The Best Family and Kids Movies on Hulu

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While Hulu is certainly home to some adrenaline-pumping action films and a bevy of innovative indies, the streaming service also boasts a solid selection of family movies—if you know where to look. Luckily we’ve combed through the Hulu library to pick out the best of the best when it comes to family and kids viewing options, from animated features to family friendly blockbusters to even somewhat offbeat choices that might just become your kids’ new favorite movie.

Peruse our selection below of the best family movies on Hulu right now. And for even more recommendations, check out our main list of the best movies on Hulu.

 

Rango

 

Image via Paramount Pictures

Director: Gore Verbinski

Writer: John Logan

Cast: Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Ned Beatty, Alfred Molina, Bill NIghy, Stephen Root, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, and Timothy Olyphant

After filmmaker Gore Verbinski completed production on the insanely ambitious Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, he took his unique sensibilities to the animation realm to craft this underrated gem. Rango revolves around a pet chameleon who finds himself stranded in the town of Dirt, which is in dire straights and in desperate need of a new sheriff. The film is a hilarious and wistful ode to the Western genre that’s also absolutely gorgeous to look at—Roger Deakins served as cinematographer. It’s sure to please both your kids (it’s very silly and juggles themes of dress-up and make-believe) and you (it’s quite sophisticated!) at the same time. – Adam Chitwood

 

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

 

Image via Dreamworks Animation

Writer/Director: Dean DeBlois

Cast: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Craig Ferguson, F. Murray Abraham

The How to Train Your Dragon trilogy comes to a bittersweet conclusion with How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. The final entry in the best series produced by DreamWorks Animation has Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and Toothless facing off against Night Fury hunter Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham), but the real conflict is with Hiccup wrestling with what leadership means and what he’s prepared to sacrifice to protect both his people and the dragons. The Hidden World is about the hard choices we face with growing up and falling into the gulf of what we want to happen and what needs to happen. Paired with gorgeous animation and another rousing score from John Powell, The Hidden World is a fond farewell to a lovely story. – Matt Goldberg

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

 

Image via The Orchard

Director / Writer: Taika Waititi

Cast: Sam Neill, Julian Dennison

Before Taika Waititi made waves in the superhero realm with Thor: Ragnarok, he crafted a lovely and hilarious family film called Hunt for the Wilderpeople. The movie feels something like an adaptation of a lost Roald Dahl novel as the New Zealand-set story follows a young boy named Ricky Baker (Dennison), who is taken in by foster parents to help out on their farm. Though he starts to connect with the more overtly loving “Aunt” Bella (Rima Te Wiata), he ends up spending most of the movie with “Uncle” Hector (Neill), as part of a mutual and begrudging acceptance that they need each other more than they care to admit. Wild adventure, shenanigans, and tons of dry humor ensue. This movie is a delight. – Adam Chitwood

 

Missing Link

 

Image via Annapurna Pictures

Director/Writer: Chris Butler

Cast: Hugh Jackman, Zach Galifianakis, and Zoe Saldana

The folks at LAIKA have made a habit of lifting up the artform of stop-motion animation, and their 2019 film Missing Link is their most commercial effort yet. This buddy comedy takes place in the 1880s and follows a struggling mystical creatures investigator named Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) who stumbles upon a talking sasquatch named Mr. Link (Zach Galifianakis) in the Pacific Northwest. When Mr. Link claims his relatives are Yetis in the Himalayas, Sir Lionel Frost agrees to accompany the sasquatch on a globe-trotting adventure to find his long-lost family. The film is gorgeous and silly and big-hearted, as it’s really a story about found family and friendship. – Adam Chitwood

Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!

 

Image via 20th Century Fox

Directors: Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino

Writers: Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio

Cast: Jim Carrey, Steve Carell, Will Arnett, Seth Rogen, Isla Fisher, Amy Poehler, and Carol Burnett

One of the more underrated animated films in recent memory, Blue Sky Studios’ adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who! is an absolute gem. First and foremost, Jim Carrey is in peak form as Horton the Elephant, a lonely guy who discovers he can hear an entire town full of people—Whoville—on a speck. Nobody believes him, of course, and he struggles to keep the speck safe, while the Mayor of Whoville (Steve Carell) speaks with this ominous voice who we know to be Horton. This movie is fun and colorful and actually quite funny, and definitely not a bad way to spend 80 minutes. – Adam Chitwood

 

Instant Family

 

Image via Paramount

Director: Sean Anders

Writers: Sean Anders and John Morris

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne, Isabela Merced, Gustavo Escobar, Julianna Gamiz, Octavia Spencer, and Tig Notaro.

Don’t be fooled by the milquetoast marketing: Instant Family is a movie that will honestly pull at your heartstrings and still make you laugh with some edgy humor. Based off the experiences of director and foster parent Sean Anders, the movie follows married couple Pete (Mark Wahlberg) and Ellie (Rose Byrne) who decide they need to pull themselves out of a rut by fostering three children. What makes Instant Family work so well is that it doesn’t shy away from how hard fostering can be and how hard parenting can be. And yet it never becomes so in love with its own message that it can’t make time for some sharp jokes and observations. It’s a magnificent balancing act that also brings awareness of fostering to a more mainstream audience. – Matt Goldberg

Chicken Run

 

Image via Aardman Animations/DreamWorks

Directors: Peter Lord and Nick Park

Writer: Karey Kirkpatrick

Cast: Phil Daniels, Lynn Ferguson, Mel Gibson, Miranda Richardson, Timothy Spall, and Imelda Staunton

An oldie but a goodie, Aardman Animations’ stop-motion animated film Chicken Run took audiences and critics by storm when it hit theaters in 2000, and it still holds up as a rollicking adventure today. The story takes place on a chicken farm where a group of chickens look to a cocksure rooster named Rocky (Mel Gibson) as their only hope of escaping from being turned into chicken pies by their owners. It’s a prison break movie that’s also a full-on comedy adventure, and it’s tons of fun. – Adam Chitwood

 

The Prince of Egypt

 

Image via DreamWorks Animation

Directors: Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells

Writer: Philip LaZebnik

Cast: Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, Steve Martin, and Martin Short

The reason why Prince of Egypt isn’t a bigger film have nothing to do with the quality of the film, since the movie is excellent. The problem is that it awkwardly landed in the space when animated movies were moving from 2D to 3D (and 2D movie released after Toy Story had a hell of a battle) and the hype was at the level of The Lion King, which probably set an unreachable bar. But taken on its own merits, The Prince of Egypt is a lovely film that wonderfully tells the Exodus story of Moses (Val Kilmer), who must turn against his adopted brother Ramses (Ralph Fiennes) by demanding the freedom of the Jewish people. Filled with great music and stunning animation, it’s worth giving The Prince of Egypt a second chance. – Matt Goldberg

Spider-Man

 

Image via Sony Pictures

Director: Sam Raimi

Writer: David Koepp

Cast: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Willem Dafoe, Cliff Robertson, and Rosemary Harris

If your kids are a little bit older (maybe pre-teen and up) and can handle a bit more intensity, why not show them one of the most influential superhero movies of all time? Director Sam Raimi’s 2002 film Spider-Man is responsible for setting off the box office boom of superhero movies in the 21st century, and it’s not hard to see why. This colorful yet grounded take on the character really hones in on the teen life of Peter Parker without the “gritty” tone that surrounded the later Andrew Garfield movies. It’s fun and thrilling but not too scary (save for a few Green Goblin scenes), and it should enrapture kids today the same way it did kids back in the early 2000s. – Adam Chitwood

 

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

 

Image via Sony Pictures Animation

Director: Peter Lord

Writer: Gideon Defoe

Cast: Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Imelda Staunton, Martin Freeman, and Jeremy Piven

Another great Aardman Animations feature available on Hulu is The Pirates! Band of Misfits, which is an incredibly silly romp that is sure to have your kids in stitches. The folks behind Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run tackle pirates on the high seas in the 1800s to wonderful results. The story revolves around a ragtag group of amateur pirates with no hopes of winning the “Pirate of the Year” competition, so instead they decide to disguise themselves as scientists and scheme to win the “Scientist of the Year” competition. See? Very silly indeed. – Adam Chitwood

Bumblebee

 

Image via Paramount

Director: Travis Knight

Writer: Christina Hodson

Cast: Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendenborg Jr., Pamela Adlon, Jason Drucker, Angela Bassett, Justin Theroux

After six installments of all-out Bayhem, the Transformers franchise got a revamped spinoff from LAIKA boss Travis Knight with Bumblebee and it’s charming as all get-out, giving everyone’s favorite sweetheart Autobot his own solo adventure with a retro flourish. Hailee Steinfeld stars a teenage grease monkey in the 80s, who’s desperate for her own car and happens to wind up in the possession of one decommissioned Bumblebee. Naturally, the pair set out on a mission to save the world when some pesky Decepticons come into play, along with a hyperpatriotic agent (the always welcome John Cena) who wants the otherwordly menace gone. Heavily riffing on the Amblin films of the era its set in, Bumblebee is sweet as could be, with a healthy balance of well-constructed action scenes to keep the Transformers spirit alive. — Haleigh Foutch