<p>So, I was talking with my younger son the other day, and I made a reference to Forrest Gump. He had no idea what I was talking about (he’s 15). I made him rent the movie immediately, and he watched it and loved it. This got me to thinking…</p>
<p>What movies have our kids missed? I mean, we all saw movies in the 70s, 80s and 90s that we loved and were huge hits. When they are on TV, my kids flip right them because they are “old”. They have no idea what they are.</p>
<p>Which movies from your youth would you want your kids to see?</p>
<p>“Tootsie” is one of my all-time favorites. We watched it together a year or so ago and my kids loved it. D and I also love “Dirty Dancing”. I have bought a copy of “Breaking Away”, but we haven’t watched it yet.</p>
<p>Forest Gump is not one I would have picked
my kids have loved Some Like it Hot and The Lady Vanishes ( not really from my " youth" but great films- certainly more deserving of a 2nd or 3rd viewing than The Love Bug or Love Story)
Oh they * have* seen Monty Python.
;).</p>
<p>Wow, I probably could come up with a very long list. Most of these I have watched with my kids. Besides the two you mention, off the top of my head:</p>
<p>Young Frankenstein, Psycho (they thought it was “lame” at the beginning because it was in black and white, but were cowering in fear by the end!), Rocky, One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest, The Shining, Poltergeist, Grease, Dirty Dancing, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Gone With the Wind, It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story…I’m sure I can think of more, but I’d like to read others’ suggestions.</p>
<p>I convinced S to rent “Airplane” for a birthday sleepover party when he was about 14 or 15 (the movie was about 20 years old then), and they all laughed themselves silly. Great male adolescent humor.</p>
<p>But usually I have a very hard time convincing my kids to rent any of my favorites (I’ve been pushing Chariots of Fire for years to no avail.) They’d rather watch any direct-to-video piece of junk than something “old”. I’ll spy something on the Blockbuster shelf and start waxing rhapsodic about how great it is, and all I’ll get is an eyeroll. One exception: S completely appreciates the genius of Woody Allen (though D finds his movies totally boring).</p>
<p>Off the top of my head, the family favorites are The Shawshank Redemption, Goodfellas, Some Like it Hot, Annie Hall, Do the Right Thing, and American Graffiti.</p>
<p>My son (age 16) and his friends have been having movie nights for the last several months and one of the surprise choices was Mary Poppins because the majority had not seen it! Most of the boys were the third child in the family and I guess the older kids were tired of it when they came of age. They were all impressed with the visual effects.</p>
<p>This is the same director that made the movie Lawrence of Arabia, which is a movie my daughter claimed her professor said Steven Spielberg watched five times before he made any movie.</p>
<p>Since I am very old, lots of movies mentioned here are in my youth. Two that my kids liked a lot that weren’t already mentioned are A Hard Day’s Night and The Black Stallion. Batllo, I love your comment about My Cousin Vinnie. We can watch that and A Christmas Story over and over. We live in the area where A Christmas story takes place.</p>
<p>The Princess Bride, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Sound of Music, Casablanca, Coming to America, Beetlejuice, The Breakfast Club, Pretty Woman, Trading Places</p>
<p>My kids are major classic movie buffs. I don’t think there are as many wonderful movies from the 60s, when I was a kid, as there are from Hollywood’s golden age (1930s-1950s), or from the 70s. “The Great Escape,” “Dr. Zhivago,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and “Butch Cassidy” are probably the ones my kids like most from the 60s (I can’t get them to like "Dr. Strangelove " no matter how I try). I’ll second most of the films listed so far, though “Dirty Dancing” has never done it for me.</p>
<p>When d1 was a freshman in college, she discovered that none of her hallmates had ever heard of “Singing in the Rain.” She made them watch it that night and had so much fun seeing them discover it. We’ve had great fun introducing our kids to our favorite movies. We like Billy Wilder, Hitchcock, Humphrey Bogart, anything with Fred Astaire or Cary Grant (well, who doesn’t?). Here’s a movie from my mother’s youth that my kids love, as do I: “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” </p>
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Watch it tonight!!! A wonderful movie, my favorite sports film.</p>
<p>We made our kids watch the Fred MacMurray version of Flubber (or was it the Love Bug?) before we would allow them to watch the Robin Williams version. BOTH liked the old black and white better!</p>
<p>Chariots of Fire is one we also had them watch.</p>
<p>Frazzled, thank you for mentioning Butch Cassidy!
We made our daughter watch Gone With The Wind because we thought it provided an important historical note. Then for something completely different, we had her watch the Monty Python movies. She then went on a Marilyn jag and watched Some Like it Hot and Seven-Year Itch.
Chariots of Fire is okay, but the 1981/82 movies I preferred were Reds and Gallipoli.
What about Amadeus?
Once the kids get to college age, they need to watch Animal House.</p>
<p>Roman Holiday, Caine Mutiny, Lilies of the Field, Waking Ned Devine, Blues Brothers, African Queen, Bridge Over the River Kwai…there are so many. One summer, my youngest d and I took one night a week and rented a classic movie. It was a blast! If she is ever home again in the summer, we’ll have to do it again.</p>
Our rule has been that you must watch the first half-hour. If you hate it after that (or have fallen asleep) you may leave. They’ve seen so many movies that I couldn’t possibly list them all, but they are well versed in many of the AFI Top 100: <a href=“