Online Reporter
Family movies are having a ginormous year. The top five box office hits have all been kid-friendly capers of different stripes, from the blocky mayhem of Minecraft to the alien mayhem of Lilo & Stitch and fantasy adventure of How To Train Your Dragon.
And the biggest of all of them you may not have even heard of – unless you’ve been in China.
Because the holidays are long and children’s attention spans are short, we’ve assembled a definitive list of 2025’s family-friendly fare worth its salt (okay, sugar) – and ranked it by how likely it is to keep all of the family entertained, not just little Billy. Sorry, Billy.
Best new family movies of 2025
11. Gabby’s Dollhouse:
The Movie
Not one of those Pixar-y animations that strains to entertain parents as well as kids, this TV-to-movie upscale for the kitten-positive shrinking tween (Laila Lockhart Kraner) has little to offer the oldies but will be pure candyfloss for anyone under 10. Youngsters get dance-along opportunities, sugary vibes, a likeable heroine and a candy-coloured world they’ll already know and love as Gabby heads to Cat Francisco to retrieve her dollhouse from Kristen Wiig’s hissable cat lady. Grown-ups may want to vacate the living room for 90 minutes.
10. Disney’s Snow White
The live-action update of Disney’s first animated classic boasts a committed musical turn from Rachel Zegler in the title role and a fun, campy Gal Gadot Evil Queen. The seven dwarves are admittedly less successful, but the love story and the moral – it’s important to lead with kindness – have had a welcome glow-up.
9. Paddington in Peru
The first two live-action Paddington movies are some of the best family films of all-time. The third… less so, but not so much that it isn’t still a warm, fuzzy good time. In this chapter, everyone’s favourite marmalade-loving ursine, along with his adopted British family, returns home to the jungles of Peru in search of his Aunt Lucy. Also featuring the always-delightful Olivia Colman as a Julie Andrews-ish nun. What’s not to like?
8. How to Train Your Dragon
If you’ve seen the animated version, there’s not too much in this live action origin story to surprise or astound. Nevertheless, props to returning director Dean DeBlois for injecting a load of fresh heart and plenty of vertigo-inducing aerial sequences as Hiccup (Mason Thames) and his scaly pal Toothless prove their worth to a village of sceptical Vikings.
7. Karate Kid: Legends
This fun martial arts caper sees Chinese teen Li Fong (likeable newcomer Ben Yang) move to New York and tutor a former boxer (Joshua Jackson) in kung fu in a clever role reversal, before both original Karate Kid Ralph Macchio and remake star Jackie Chan turn up. Cue nostalgic fun and gentle teasing between the older men,
6. Jurassic World Rebirth
‘Do we really need more Jurassic Park sequels?’ Dude, do you hear yourself? Complaining about having too many movies where dinosaurs run amok on mankind? Sure, some are worse than others, but the most recent reboot easily leapfrogs all the Chris Pratt ones, and has at least a small but recognisable strand of the Steven Spielberg original in its DNA. Warning: probably not one for the younger kids. Again, sorry little Billy.
5. A Minecraft Movie
Old-head critics were somehow dumbfounded when a movie based on the most popular video game of all-time, starring the ever-bankable Jack Black, turned out to be a massive hit. Whatever you think of the juvenile humour, eye-searing colour palette and Jack Blackness of it all, it’s maybe the first Gen Z event picture not tied to a previous generation’s IP. Parents won’t understand any of it – which is another big selling point, come to think of it.
4. The Bad Guys 2
The first Bad Guys was a sleeper hit, a kiddie heist flick starring anthropomorphic animals attempting to go straight full of references to classic crime movies only adults would recognise. The inevitable sequel is also a hoot, with a classic ‘one last job’ scenario involving the original gang and a new all-female crew of furry, feathered thieves, led by a raven with the unmistakable voice of Natasha Lyonne.
3. K-Pop Demon Hunters
This year, Korean culture is big, big, big. Adults have had the final season of Squid Game, while kids have relished this enormously popular Korean animation – and we think they might have had the better deal. The story follows K-pop girl band Huntr/x who use their pop bangers to protect humans from demons who masquerade as boy bands and other nefarious entities. It’s Netflix’s most-watched animation ever, with a Billboard topping chart hit in ‘Golden’ and rumours of an Oscar Best Song bid. Expect many sequels.
2. Lilo & Stitch
If you’re surprised by how well this live-action remake of the 2002 Disney flick did at the box office, you clearly weren’t a kid at the turn of the millennium, when the animated original became the zoomer version of the House of Mouse’s Renaissance-era classics. Like all of the company’s recent remakes, it mostly just ports the same story over – in this case, that of a lonely Hawaiian girl who befriends a blue, puppy-like alien – but unlike many of them, it loses far less charm in the translation.
1. Flow
Movies without dialogue are a tough sell for kids, we know, but this one is an exception. A talkless movie that says so much, Latvian animation genius Gints Zilbalodis’s Oscar winner is The Incredible Journey by way of Studio Ghibli. A cat, labrador, secretarybird, capybara and lemur float through an unexplained flood and across a watery landscape full of mystery and wonder. Not just the most magical family film of the year but one of the movies of the year full stop, Flow is worth pushing the boat out for on streaming. — https://www.timeout.com/
