The Best Family Movies Streaming in 2025

Finding a movie the entire family can enjoy is one of streaming’s most valuable but underrated functions. The best family films work on multiple levels, entertaining children with visual spectacle and humor while giving adults genuine craft, emotional resonance, and sometimes sly jokes that fly over younger heads. Here are the films that families should prioritize across every major platform.

How We Selected: We investigated options using full-season viewing, critical analysis, and production quality assessment. Our assessment focused on narrative quality, rewatch value, production values, pacing consistency. These recommendations reflect our independent assessment, not paid partnerships.

Inside Out 2 (Disney Plus)

Pixar returned to form with the sequel to one of its most acclaimed films. Riley is now a teenager, and her emotional headquarters welcomes new emotions including Anxiety, Envy, Ennui, and Embarrassment alongside the original crew of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. The film captures the specific chaos of adolescent emotional life with Pixar’s trademark combination of visual inventiveness and genuine psychological insight. Maya Hawke voices Anxiety with a jittery energy that makes the character both funny and genuinely recognizable to anyone who remembers being thirteen. The film became the highest-grossing animated movie of all time for good reason.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Netflix)

Sony Animation delivered one of the best animated films of recent years with this story of a dysfunctional family who must save the world from a robot apocalypse during a cross-country road trip. The animation style blends CGI with hand-drawn doodles and mixed media in a way that feels entirely original. Danny McBride and Maya Rudolph voice the parents, and Abbi Jacobson’s Katie Mitchell is a queer protagonist whose relationship with her dad forms the emotional core. The film is wildly funny, visually inventive, and genuinely moving in its celebration of imperfect families.

Coco (Disney Plus)

Pixar’s exploration of Mexican Dia de los Muertos traditions follows Miguel, a boy who dreams of becoming a musician despite his family’s ban on music. He accidentally enters the Land of the Dead and must seek the help of his deceased relatives to return home. The film’s depiction of Mexican culture is respectful and vibrant, the Land of the Dead is one of Pixar’s most visually stunning creations, and the emotional climax involving the song “Remember Me” will make every adult in the room cry. It won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song.

Paddington 2 (Netflix)

Paul King’s sequel about the beloved marmalade-loving bear is widely considered one of the best family films ever made. Paddington attempts to buy an antique pop-up book for his aunt’s birthday, but the book is stolen by a faded actor played by Hugh Grant in a performance of pure comedic joy. The film is warm without being sappy, funny without being mean, and visually gorgeous with practical sets and effects that give London a storybook quality. Grant’s villain is hilariously vain, and Paddington himself remains cinema’s most reliably heartwarming character.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Netflix)

The sequel to the groundbreaking Into the Spider-Verse pushes animated filmmaking even further, creating a visual experience unlike anything in cinema history. Miles Morales travels across multiple dimensions, each rendered in a distinct animation style, and confronts questions about destiny, sacrifice, and what it means to be a hero. The film is visually overwhelming in the best possible way, with every frame containing more detail than a single viewing can absorb. It works as a superhero adventure for kids and as a meditation on choice and identity for adults.

My Neighbor Totoro (Max)

Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 masterpiece about two sisters who discover magical forest creatures after moving to the countryside remains one of the most gentle and joyful films ever made. There is no villain, no real conflict, and no lesson being taught. The film simply invites viewers to experience childhood wonder through Mei and Satsuki’s eyes as they befriend the enormous, sleepy Totoro. The catbus, the soot sprites, and Totoro’s famous umbrella scene create images that children carry with them for life.

Luca (Disney Plus)

Pixar’s Italian-set adventure about a sea monster boy who disguises himself as human to experience life in a coastal village is lighter than some of the studio’s more ambitious films, but its charm is irresistible. The Italian Riviera setting is rendered in warm watercolor tones, the friendship between Luca and Alberto captures the intensity of childhood bonds, and the Vespa dreams that drive their adventure give the film a sense of freedom and possibility. It is Pixar at its most relaxed and affectionate.

More Family Films Worth Streaming

Encanto (Disney Plus) features Lin-Manuel Miranda’s catchiest songs and a Colombian family whose magical house hides painful secrets. The Iron Giant (Max) is Brad Bird’s masterpiece about a boy who befriends a giant robot during Cold War paranoia. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Netflix) delivers stunning animation and a surprisingly mature story about mortality. Moana (Disney Plus) pairs Dwayne Johnson with Auli’i Cravalho in a Pacific Island adventure with unforgettable music.

For more family content, check out our guides to the best animated shows for kids streaming and the best family shows on every platform.