Toddler movie recs

[hamster]

C (3) is getting enough attention span for movies. Every Disney movie seems to have some evil villain and he's just too sensitive for that still.

Does anybody have suggestions for movies that aren't "scary"?

Bonus points for Christmas movies because I buy the boys a Christmas movie for the season.

[isabel]

Cars

I think the new-ish cartoon Grinch is fantastic. I’ve never thought of it as scary.

[mbcdefg]

DD likes:

Follow that Bird
Finding Dory
The Great Muppet Caper
Muppets Take Manhattan
The Incredibles movies
The Princess and the Frog
Monsters Inc and Monsters University
Homeward Bound

[nellgirl]

Winnie the Pooh movies are pretty tame. My preschooler loves them. There’s a Christmas one. Also, Curious George is a hit here.

[kershnic]

Cinderella - some mild peril with the mice, but pretty tame overall
Mary Poppins

[AdaraMarie]

Nov 13, 2020 23:41:28 GMT -5 nellgirl said:

Winnie the Pooh movies are pretty tame. My preschooler loves them. There’s a Christmas one. Also, Curious George is a hit here.

I was going to reccomend Winnie the Pooh movies as well, there always seem to be some on Netflix and my kids liked them.

[fancynewbeesly]

My 2 year old LOVES Finding Nemo/Dory movies

Also the Great Pumpkin (so maybe try Charlie Brown's Christmas)

[hamster]

Nov 14, 2020 7:23:21 GMT -5 fancynewbeesly said:

My 2 year old LOVES Finding Nemo/Dory movies

Also the Great Pumpkin (so maybe try Charlie Brown's Christmas)

We tried Nemo yesterday but asked me to turn it off during one of the shark scenes.

I did Cb Christmas last year and he really liked it.

[dcn]

My kids liked the Curious George movies at that age.
Planes and planes fire and rescue
The new grinch is a good suggestion

[luv2rn4fun]

My boys love all the Cars, Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Finding Dory. We just watched Frozen and they both enjoyed that one too.

[macmars45]

Cars
Curious George

Honestly, shorter shows have still worked out better for my DS even now at 4.5. He loves Daniel Tiger and Bernstein Bears (both on Amazon Prime). Cory Carson on Netflix is good and I'll bet they made a Christmas episode as they did a Halloween episode.

ETA: we've tried toy story, but he lost interest quickly. He watched 101 Dalmatians with his cousins at 3 but I'm pretty sure that was only because his older cousin sat with him and he loves her.

[suzv]

My son loved Sing when he was around 2.5-3. Also loved Coco, Monsters, Inc, and Up.

[thoseareradishes]

E is 3.5 and likes Winnie the Pooh movies and Cars (the first and third ones are better than the second; the third one is my favorite).

[isabel]

I can’t believe people are suggesting Monsters Inc. It took me a long time to work up the nerve to show that to my kids, for fear they would have bad dreams. As it turned out, they loved it, but some of those scenes seem pretty scary to me for a young kid going to bed in a dark room.

[felicity]

At 3 we didn't really do any other Disney movies other than Cars. DS was way too sensitive to scary things and also would act like the bad guys when he was upset, so we really limited what he was allowed to watch. It was a lot of PBS Kids until at least 4.

[thebreakfastclub]

I wouldn't bother, but I put off movies as long as possible because I don't really want to watch them. There's plenty of other shorter things to watch.

[knx9211]

Nov 13, 2020 23:26:05 GMT -5 isabel said:

Cars

I think the new-ish cartoon Grinch is fantastic. I’ve never thought of it as scary.

Cars is great. And YES to the Benedict Cumberbatch Grinch movie. Our 3 year old loved it last year.

We also like Sing. Trolls has a villain but my kid has never been scared. He’s also not scared of that thing at the end of Moana and that thing is terrifying so I’m not sure he’s normal 😂

Right now we’re just watching 800 episodes in a row of Bluey. Best show ever.

[ellipses84]

Sing and Trolls are pretty happy, and if I’m going to watch/hear a movie a million times, I like those ones. With my kids it’s so hard to tell what will scare them vs. not. Like they will watch Star Wars and avengers just fine, but then be terrified by and have nightmares about some barely spooky preview for a kids show. DS2 says he’s scared a lot but he’s my brave, dramatic one and he likes being scared. Pixar is less scary than Disney but has its sad/scary moments, like Nemo’s mom dies and there’s a shark part, but if your kid loves sharks it wouldn’t bother them. All the various Pets movies are ok...I think a lot of the villains are other animals, so maybe less scary than scary people...

[nicolewi]

Three is still really little. You are right that most of the Disney classics are still really tough for young kids.

I also recommend doing shows. Kids love just watching kid shows and you get a lot of the fun at a good length for kids. My oldest is/was super sensitive about movies, so I am a good source of info! Princess & the Frog was mentioned...that's one of the LAST Disney movies I would try. For some reason, I found that one to be particularly creepy and really scary at the end with these evil shadow creatures in an old New Orleans cemetery with all the raised crypts. Tangled is an awesome movie for bigger kids, but also very creepy, and very scary for small kids with the concept of being kidnapped from their bed at night.

Some of the first ones we could watch were
--Cinderella is the tamest Disney movie, but still my daughter was really scared that the cat was going to eat the mice. We made it a "movie party" with her big cousins.
--Cars 1
--The Winnie the Pooh movie, BUT, it has a weird creepy montage in the middle that you might want to skip
--The Peanuts Movie is completely tame but also maybe way too slow for a 3 year old
--My daughter LOVED "The Sound of Music" around age 4. It was one of the first movies she really liked and we listened to that soundtrack ALL THE TIME.
--I personally like "Sleeping Beauty" a lot, and it's short and not too intense by today's standards, but the final battle with the dragon definitely is scary and needs a parent around. Kids can kind of half-watch/hide their face if they need to. ETA: There's all this talk about the old princesses not being great role models, etc, but this princess is really young and sheltered and naive, so what do you expect? That said, it's actually the FAIRIES who are the true heroes. They help the prince all along the way. So if you want or need to make that point someday, you could.  

Christmas:
--I also LOVE the new Grinch and I think that's a good idea. I really love that movie!
--My kids also love the original classic Grinch cartoon. My daughter watched it repeatedly one winter at age 3ish.
--There are some Disney classic Christmas shorts with Mickey, Donald, etc. that you could try. I haven't watched them all myself but they were usually on in the background for kids at our family Thanksgiving party.
--Charlie Brown Christmas
--Fancy Nancy--I think this is a highly underrated show. It's really good, every time I watch, and I love the animation of Nancy's house in different seasons. They have a really nice Christmas episode that made me cry (in a good way). Maybe I'm just super sappy, but I found it to be really touching. FYI it does not have any Santa spoilers but it dances around it a bit in that Nancy doesn't understand why her low-income friend isn't asking for a sparkly new bike for Christmas....that not everyone has the same options. It was fine for my kids and they didn't seem to question anything.
--Similarly, you can get a lot of mileage out of watching holiday episodes of other kid shows
--We have not seen these yet, but maybe the Trolls Holiday special and/or Olaf's Frozen Adventure could work.

[scm1011]

The only movie that DS (4) has ever sat and watched in its entirety is The Good Dinosaur, which I think is super sad and at times scary. So maybe not that? ha

He has watched snippets of Toy Story but loses interest after a stretch. I'm looking forward to going to Pixar movies with him when he gets a little older. For now, we unfortunately watch a lot of Blippi.

So, I'm no help lol.

[sandandsea]

DS2 likes the leap frog learning videos (Covid school) and the little people videos (the toys have their own short movies). These aren’t full length feature films but are entertaining for toddlers.

[boiler717]

Air Bud was one my son liked at that age, along with Super Buddies. Some of them have some “bad” guys — I forget which ones though.

[tarajane]

Tinkerbell movies!

[tiki]

Bolt was too scary
Lion King had parts that were too scary
The mean neighbor kid in Toy Story was too scary
The Little Mermaid is better as just the songs on youtube. Also less having to explain the weird plot that way. 
Beauty and the Beast (cartoon) was scary but DD (now 3) pushed through. The same story in live action was too scary.
The Dora The Explorer movie was great because our kid already liked the show
Bambi is good (the scary parts mostly go over little heads)
Mary Poppins turned out well but the beginning was S-L-O-W and there were many requests to turn it off before it got going
Frozen 1 is a recurring favorite

[waverly]

I’m not a fan of super young toddler movies like Winnie the Pooh, and DS was way to sensitive for Disney movies until maybe 8 lol. DD was not nearly as sensitive as he was.

We did more TV series Christmas specials at that age. Dinosaur Train had one and Daniel Tiger had some. I know our library had them with maybe 4 winter themed episodes per disc. I think there is a Thomas Christmas movie.

[tacom]

My 2 y/o loves:

Cars
Finding Nemo/Dory
Moana
Monsters Inc
Frozen

We watch about 30 min at a time and just pick up where we left off, rinse and repeat.

[sent]

For the longest time, the only movie DD would watch is Frozen. She was also sensitive to villains but she didn't understand the story lines in Cars and Finding Nemo and Toy Story to pay attention to them.

[grover]

The only movie DD would watch between ages 2 and 3 was Trolls. Now she's pingponging between both Trolls, Finding Nemo/Dory, Monsters INc & U., the 4 Toy Storys, Boss Baby, Incredibles and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse 2 part specials hahaha

Current favorites of the week/month are Boss Baby and Mickey. Though I realize most of the movies above will be scary for most kids. Mine are now 3.5 and twin 1.5 year olds and they all sit through boss baby and MM Clubhouse. THough My 3.5 year old is super special because she will sneak down to watch Supernatural episodes with us.

[cactuscookie]

The first movies we watched with our daughter were The Aristocats and Lady and the Tramp. There were a couple parts that scared her, but she powered through and ended up loving them.

[shauni27]

the good dinosaur and the training dragons movies are always hits with us, but he still gets a little sad or nervous/scared if we are not watching with him. Likewise with Monsters Inc and most Disney movies.

The ones he can watch without someone sitting with him are Finding Nemo/Dory, Frozen 1 and 2, Toy Story movies and the Incredibles movies. Oh and Moana, though the seat monster is a bit scary.

I would think Cars, but we started it a few times and he asked to turn it off. Same with Little Mermaid, Up and WallE.