Hi all. The small children in my house are getting bigger. My wife and I were discussing films to watch with them that aren’t kids films, that are more “Cinema”.

Any tips for good art/“proper films” that are mature but would help them understand film as an art as well as entertainment?

Context, mine are 11-13 and fine with fantasy violence and scary stuff.

When our kids were that age, more or less, during the Covid lockdown, we did a big cinema project, wherein we made a list of 30-some movies and watched them over time. We didn’t get through every single movie, but they had so much fun that they asked us to do a second, similar list a couple years later. Here are the movies from those projects (or outside of them) that resonated with the kids the most, in roughly chronological order (with stars next to the ones we watched when they were in the 12-13-year-old range):

A Trip to the Moon*
Un Chien Andalou*
Sherlock, Jr
Sunrise
City Lights*
Duck Soup*
Rififi
Roman Holiday*
Night of the Hunter*
It’s a Wonderful Life*
Singin’ in the Rain*
Sunset Boulevard*
Rear Window
The Apartment
Psycho*
The Conversation*
The Straight Story*
Let the Right One In*
Parasite

Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and The Godfather didn’t land as well, because they required too much context. The kids were split on Night of the Living Dead. Neither liked The Red Shoes, and His Girl Friday was way too fast-paced for them to follow. All four of us hated the Tati movie we watched. (I fundamentally don’t get the appeal of him; it’s like Buster Keaton minus everything good.) And they enjoyed (at a very young age) The Passion of Joan of Arc to a point; after an hour, they started to lose interest.

If I think of more, I’ll let you know.

Some more thoughts . . .

With Chaplin, The Circus might be a good starting point. It’s not his most brilliant movie, but it’s his funniest.

The shorts “One Week” or “The Goat” might also be better starting points for Buster Keaton. And while you’re doing shorts, some of the Fatty Arbuckle ones are excellent.

Both kids liked Ugetsu more that we would’ve expected, though they were older by that time.

I can immediately tell this thread is not for me.

My kids could quote most of Mallrats by the time they were 12.

Watch films with slow pacing. 70s films come to mind. The Conversation maybe. My son surprisingly loved The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which is slow as fuck. Just watch films you like that you think are appropriate for their maturity. Show them films that don't give everything away...that make them think.

Highly bookmarkable content from FM Wood Goblin.

Possible candidates now or within the next year or two off the top of my head:

The 400 Blows

Down by Law

The Outsiders

Ivan's Childhood

Ashik Kerib

Alice in the Cities

Le Havre

The Other Side of Hope

Tschick (loved the book, haven't seen the movie, but it's Fatih Akin, can't be that bad)

BFI Education: 50 films to see by age 15

Thanks folks. Great tips.

My partner worked for Berlinale Generation (youth section) for years.
They do great programming, films that don't pander and take kids seriously.

You could always search here on the Berlinale award winners archive page by section (and country etc) if you want, to see past award winners.
The link below is filtered to only show youth section award winners, for example.
Do your kids have Brazilian roots too? I seem to remember this. You might be able to filter here for Brazil, Portugal etc. and get some interesting leads, or just pick countries they're interested in in general.
Of course, you'd have to find the films streaming somewhere. Kanopy and Hoopla can be pretty good for this.

https://www.berlinale.de/en/archive/awa ... /p=1/rp=40

Classic short films with subs can also be a good way to get them into watching foreign language stuff if they are not used to it.

I remember 11-12 being the age of the big questions, where do we come from, is there life out there in the universe, and so on, and 2001 A Space Odissey being a life changer in that sense.

Also, Doctor Strangelove, if you want to show them some more Kubrick.