A24 Published a Kids Guide to Watching Movies — My Daughters Picked ‘The Red Balloon’ and ‘Cats Don’t Dance’
Kids watch some terrible movies. I should know, I have two of them (two kids, not two terrible movies — we’ve certainly consumed far more than than two bad films in the Maglio household). A24, the independent film and TV studio that has become synonymous with quality, is out to change that.
On September 4, A24 published the 288-page “Hey Kids, Watch This!,” a collection of more than 100 movie recommendations for families. None of them, by the way, are A24 films. The curation was performed by a group of “discerning critics, animators, and directors,” according to a press release. IndieWire’s own chief film critic and reviews editor David Ehrlich contributed a primer on how to talk about movies with your kids.
More from IndieWire
“Hey Kids, Watch This!” covers both hits and deep cuts. How deep? Has your preschooler seen Yuri Norstein’s 10-minute short film from 1975, “Hedgehog in the Fog”? Right, mine neither. Are the ’70s not ancient enough for your young-Old-Hollywood head? How about the 100-year-old film “The Adventures of Prince Achmed” from German director Lotte Reiniger?
Yes, with “Hey Kids, Watch This!” you can finally take a break from “Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie.” (Not in the book.) Chase and Skye may not have made the cut, but Donald Duck and Basil did: “Hey Kids, Watch This!” has a chapter on forgotten Disney classics, like “Donald in Mathmagic Land” and “The Great Mouse Detective.”
Each film description (along with kid-friendly illustrations) includes icons that flag age-inappropriate elements like “spookiness” or “bad language.” No child is left behind here; well, unless that child is under two. Beyond the littlest ones (“Preschoolers” for this purpose are ages 2-4), “Hey Kids, Watch This!” offers recommendations tailored to “Little Kids” (5-7), “Big Kids” (8-9), and “Tweens” (10-12). We have a feeling the tweens won’t listen to anything an authority suggests.
Best yet: an estimated 80 percent of the guidebook’s recommended films are available to stream in the U.S. and the UK. The oldest film on the watchlist is “The Gold Rush” from 1925; the biggest hit on the list is 2016’s “Zootopia,” which made more than $1 billion at the global box office. In 2025, nine years later, we’ll finally get that sequel. Hey, Grownups at Disney, Work Faster.
“Hey Kids, Watch This!” intersperses its recommendations with games, activities, trivia, and primers like Ehrlich’s and “How to Host Your Own Movie Night.” And it has a pretty cool epilogue — yours. Readers (if they can read) are encourage to write (if they can write) their own film critiques, punctuated by a star system, in the back of the book.
Despite my employment at IndieWire, my kids are not exactly discerning cinephiles. To be fair, neither is their dad, really. But we took that first step together by substituting a few bedtime stories with an advanced copy of “Hey Kids, Watch This!” After all, who wants to read “Pinkalicious” for a 1,000th-straight night? (Answer: my kids.)
My seven-year-old daughter, who reads well, went straight to “Cats Don’t Dance,” Mark Dindal’s animated musical-comedy film from 1997. After all, what little girl does not love cats, dancing, and Scott Bakula? We found the Warner Bros. film streaming for free on Tubi.
Her runner-up was 2000’s “Chicken Run” (currently on Netflix) directed by Peter Lord and Nick Park and starring Mel Gibson. I might have to show her a certain DUI-checkpoint video to push her closer to her next choice and my preference: 1992’s “The Mighty Ducks (on Disney+). Though when she asks me why Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) was forced to volunteer as head coach for a ragtag youth hockey team, we’d have to talk about movie DUIs vs. (very) real-life (antisemitic) DUIs.
The 1987 Iranian film “Where Is the Friend’s House?” (try the Criterion channel on Roku) by Abbas Kiarostami was darn close to making her top 3, as was 2001’s “Spy Kids” (Max) by Robert Rodriguez — I’m actually surprised (and a bit ashamed) that we have yet to watch that one. Lord knows we’ve watched enough of his 2020 Netflix film “We Can Be Heroes” (not on the list).
The shocker on her list was 1965’s “The Great Race” (Blake Edwards) starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, and Peter Falk, which at the time was the most-expensive comedy movie ever made. The budget is probably equal to my daughter’s present-day allowance. Save your money on this one: “The Great Race” streams for free on Tubi.
My four-year-old daughter can only spell her first name, so she needed a bit more hands-on help wading through the suggestions for preschoolers. Thank goodness for Grandma. The first choice from my little one was 1936’s “Rainbow Dance” by Len Lye. While the selection was entirely based on the fact that there was a rainbow, she actually picked a good one for her attention span: “Rainbow Dance” has a four-minute running time and can be found on YouTube.
From there, her choices were almost entirely based on what kind of animal was illustrated on the page. “Homeward Bound” (1993; on Disney+) has a dog that looks sort of like Marshall from the aforementioned “Paw Patrol,” so that’s in. Dan Ojari and Michael Please’s “Robin Robin” (2021; on Netflix) had birds and mice — in. “The Land Before Time” (1998; directed by Don Bluth), had dinosaurs — by now you get it, that one is in too.
Not every animal worked: insect-documentary “Microcosmos,” which uses ultra closeups to show a real “A Bug’s Life” was skipped because, as she put it, “I don’t like big monsters.” If you like big monsters, stream “Microcosmos” on Amazon Prime Video.
But four-year-olds are not just into animals (with an exception for arthropods) — they also like balloons and snowmen. Albert Lamorisse’s “The Red Balloon” (1956; on Max) and Dianne Jackson’s “The Snowman” (1982; on Pluto TV) scratched those itches for her.
Sadly, she did not choose the recommended short film “Father and Daughter” (2000) — perhaps I need to next consult a how-to book on parenting.
Best of IndieWire
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
