Your responses to my request for family-friendly entertainment were overwhelming. Thank you all.

At first I intended on vetting the list and commenting on the various titles, but there were far too many. And so, you'll have to look into these yourselves prior to viewing. Imdb.com seems to be a useful resource for that. I've also appended a useful comment at the end.

Here's the list, in no particular order:

The Astronaut Farmer

The Andy Griffith Show

Leave it to Beaver

Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood

Daniel Tiger (pre-school)

Heartland

Touched by an Angel

The Shack

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

The Sound of Music

Smile of a child

Davey and Goliath

Masha and Medved (Masha and the Bear)

Fiksiki (Fixers)

Zig and Sharko

Larva

The Waltons

The Caine Mutiny (Particularly the ending. For older kids.)

The Brady Bunch

The Courtship of Eddie's Father

Captain Kangaroo

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

The Donna Reed Show

You Can't Take It With You

It's A Wonderful Life

Kiri and Lou

Soul

Coco

WALL-E

Encanto

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

Odd squad

Nature Cats

Zootopia

The Goonies

Moana

Pingu

Hidden Figures

Big Fish

Bankruptcy of Little Jack

Dreamer (2005)

Tyson's Run

City Lights

The Secret of NIMH

Fiddler on the Roof

Chariots of Fire

Cosby Show

Avatar the Last Airbender (the TV show, not the movie)

Where the Lillies Bloom (1974)

Sweetgrass

Toy Story

Wreck-it Ralph

Inside Out

Sarah & Duck

Puffin Rock

Tumble Leaf

Tales of Peter Rabbit

Madeline

Shaun The Sheep

The Gruffalo

Stick Man

Room on the Broom

Peter Rabbit

Brambly Hedge

Greyfriars Bobby: The True Story of A Dog (1961)

Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009)

Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940)

Young Tom Edison (1940)

Edison the Man (1940)

The Story of Alexander Graham Bell (1939)

Madame Curie (1944)

The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936)

The Magic Box (1951)

Sergeant York (1941)

Blossoms in the Dust (1941)

Carbine Williams (1952)

Houdini (1953)

The Benny Goodman Story (1956)

The Man of a Thousand Faces (1957)

The Great Imposter (1961)

The Miracle Worker (1962)

Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)

Mister Roberts (1955)

A Pull on the Heart Strings

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

The Shop Around Corner (1940)

The Biscuit Eater (1940)

Penny Serenade (1941)

How Green Was My Valley (1941)

National Velvet (1945)

The Yearling (1946)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Marty (1955)

Pittsburgh (1942)

Stranger in Town (1943)

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

Family Ties

Boys' Town (1938)

White Banners (1938)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)

Great Expectations (1946)

Life With Father (1947)

I Remember Mama (1948)

Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)

Old Yeller (1957)

Swiss Family Robinson (1960)

The Bishop's Wife

Arrowsmith (1931)

San Francisco (1936)

Hurricane (1937)

Captains Courageous (1937)

Citizen Kane (1941)

Night Train to Munich (1940)

King's Row (1941)

To Be or Not to Be (1942)

A Night to Remember (1943)

Lost Weekend (1945)

Anna and the King of Siam (1946)

The Winslow Boy (1948)

All My Sons (1948)

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

The Next Voice You Hear (1950)

People Will Talk (1951)

O. Henry's Full House (1952)

Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)

The Quiet Man (1952)

Titanic (1953)

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

Sherlock Holmes (1942–46)

Saboteur (1942)

Double Indemnity (1944)

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Fate is the Hunter (1964)

The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

Treasure Island (1934, 1950, 1989)

Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942)

My Man Godfrey (1936)

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

Pygmalion (1938)

My Favorite Wife (1940)

Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)

Sullivan's Travels (1941)

Arsenic and Old Lace (1942)

Mr. Lucky (1943)

Dear Ruth (1947)

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948)

It Happens Every Spring (1949)

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Harvey (1950)

The Man in the White Suit (1951)

Angels in the Outfield (1951)

Rhubarb (1951)

The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)

The Kid from Left Field (1953)

Babe (1995)

Knute Rockne–All-American (1940)

The Pride of the Yankees (1942)

The Jackie Robinson Story (1950)

Jim Thorpe–All-American (1951)

Follow the Sun (1951)

The Pride of St. Louis (1952)

The Bob Mathias Story (1954)

Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)

Running Brave (1983)

Hoosiers (1986)

Pistol: The Birth of a Legend (1991)

When Worlds Collide (1951)

Forbidden Planet (1956)

The Time Machine (1960)

The Invisible Man (1933)

Mysterious Island (1961)

Mighty Joe Young (1949)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)

This Island Earth (1955)

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Gulliver's Travels (1939)

Lady and the Tramp

Dumbo

Winnie the Pooh

The Velveteen Rabbit

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The Brave Little Toaster

Children of Heaven

The Red Balloon

**

At first, we just read to them. Then we started using audiobooks, especially when driving on long trips, or when they needed entertaining while we were busy. THEY called this "watching movies", and generally preferred it to "real" movies, because they got to imagine everything just as they thought it should be, rather than having some director's vision forced on them.

Some suggestions for audiobook series that they (and our whole family) loved:

The Hermux Tantamoq series by Michael Hoeye

Swallows and Amazons, by Arthur Ransome (some of these might be "too scary", but not most of them)

When the kids were a bit older, classic Young Adult Sci-Fi from the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. Robert Heinlein, E.E Doc Smith, H. Beam Piper (Little Fuzzy was a HUGE favorite), etc.

**

Paul Rosenberg

freemansperspective.com