the amazing story of the sisters’ unlikely connection, but also finding and exploring the growing love and affection between both the two girls, as well as their extended families and groups of friends. A truly touching and humanistic film-viewing experience.

There isn’t a single moment of unnecessarily exaggerated emotion or comedy in this French-Danish animated film, which may keep its world very small compared to its peers, but it portrays everything with arguably more depth and beauty. Long Way North moves with a stately pace, giving it more dramatic heft and allowing us to take in all of the film’s painterly surfaces and soft silhouettes. But it’s not just the art style that sets the film apart; it also avoids what we expect from a traditional adventure, keeping the most important character beats private and internal. This may make the movie feel a little more distant than it should be, but the feeling that it leaves you with is undeniable—a sense that everything is connected, and those who are lost will always find a way home.

A Korean police comedy built on a premise so dumb it’s brilliant: a group of bumbling cops who are so bad at their job that they accidentally start an amazing fried chicken restaurant while undercover. All of the suspense and excitement that should be going into their actual mission is spent on this new job that actually begins to give them coordination and a greater sense of purpose. There may not be much of a deeper meaning to be found here, but the characters are lovable enough—and the filmmaking sharp enough—to get you invested in their personal happiness, and to get you to appreciate how strong editing and performances can make even the smallest throwaway line spit-take hilarious.

One of Studio Ghibli’s overlooked gems, My Neighbors the Yamadas is a charming anthology film about a modern-day Japanese family. The film sets itself apart from other Ghibli films through its unique doodle-like watercolor animation and its short piano themes. While the vignettes may just depict regular family conflicts, the scenes still feel compelling due to the Yamadas’ imagination of the metaphors that they use. Exaggerating the metaphors keeps the audience breathless in certain strategic moments – most notably in the wedding day speech of the mother of the bride. While not as fantastical as Ghibli’s other offerings, the completely digital My Neighbors the Yamadas finds humor in and celebrates the mundane.

A beloved children’s story gets its umpteenth adaptation here, this time from the screenwriter of 2018’s Watership Down — who proves that it’s a story worth retelling. This version of The Velveteen Rabbit is mostly faithful to Margery Williams’ original 1920s-set tale, but it does pad the plot out with a backstory of sorts about the shy little boy at its center. We’re introduced to William on the last day he spends at his school before moving to another town; the filmmaking gently plays on memories of the scariness of that first-ever goodbye, starting us off on a tender melancholy note that sets the tone for the rest of the 45-minute-long seasonal special.

For his first Christmas in the family’s new house, William is given a cuddly toy bunny in which he finds the comfort and company he misses so acutely. If you had a beloved plaything as a child, chances are you wished they’d come alive with all the might that little you could conjure up — nostalgia that this adaptation taps right into when the rabbit comes to life via mixed animated styles. The sincere emotion of the duo’s commitment to each other — involving sickness and self-sacrifice — is thus difficult to resist, no matter how grown up you are.

While it might not be the most inspired story featuring the titular caped crusader—nor is it a particularly Christmas-y tale—Merry Little Batman still stands out just for how bright and warm its versions of these characters are. In this Gotham, crime is literally pushed aside for once, and that odd sense of holiday isolation takes over for the heroes and villains of the city. It’s all pretty silly when you give it more thought, but the film wholeheartedly embraces its tone, resulting in a Home Alone-esque adventure that moves briskly and is loaded with great visual gags and throwaways zingers. It could stand to have a more substantial emotional center, but for what it is, this is consistently entertaining holiday viewing for all ages.

John Mulaney’s comedy special has candid interview segments, gallows humor on a children’s show, oddly specific musical numbers, and other variety show tropes. It having a children’s cast is largely why its snarky, uneasy tone works, and the topics that make it so are why you might watch it again. The cute absurdity of it all, as well as brief moments of introspection that can catch you off guard, are why you might even watch this with (older) kids—just don’t expect them to sit through the whole thing. It’s a comedy special for kids, by adults, so by design it’ll always be a bit off.

October Sky doesn’t tread new ground—in fact, you’ll be forgiven for rolling your eyes at a couple of cliches, including the classic “Those are your dreams, dad, not mine!” moments—but it’s so unassuming and well-made that it’s hard not to get drawn in by its many charms. There’s Gyllenhaal’s breakthrough performance for one, and the small town coming together to help each other out for another. Perhaps because the film is based on Homer Hickman’s true story, it also feels more specific and lived in than most period pieces. And it smartly avoids villainizing young Hickam’s adversaries so that they feel more real and nuanced, as opposed to the other far-fetched parts of the film. Sure, the overuse of sweeping music can feel cloying at times, but stellar performances across the board and confident direction overall make it a heartwarming, inspiring winner.

Most of us don’t get to live our lives with our first loves, but sometimes that separation leads us to the love of our lives. This is true of the Orked trilogy, the third installment of which is named after the one other love Orked had before Jason. Without the interracial dynamic, one might expect that the dynamic between Orked and Mukhsin would be more simple, and sure, with her tomboyish self-confidence, it starts in that familiar way we would expect from a coming-of-age movie. However, writer-director Yasmin Ahmad challenges this expectation through a nostalgic, but no less honest, depiction of this love in a rural Malay village. It may not have the same obvious challenges, but Mukhsin proves through an endearing first love story that there are much more factors that could make or break even the most innocent childhood relationships, specifically Orked doesn’t exactly fit in the ideal her community expects of her. It’s not totally groundbreaking, but Mukhsin nonetheless sets the stage for Orked, and girls like her, to understandably seek for connection elsewhere.

Crushes seem much more important when you’re young, and when you and your sibling share one, it easily alters your dynamic, with the jealousy, comparison, and the insecurity it can foster. The Man in the Moon tackles this childhood crush with care. Writer Jenny Wingfield and director Robert Mulligan characterize each kid with consideration befitting their ages, with an understanding of the different priorities they would have with a three year age gap, the feelings they would have, and the misunderstandings they would have with each other. And this all works because of Reese Witherspoon, who even then held a screen presence that made her into a star.