5 Movies Your Kids Must See

1. The Muppet Movie (ages 3+)

Granted, it’s a selfish choice for me. “The Muppet Movie” is one of my favorite films of all time, and one of the very first I ever saw. And true, the Muppets have always had more to offer adults than kids. But the characters’ 1979 movie debut is so purely joyful and imaginative that you could do far worse than to expose children to it at an early age. They’ll love the songs and the felt tomfoolery, and they’ll learn lessons about friendship (they’ll also stare blankly at the celebrity cameos). But more than that, this is one of the great movies about dream chasing and the joy of doing it in fellowship with others. It’s a story that tells kids that “making millions of people happy” is a noble goal. And the film’s final lines (“life’s like movie, write your own ending, keep believing, keep pretending…”) is a great motto for life. Why not have kids dreaming big from the start?