The Best Halloween Movies for Kids - Your Everyday Family

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It can be hard to find movies to watch with your kids at Halloween! But it’s not impossible. Here’s a list of the best Kid Halloween movies that have all the spooky without the scary!

I really love Halloween! However, I’m not really into anything too scary. I don’t watch scary movies and I don’t go to Haunted Houses anymore. They have made those way to realistic and horrifying these days!

When I was a teenager, Haunted Houses were more like spook alleys, not like being in a horror film. I figured if I was getting nightmares from a haunted a house, it was time to be done!

Anyway, when it comes to spooky movies, I veer towards the kid and family friendly shows. These are some of our favorite Halloween movies for kids, including some old throw backs. “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” has been a family favorite for years-it combines humor with some fun spookiness and kooky music. And “The Worst Witch” is a classic in my book, even if it is dated!

There are some fun Halloween cartoon specials and some highly rated films. As always, watch anything with caution with the kiddos. Some, like my son, are extra sensitive so be sure the gauge their ability to handle scary situations before watching anything.

Here are our favorite Kid Halloween movies (in no particular order):

1. Toy Story of Terror

What starts out as a fun road trip for the Toy Story gang takes an unexpected turn for the worse when the trip detours to a roadside motel. After one of the toys goes missing, the others find themselves caught up in a mysterious sequence of events that must be solved before they all suffer the same fate in this Toy Story OF TERROR! — (C) ABC

Rating: NR

Genre: Animation , Kids & Family

Runtime: 22 minutes

Studio: Disney Pixar

2. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Ichabod and Mr. Toad is a two-part Walt Disney cartoon feature based on a pair of well known stories. The first half of the film is an adaptation of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, all about gawky 17th century schoolteacher Ichabod Crane and his love for the beautiful Katrina. The girl’s vengeful ex-beau Brom Bones decides to scare Ichabod out of Sleepy Hollow by filling the impressionable teacher’s brain with stories about the ghostly Headless Horseman–who of course makes an appearance that very night! The second half of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is based on the “Toad of Toad Hall” stories from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind and the Willows. The aristocratic but childish Mr. Toad loves motorcars, but his affection leads him to a jail term when he is accused of stealing an automobile. It’s up to Toad’s faithful friends to break Toad out of jail and expose the real crooks. One of Disney’s better “omnibus” cartoon features, Ichabod and Mr. Toad is enhanced by the narrative skills of Bing Crosby in the Ichabod segment and Basil Rathbone in the Mr. Toad sequence.

Rating: G

Genre: Animation , Classics , Kids & Family , Science Fiction & Fantasy

Runtime: 68 minutes

Studio: Walt Disney Productions

3. Hocus Pocus

The people of Salem capture and execute three witches for practicing witchcraft. Before their deaths, they vow to return to Salem 300 years on Halloween to exact their revenge. Three hundred years later, a skeptical, newly transplanted Californian, Max, explores the ruins of the legendary witches house and dares the witches to manifest themselves. Disregarding the warnings of his sister and girlfriend, Max lights the Candle of Black Flame. With that, the witches reappear to wreak havoc on the town. The kids take off with the witches spellbook. The sorceresses, who will die by the morning light if they don’t recite the incantation for immortality, have to get the books by whatever means they can.

Rating: PG (for some scary sequences, and for language)

Genre: Comedy , Kids & Family , Science Fiction & Fantasy

Runtime: 95 minutes

Studio: Buena Vista Pictures

4. It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

This animated production features Charlie Brown and his friends. It’s Halloween again, and everyone goes trick-or-treating except for Linus. He will wait for the Great Pumpkin again.

Rating: NR

Genre: Animation , Kids & Family

Runtime: 25 minutes

Studio: Paramount Pictures

5. Halloweentown

In this chiller, a young woman discovers that she, like her ancestors, is a witch. Using her newfound powers, she takes on the evil being that has been tormenting her family for ages.

Rating: NR

Genre: Comedy , Kids & Family , Science Fiction & Fantasy

Runtime: 90 minutes

Studio: Singer/White Productions

6. What’s New Scooby Doo?

Super-scooberific sleuthing has led you to treasure: the very first season of What’s New Scooby-Doo? Enjoy all 13 episodes of spoofy silliness and monstrous mystery with the crime-busting Mystery Inc. gang. From scary snowboarding in “There’s No Creature Like Snow Creature” to the season finale “The Unnatural,” Season One features the guest voices of real-life baseball greats Mike Piazza and Luis Santiago. As Scooby-Doo fans know, popular stars often lend their vocal talents in such takeoffs as Riva Ras Regas (co-starring teen pop singer Lindsay Pagano) and American pop idol JC Chasez from super group *NSYNC. But everyone knows who the biggest heartthrob of the show is really…who else? Scooby-Doo!

7. The Ghost and Mr. Chicken

Luther Heggs (Don Knotts) is a typesetter at a newspaper who longs for a chance to be a reporter. Editor Beckett (Dick Sargent) gives Luther his big break and assigns him to spend the night in a house generally considered to be haunted. The situation allows a broad canvas for Knotts to react to sight gags with the special brand of eye-popping nervousness that made him a star. Former Playboy Bunny Joan Staley plays the pretty girlfriend of star reporter Ollie Skip Homeier.

Rating: G

Genre: Classics , Comedy , Kids & Family , Mystery & Suspense

Runtime: 90 minutes

Studio: Universal

8. Casper

Based on the popular cartoon character, this family-oriented “ghost story” is about a not-so-scary spirit who bonds with a little girl (Christina Ricci). The eternally irritable Ms. Carrigan (Cathy Moriarty) discovers that the only thing she’s been left in her recently departed father’s will is a rickety old house in New England. Naturally, the woman is furious about this, until her “close personal friend” and assistant, Dibbs (Eric Idle of Monty Python fame), discovers a secret message that a treasure may be concealed somewhere in the house. The two take off for Maine, only to learn that the house is haunted by Casper “the friendly ghost” and his three ghostly uncles Stinky, Stretch, and Fatso. After futilely recruiting an exorcist (Don Novello, more or less reviving his Father Guido Sarducci character from Saturday Night Live) and a “professional ghost exterminator” (Dan Aykroyd), she brings in a “ghost psychiatrist” (Bill Pullman) and his daughter Kat (Ricci). Innocently attracted to the young girl, Casper befriends Kat as they try to save the ghosts’ home from the evil Carrigan. Eye-popping special effects highlight this magical story that touches (albeit lightly) on the theme of what lies at the heart of human desires. Clint Eastwood, Rodney Dangerfield, Mel Gibson and The Crypt Keeper (of Tales from the Crypt) all make cameos as apparitions in the mirror Bill Pullman looks into in the house.

Rating: PG (for mild language and thematic elements)

Genre: Drama , Kids & Family , Science Fiction & Fantasy

Runtime: 101 minutes

Studio: Universal Pictures

9. Curious George Halloween Boofest

Hang on to your hats and get ready for a spook-tacular good time, with Curious George — in his first-ever, full-length Halloween movie. Autumn is here, bringing colorful leaves, hay rides, pumpkin patches, and the annual Boo Festival. After hearing about a legendary scarecrow who steals hats, the inquisitive monkey and his friends set out to find him. By the time he gets to the festival, George realizes that it’s not always easy to pick the perfect pumpkin, and that winning the prize for Best Costume may be as difficult as catching the mysterious scarecrow. Curious George: A Halloween Boo Fest— it’s a bewitching treat for the whole family!

10. The Nightmare Before Christmas

Despite having recently presided over a very successful Halloween, Jack Skellington, aka the Pumpkin King, is bored with his job and feels that life in Halloweenland lacks meaning. Then he stumbles upon Christmastown and promptly decides to make the Yuletide his own.

Rating: PG (for some scary images.)

Genre: Animation , Kids & Family , Science Fiction & Fantasy

Runtime: 76 minutes

Studio: Touchstone Pictures

11. The Haunted Mansion

Realtor Jim Evers and his wife and business partner Sara get a call late one night from mansion owner Edward Gracey, who is looking to sell his property. Smelling the biggest deal of their career, Jim, Sara and their two children pay a visit to the mansion, located on a remote bayou. A torrential thunderstorm of mysterious origin strands the Evers family in the old mansion with the brooding, eccentric Gracey, his mysterious butler, Ramsley, and a variety of residents both seen and unseen. At first Jim scoffs at Gracey’s stories about ghosts and hauntings, until he unearths the mystery of the mansion and finds that his wife Sara has unexpected connections to its haunted past.

Rating: PG (for frightening images, thematic elements and language)

Genre: Comedy , Horror , Kids & Family , Mystery & Suspense , Science Fiction & Fantasy

Runtime: 88 minutes

Studio: Buena Vista Pictures

12. Monster House

A suburban home has become physically animated by a vengeful human soul looking to stir up trouble from beyond the grave, and it’s up to three adventurous kids from the neighborhood to do battle with the structural golem in this comically frightful tale, directed by Gil Kenan and featuring the voices of Steve Buscemi, Nick Cannon, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Kevin James. DJ Harvard (voice of Mitchel Musso) lives directly across the street from a most unusual house. A malevolent entity that longs to feed on the energy of the living, the once peaceful house that looms ominously outside of DJ’s bedroom window would like nothing more than the chance to feast on the children of the neighborhood. As Halloween begins to draw near and the children of the neighborhood prepare for another long night of trick-or-treating, it appears as if it may be the house that is in for the biggest treat of all. Now, with the adults turning a deaf ear to DJ’s strange findings, it’s up to the brave young boy and his faithful friends Chowder (voice of Sam Lerner) and Jenny (Spencer Locke) to break through the barrier of the supernatural and defeat the powers of darkness before the house grows too powerful to fight.

Rating: PG (for scary images and sequences, thematic elements, some crude humor and brief language)

Genre: Action & Adventure , Animation , Kids & Family

Runtime: 91 minutes

Studio: Sony Pictures Releasing

13. Hotel Transylvania

Welcome to the Hotel Transylvania, Dracula’s (Adam Sandler) lavish five-stake resort, where monsters and their families can live it up, free to be the monsters they are without humans to bother them. On one special weekend, Dracula has invited some of the world’s most famous monsters–Frankenstein and his bride, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, a family of werewolves, and more–to celebrate his daughter Mavis’s 118th birthday. For Drac, catering to all of these legendary monsters is no problem–but his world could come crashing down when one ordinary guy stumbles on the hotel and takes a shine to Mavis. — (C) Sony

Rating: PG (for some rude humor, action and scary images)

Genre: Animation , Comedy , Kids & Family

Runtime: 91 minutes

Studio: Sony Pictures

14. Frankenweenie

From creative genius Tim Burton comes Frankenweenie, a heartwarming tale about a boy and his dog. After unexpectedly losing his beloved dog Sparky, young Victor harnesses the power of science to bring his best friend back to life-with just a few minor adjustments. He tries to hide his home-sewn creation, but when Sparky gets out, Victor’s fellow students, teachers and the entire town all learn that getting a new “leash on life” can be monstrous. A stop-motion animated film, Frankenweenie will be filmed in black and white and rendered in 3D, which will elevate the classic style to a whole new experience. — (C) Disney

Rating: PG (for thematic elements, scary images and action)

Genre: Animation , Comedy , Horror , Science Fiction & Fantasy

Runtime: 90 minutes

Studio: Walt Disney Pictures

15. Coraline

Coraline Jones is a girl of 11 who is feisty, curious, and adventurous beyond her years. She and her parents have just relocated from Michigan to Oregon. Missing her friends and finding her parents to be distracted by their work, Coraline tries to find some excitement in her new environment. Coraline seriously doubts that her new home can provide anything truly intriguing to her, but it does; she uncovers a secret door in the house. Walking through the door and then venturing through an eerie passageway, she discovers an alternate version of her life and existence.

Rating: PG (for thematic elements, scary images, some language and suggestive humor)

Genre: Action & Adventure , Animation , Kids & Family , Science Fiction & Fantasy

Runtime: 101 minutes

Studio: Focus Features

16. Mickey’s House of Villains

When some of cartoonland’s biggest bad guys show up to make trouble, it’s up to Mickey Mouse and his pals to set things right in this direct-to-video animated adventure. Mickey (voice of Wayne Allwine) and his pals, including Donald Duck (voice of Tony Anselmo), Goofy (voice of Bill Farmer), and Minnie Mouse (voice of Russi Taylor), are relaxing at Mickey’s house, looking back at some of their past exploits, when a number of villains they’ve tangled with before — including Captain Hook (voice of Corey Burton), Cruella De Ville (voice of Susan Blakeslee), Jafar (voice of Jonathan Freeman), Hades (voice of James Woods), and more — appear en masse, determined to take over the House of Mikey in the name of evildoers everywhere. Mickey’s House of Villains contains many clips from classic Disney cartoons of the past, re-edited to fit the film’s new storyline.

Rating: NR

Genre: Animation , Kids & Family

Runtime: 70 minutes

17. Twitches

18. Shrek’s Thrilling Tales

19. The Worst Witch

20. The Witches

21. Are You Afraid of the Dark?

22. The Dog Who Saved Halloween

23. Beetlejuice: A Halloween Spooktacular

24. Thomas & Friends: Thomas’ Halloween Adventures

25. Bugs Bunny’s Howl-oween Special

26. Disney’s Tower of Terror

27. Little Monsters

28. ParaNorman

29. Pirates of the Caribbean

30. Hotel Transylvania 2

The hit CG-animated family comedy Hotel Transylvania gets a follow-up with this Sony Pictures Animation production.

Rating: PG (for some scary images, action and rude humor)

Genre: Animation

Runtime: 89 minutes

Studio: Sony Pictures

31. Goosebumps

Upset about moving from a big city to a small town, teenager Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) finds a silver lining when he meets the beautiful girl, Hannah (Odeya Rush), living right next door. But every silver lining has a cloud, and Zach’s comes when he learns that Hannah has a mysterious dad who is revealed to be R. L. Stine (Jack Black), the author of the bestselling Goosebumps series. It turns out that there is a reason why Stine is so strange… he is a prisoner of his own imagination – the monsters that his books made famous are real, and Stine protects his readers by keeping them locked up in their books. When Zach unintentionally unleashes the monsters from their manuscripts and they begin to terrorize the town, it’s suddenly up to Stine, Zach, and Hannah to get all of them back in the books where they belong. Note: Scholastic has sold over 400 million Goosebumps books worldwide in 32 languages since the series introduction in 1992, earning critical acclaim and dominating global best seller lists. R.L. Stine has been recognized as one of the bestselling children’s authors in history. (c) Sony

Rating: PG (for scary and intense creature action and images, and for some rude humor)

Genre: Horror , Kids & Family , Mystery & Suspense

Runtime: 103 minutes

Studio: Sony Pictures

32. The Book of Life

THE BOOK OF LIFE, a vibrant fantasy-adventure, tells the legend of Manolo, a conflicted hero and dreamer who sets off on an epic quest through magical, mythical and wondrous worlds in order to rescue his one true love and defend his village. (c) Fox

Rating: PG (for mild action, rude humor, some thematic elements and brief scary images)

Genre: Animation , Romance

Runtime: 95 minutes

Studio: 20th Century Fox

32. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Wallace and his loyal dog, Gromit, set out to discover the mystery behind the garden sabotage that plagues their village and threatens the annual giant vegetable growing contest.

Rating: G

Genre: Action & Adventure , Animation , Comedy , Kids & Family

Runtime: 94 minutes

Studio: Dreamworks

For our family, there are two classics that we always watch in October.

Harry Potter, the Complete 8-Film Collection

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

We actually watch this every October. It’s been a tradition for about 9 years now. We call it “Ring Fest” and we spread it over a couple of weeks with food, music, and each person takes a turn holding the ring. We have so much fun with it!

I will continue to add movies as we find them and as they come out and as I find them. I am surprised by how many movies are good for families at Halloween! What are your family’s favorite Halloween movies for kids?