The best family Halloween movies to watch with your kids
Trick-or-treating mode activated!
It can be fun to get into the spirit of annual celebrations so we’re rounded up the best family and kids’ movies to get you into the Halloween vibe.
Whether you have little ones and fancy something cute like Tiny Toons, dog lovers who will settle in for Spooky Buddies or if your kids are a bit older and will love Scooby-Doo or classic Ghostbusters, we have some Halloween movies for every age* and stage.
*Based on age ratings from Common Sense Media
Spooky Buddies (age 6+)
In 1937, Sheriff Jim and others from the town of Fernfield set off to the manor of Warwick the Warlock. Warwick has kidnapped five puppies so he can sacrifice them to the Halloween Hound, an evil hellhound who can open a portal to ghosts but only if he has the souls of five puppies of the same blood.
Tiny Toon Adventures: Night Ghoulery (age 5+)
The baby versions of your favourite Loony Toons characters star in pint-sized parodies of Halloween movies and stories.
Stories include ‘Night of the Living Dull’, ‘A Gremlin on the Wing’, ‘The Devil Dog on the Moors’ and ‘Sneezer the Sneezing Ghost’.
Madagascar: A Little Wild – A Fangtastic Halloween (age 5+)
After hearing rumours about a new resident – a bat, Marty is determined to protect his friends. When the bat helps him out, Marty learns not to judge someone before getting to know them.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (age 7+)
The Pumpkin King of Halloweentown, Jack Skellington is bored of the same old annual event.
Stumbling across Christmastown’s fun and colours, Jack wants to take over the festive season and plots to kidnap Santa and pass himself off in the role. Needless to say things don’t quite go to plan…
This classic Tim Burton animation is a mix of visual brilliance, musical theatre and gothic fairytales.
Coco (age 7+)
An aspiring young guitar player, whose family has a classic hate for music, tries to find answers of his great Grandfather, which leads his search to his entrance to Tierra De Muertos, where all dead people get to live if they are remembered well.
Phantom of the Megaplex (age 7+)
Teenager Pete Riley lands a part-time job at a multiplex and he and his friends are stoked to learn the theatre will host a movie premier starring a number of Hollywood celebrities. However, when the big night comes, Pete’s staff disappear, equipment breaks down and chaos ensues…
The Wizards of Waverly Place: the Movie (age 7+)
A young wizard conjures a spell that puts her family in jeopardy. When Alex ruins a family vacation by accidentally casting a horrible spell on her loved ones, Max works overtime to keep his parents from separating while Alex and Justin seek out the ‘Stone of Dreams’ in a desperate race to reverse the curse.
Hotel Transylvania (age 7+)
When Jonathan – a lowly human – stumbles across Hotel Transylvania, the home of Count Dracula (Adam Sandler), the otherworldy vampires and creatures try to play it cool. And all is well until Jonathan (Andy Samberg) meets and falls for the count’s daughter, Mavis (Selene Gomez)
Dracula does his best (or worst) to keep the two apart but you can’t stand in the way of young love…
Twitches (age 8+)
Magical twin sisters are separated at birth by their protectors, when the Darkness attacks their homeland and kills their father.
Brought up in very different lifestyles, on her 21st birthday – Halloween – Camryn (Tamera Mowry) and her friend, Beth, go shopping, while Alex (Tia Mowry) goes looking for a job. At the store the twins ‘meet’ for the first time.
The Darkness comes for them again and the twins combine their powers to defeat it.
Mary and the Witch’s Flower (age 8+)
Mary follows a cat into a forest and discovers an old broomstick and the strange Fly-by-Night flower, a rare plant that blossoms once every seven years. Together, the flower and the broomstick whisk Mary above the clouds, and far away to a school of magic – Endor College – run by Madam Mumblechook and Doctor Dee. But there are terrible things happening at the school, and when Mary tells a lie, she must risk her life to try and set things right.
Harvie and the Magic Museum (age 8+)
Harvie is a smart but a bit too lively boy with one ambition, to finish the last level of his computer game. Once in the Gamers Hall of Fame, his absent-minded father, would finally be proud of him. But finishing the game turns out to be only the start of a real adventure that takes Harvie, his dog Jerry, and his friend Monica deep into the forgotten realms of the city’s old puppet museum.
Frankenweenie (age 9+)
When a boy’s beloved dog passes away suddenly, he attempts to bring the animal back to life through a powerful science experiment. When young Victor’s pet dog Sparky (who stars in Victor’s home-made monster movies) is hit by a car, Victor decides to bring him back to life the only way he knows how.
Hocus Pocus (age 10+)
Teenager Max is a newcomer to Salem and accidentally causes three witches – the Sanderson sisters – who have been dead for 300 years to come back to life.
Starring Better Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy as the withces who steal the lives of children, they have one night to secure their future.
Max, his girlfriend and also his sister have to save the town from the witches – and they have a 300-year-old cat to help them!
Scooby-Doo: The Movie (age 10+)
Part-animated (Sccoby!) and part live action, Scooby-Doo: The Movie sees the gang come back together on the mysteriously named Spooky Island after having split two years earlier.
The pesky kids realise that they need each other to solve the mysteries on the island and that their lives haven’t been quite the same since they went their separate ways.
Starring Matthew Lillard (Shaggy), Linda Cardellini (Velma – also in Dead to Me), Isla Fisher (Mary Jane) and husband and wife duo Freddie Prinze Jnr (Fred) and Sarah Michelle Gellar (Daphne), this is a fun movie for older kids and young-at-heart parents.
Jumanji (age 10+)
A unique and dangerous board game – Jumanji – catapults a teen boy into a forest of a mythical land where he stays for nearly three decades
Twenty-eight years after he disappeared into the game, Alan Parrish (Robin Williams) re-emerges as two orphaned siblings (Kirsten Dunst and Bradley Pierce) play the game.
Packed with various threats such as a stampede of rhinos, it’s up to Alan and the kids to battle the foe in a bid to escpare from the game.
Ghostbusters (age 11+)
A team of scientists (Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray) lose their jobs at a university in New York and decide to become ‘ghost busters’ instead. The newbies somehow open a portal to evil and unleash all kinds of ghosts on the city – creating real work for Ghostbusters.
