The best kids Halloween movies that the whole family will love

Everyone loves Halloween, but if you had to live it every day, it’d surely get pretty tiresome after a while – even for the Pumpkin King himself. Jack Skellington might be the most respected spook in Halloween Town, but the demands of the gig are starting to get him down. What’s a bag of besuited bones to do when faced with an existential crisis? In Jack’s case, he hatches a plot to appropriate a different, far jollier holiday – with disastrous results. Tim Burton and Henry Selick’s stop-motion masterpiece contains some images that may be pretty intense for the target demographic, but Danny Elfman’s insidiously catchy songs are as sweet as candy-corn. Rated PG.

Features: spooky animation

The first film from stop-motion wizards Laika adapts Neil Gaiman’s book to delightfully twisted effect, creating a tactile alternative universe for a young girl who crawls into a hole in the wall and discovers a button-eyed version of her family hiding a sinister agenda beneath a pile of sweets. The visuals are wholly unnerving, particularly the final form of Other Mother, but there’s enough whimsy present to keep things light in between the scares. Rated PG. 

Features: witches, magic

Marnie Piper (Kimberly J. Brown) is toughing it out in a household that can’t stand Halloween, but little does she know she’ll soon be living out every tween’s dream: She’s actually a witch and has magical powers. After overhearing a conversation between her mother and grandmother, Marnie sets off to see for herself if Halloweentown is real—and boy is it ever! But remember that whole “with great power comes great responsibility” thing? It’s the truth, and Marnie (alongside her brother and little sister) encounters more trouble than she bargained for. Rated TV-G.

Features: spooky animation, monster rabbits

After a run of acclaimed shorts, Aardman Studios’ beloved stop-motion duo made their feature-length debut in this lovably daft horror parody. When cheese-devouring inventor Wallace and his trusty dog Gromit start a pest control business, they get much more than they bargain for when they’re hired to exterminate a giant rabbit devouring a town’s vegetable crops. The references to classic horror films will likely fly over youngsters’ heads, but the sheer goofiness will have them laughing all the same. Rated G.

Features: ghosts, kids in peril

Sometimes, seeing dead people isn’t such a bad thing – at least, not when the apparition is everyone’s favourite friendly ghost. In this surprisingly star-studded live-action adaptation of the popular children’s cartoon, a young Christina Ricci – the go-to actor for anything that qualified as ‘gently spooky’ in the ’90s – befriends the amiable spirit, who haunts a rickety house in Maine that may contain hidden treasure. Bill Pullman, Eric Idle and Dan Aykroyd also star, with cameos from Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, Rodney Dangerfield and even Casper’s direct supernatural opposite, Tales From the Crypt’s Crypt-Keeper. Rated PG.

Features: monsters, death

Young Victor Frankenstein is unpopular at school, so when his dog (and best friend) Sparky dies in an accident, he does what any brainy boy would do, and brings him back to life. This moody and beautiful black-and-white film could only come from the mind of Tim Burton–it's actually the feature-length remake of a short from 1984–and it's filled with strange creatures and oddball humans. The stellar cast includes Winona Ryder, Martin Landau, Catherine O'Hara and Martin Short. It's silly, but it's also fairly dark, and better suited to older kids. Rated PG.

Features: spooky animation

Victor is having a difficult time getting his vows straight‚ which is naturally problematic for his bride to be. While reciting his promises of love and devotion, Victor accidentally proposes to another bride...a dead one at that. Whoops! Try explaining that one, pal! In this charmingly eerie Tim Burton film, a groom with cold feet is pulled into the underworld by an enthusiastic deceased bride and learns quite a bit in the process. Equally endearing, heartbreaking and creepy, Corpse Bride is a must when Halloween rolls around. Rated PG.

Features: aliens, kids in peril

When Elliott finds an alien hiding in his mom’s tool shed, a friendship blossoms into something truly–ahem–out of this world. With the help of his siblings, he keeps E.T. a secret, but it’s hard to keep the creature safe with government agents sniffing him out. You’ll overlook some slightly salty banter to allow your pint-size crew the joy of giggling when Elliott dresses E.T. as a ghost to sneak him out of the house on Halloween, and you’re sure to say “awww” when young Drew Barrymore comes onscreen. Oh, and a final fun fact: Steven Spielberg’s character E.T. is actually inspired by an imaginary friend he had as a child. Rated PG.

Features: monsters, kids in peril

‘Children’s movies’ were defined a bit loosely in the ’80s. Among the several puppet-intensive fantasy flicks of the era seemingly designed to traumatise its target demographic, this Jim Henson-directed feature is probably the most purely fun – but it’s still plenty freaky, sending a young Jennifer Connelly on an adventure through a fantastical realm full of dwarves, horned giants and fart bogs in order to rescue her baby brother from Jareth, the evil (and, played by David Bowie, uber-glam) Goblin King. Rated PG.

Features: ghosts, monsters, spooky animation

One house on the street is not like the others, and teenager DJ knows it. Unfortunately, it’s harder than expected for him to convince the police and his babysitter that their neighbor’s home is actually a living, breathing monster. DJ and his friends must embark on a crazy adventure in hopes of saving the people the house has eaten (and ideally destroying it afterward). Anxiety-prone kids should pass on this one, but young horror fans will dig this film for its relatable characters and heartwarming ending. Rated PG.

Features: witches, monsters, death

Dorothy’s journey over the rainbow has been enchanting children for generations, while also freaking them the heck out. Need we remind you about the flying monkeys? Of course not — they’ve been haunting your dreams for decades. And the puddlefication of the Wicked Witch probably hits different post-Wicked. (Let’s not even get into the urban myths surrounding the film.) While not as aggressively traumatising as Disney’s 1980s pseudo-sequel (see Best for Tweens), MGM probably still owes the audience billions in therapy bills. Rated PG.

Features: monsters, spooky animation

Rewind to Gomez and Morticia's nuptials, a spooky affair that caused an uproar from neighbors and forced them to leave town. The newlyweds' new horrific hometown of choice? Jersey. Fast forward a few years to the Addams clan as we know it: Now, Pugsley is preparing for a family ceremony that'll prove he's an adult, Wednesday is insisting on attending junior high and an HGTV-like interior designer with a big personality—and bigger hair—is starting to realize that the Addams' mansion doesn't fit in with her blueprint for the perfect town. See what unfolds for the creepy, kooky family in this animated adaptation. Rated PG.

Features: witches, zombies, kids in peril

A little boy named Lewis is shipped off to live with his magic-practicing uncle in a spooky old house that makes an unusual ‘tick-tock’ sound. Somehow the youngster manages to awaken the dead and unleashes mayhem on a once-quiet town. Starring Jack Black and Cate Blanchett, the whimsical film was directed by notorious gorehound Eli Roth, of all people, but don't go in expecting Hostel for kids: This is very much a ripping kid-lit yarn void of real menace. Rated PG.

Features: ghosts

Jim Evers (Eddie Murphy) didn't mean to bring his work on vacation with him. It just sort of happened! When the realtor plans to take his family on vacation, he is asked to stop at a creepy-looking home he's to sell. The visit becomes a debacle when he realizes the humble abode is haunted and the spirits need his help. The film is based on a Disneyland ride, and will soon be re-booted with Owen Wilson set to look very frightened. Rated PG. 

Features: ghosts

Before he became Sooby Doo, the world-famous canine sleuth, he was young Scoob (voiced by Frank Welker), a Great Dane pup who had yet to meet Shaggy, Fred, Daphne and Velma. This animated origin story starts with—what else?—a ghostly mystery, but eventually ditches the spooks for what's essentially an attempt to kickstart a Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe. That's a bummer for anyone looking for some Halloween zoinks, but the kids will get a kick out of Blue Falcon and Captain Caveman nonetheless. Rated PG.

Features: monsters 

The more things change, the more timeless the humour of Abbott and Costello feels. Same goes for the classic Universal movie monsters. In this first team-up that spawned a franchise, the slapstick duo are dimwitted railway porters whose discovery of some suspicious cargo bring them into contact with one Count Dracula – who happens to be in the market for a new brain for his buddy, Frankenstein. Not rated.

Features: witches

What makes a better Halloween movie than three evil witches? Head to the 1600s, where Sanderson sisters (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy) cast a spell that killed a little girl and turned her brother into an immortal black cat. Then, fast forward to the '90s and meet Max Dennison, who just moved from Los Angeles to Salem, Mass, with his parents and his little sister. He’ll do anything to impress his cute neighbor, Allison, who just so happens to have access to the old Sanderson House. He even lights the Black Flame Candle, which as legend has it, will bring back the Sanderson sisters—and does! Make sure to check out the 2022 sequel, too. Rated PG.

Features: witches, kids in peril

Krysten Ritter embraces her witchy side in this tween-centric twist on the anthology film: She plays an inner-city enchantress who traps a boy in her apartment and demands a fresh scary story every night. This is a film in the Are You Afraid of the Dark? mold – a funhouse flick that doles out generous scares without hand-holding, yet never plunges its audience into total darkness. Rated TV-PG.

Features: witchcraft, monsters, kids in peril

First, let your kids read the books. Then, let them watch these films, as literature's greatest child wizards come to life in the fantastical world of muggles, monsters and mystics created by J.K. Rowling. Fact is that Harry Potter is now a cultural touchstone, and these vivid stories deal with loss and heartache as well as friendship and overcoming adversity. Besides, the magic is really cool. You should note that this eight-film series grows progressively darker: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) is suitable for seven-year-olds, but the two-part Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010 and 2011) is better saved for older kids. Rated PG and PG-13.

Features: zombies

Norman Babcock sees dead people, and he’s pretty fine with that, considering they treat him quite a bit better than the living ones do. But when an ancient curse causes the dead to rise, this horror-loving misfit is the only person who can save his hometown from a full-on zombie apocalypse. Animation house Laika’s second stop-motion feature (after the fab and freaky Coraline) is more madcap than macabre, but it’s a fun, funny supernatural caper that serves as an excellent gateway to bigger scares for the burgeoning lil’ horror fiend in your life. Rated PG.

Features: monsters

Being reunited with loved ones is always exciting, but something is a bit...strange about Uncle Fester's homecoming (even for his standards). The entire kooky clan begins to pick up on his unusual ways, and soon everyone suspects this man isn't the Addams he claims to be. We must ask, “Will the real Uncle Fester please stand up?” Rated PG-13.

Features: monsters, kids in peril

The House of Mouse was built on the formula of taking the grim out of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, so it’s ironic that when Disney had the opportunity to produce a sequel to one of the most beloved family films of all-time, it turned out a gothic nightmare much closer to author L Frank Baum’s vision than the MGM original. Set shortly after the events of the first film, Dorothy (cat-eyed Fairuza Balk) is called back to the titular land of Technicolor whimsy, only to find it reduced to a dystopian wasteland populated by creatures that’d make Sid and Marty Krofft retire to a farm upstate. Rated PG.

Features: spiders, jump scares, supernatural horror

A dark oddity from the brief period in which the Mouse House ditched princesses for lite horror (see also, The Watcher in the Woods), this Ray Bradbury adaptation proved that Disney was into dark carnivals way before the Juggalos showed up. Jonathan Pryce is the ringmaster pulling the strings here, and while the adventure unfolds from a kids-eye-view, this is solid entry-level terror for horror-curious youngsters. Rated PG.

Features: monsters, werewolves, mummies, vampires, kids in peril

Not to be mistaken for Netflix’s very-R-rated take on Fear Street, Goosebumps adapts RL Stine’s other, younger-skewing book series as a much more whimsical tale. Essentially Jumanji with monsters – and with Jack Black taking over Robin Williams’ manic mantle – the film sees the monsters from Stine’s books running rampant across town, with a rag-tag group of kids forced to keep the deranged dummies, werewolves, mummies, vampires and horsemen at bay. Rated PG.

Features: monsters

As it turns out, Uncle Fester is sitting on some serious cash. His worth has garnered the attention of the Black Widow, a money-hungry woman who will stop at nothing to get a man's wealth—even if it means killing him. (Which she's done many times.) She goes undercover and attempts to pose as Wednesday, Pugsley and newbie Pubert's babysitter while sinking her teeth into Gomez's beloved brother. The results? A crazy summer camp, new faces and the usual creepy, kooky fun... but not for Debbie the Black Widow. Rated PG-13. 

Features: witches, body horror, kids in peril

Don’t Look Now’s Nicolas Roeg, of all people, directed this skin-shedding tale of a boy turned into a mouse and hunted by a coven led by Anjelica Huston. The Roald Dahl adaptation is plenty cute, but also manages to be a creepy introduction to the wonders of body horror. A Robert Zemeckis-directed remake hit HBO Max in 2020 with Anne Hathaway in the lead, and while it’s a lesser film, it’s a lot more palatable for younger kids with witchy urges. Rated PG. 

Features: monsters, kids behaving badly

A movie about a kid who befriends the blue-skinned monster that sneaks into his room at night, you say? Sounds familiar. We’re not saying Pixar ripped off this snot-nosed tween comedy when they made Monsters, Inc., just that there are some striking similarities. Of course, there are differences, too: we don’t recall Sulley ever peeing in a bottle of apple juice, or putting plastic wrap over a toilet seat. Anyway, if you were an eight-year-old in 1989, you sort of hoped to look under your bed one night and find a horned prankster with the voice of Howie Mandel, and were always a little bummed when it didn’t happen. Rated PG.

Features: kids in peril

In yet another Netflix effort, Adam Sandler employs another of his signature high-larious accents to play Hubie Dubois, an extremely nice and deeply anal-retentive resident of Salem, Massachusetts, who takes it upon himself to make sure Halloween is celebrated safely and sanely. So you can imagine how he reacts when, one year, kids mysteriously start disappearing around the time an escaped psychiatric patient arrives in town. Yes, Sandler in funny-voices mode is a bit of an acquired taste, but the kids’ll love it. Rated PG-13.

Features: kids in peril

A babysitting gig on Halloween? That's a horror movie in and of itself. A high schooler is forced to watch her baby bro when her mom jets on the spookiest night of the year, forcing her to miss a huge Halloween bash. Things get even worse when she ventures out and loses her brother in a sea of trick or treaters. Will she be able to spot him in the crowd, and perhaps get to the party after all? Rated PG-13.

Features: ghosts, demons, monsters, scary images, innuendo

The long-awaited sequel inevitably disappointed, but that won’t stop generations of emerging goths from discovering Tim Burton’s giddily macabre original. Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis are a newly-dead couple forced to employ the services of Michael Keaton’s titular supernatural huckster to scare off the annoying family threatening to move into their old house. Some elements may be a little much for young audiences, but Burton builds a paranormal world spooky kids of any age would want to live in – or at least visit. Rated PG.

Features: ghosts, scary images, jump scares, kids in peril

Once you watch this film it's hard to forget, especially if you're introduced to it as a kid. Um, hello, those decomposed bodies in the pool? #NOPE. We’ll state right up front that this movie definitely terrifies little kids. However, when the time is right you can introduce it to your older kids, tweens and teens, who will rate it as an instant classic—you’ll love seeing it through their eyes. (Don't bother with the remake from 2015.) No need to summarize a plot you already know, but if you need to jar your memory, how about this: “They're he-ere.” Rated PG.

Features: spiders, jump scares

Spiders are creepy, sure, but are they truly horrifying? Well, what if they were big, poisonous and – gasp! – from South America? And what if they suddenly started running rampant over your small American town? Arachnophobia seizes on a common fear and rides it for all it’s worth. But don’t worry, there are just as many laughs as scares, mostly courtesy of John Goodman as an exterminator who suddenly finds himself employed as a monster killer. Rated PG-13.

Features: monsters, jump scares, innuendo

In the 1980s, kids who’d long abandoned picking up after the puppy they begged for knew all the rules to owning a mogwai, the nattering little hamsters in Joe Dante’s Christmas-themed creature feature: no light, no water and absolutely no food after midnight. What happens if you don’t follow the instructions? Let’s just say those cute critters get significantly less cuddly — and prone to sexually harassing Phoebe Cates. (It was the ’80s.) Rated PG.

Burgeoning goth girls of the ’90s embraced this teen drama about a coven of adolescent witches as a sacred text, and no wonder: who could make casting spells while wearing black lipstick look cooler than Fairuza Balk and Neve Campbell? Its rating precludes the littlest kids from watching, but it’s far less frightening than, say, Poltergeist, and probably has less innuendo than Beetlejuice. Just don’t be surprised if your 13-year-old suddenly starts wearing a spiked choker and listening to The Cure a lot once it’s over. Rated R.

Features: ghosts, monsters, innuendo

Three spirit-obsessed scientists are canned from their jobs at NYU, but they don’t let that get ’em down; instead, they put their talents to good use. Using their passion for the occult as a driving force, they start a ghost-extermination company to help New Yorkers handle some very real ghost troubles. Ultimately the unlikely team helps to save the city from an ancient god. Be warned: It’s not quite rated for the current day. Rated PG.

Features: monsters, ghosts, scary images, jump scares

Need more evidence that children’s entertainment in the ’80s and ’90s was a conspiracy to drive an entire generation into therapy? Allow us to submit the Scary Stories book series: collections of spooky folk tales accompanied by illustrations so horrifying a death metal band would think twice about putting them on an album cover. Not only do director André Øvredal and writer-producer Guillermo del Toro adapt the most famously freaky of those stories, they maintain the look of Stephen Gammell’s unsettling (but totally friggin’ awesome) artwork and bring it to life. Hey, if we had to grow up traumatised, so do you, kid. Rated PG-13.

Features: vampires, werewolves, mummies, Frankenstein, Gill-Man, innuendo, kids in peril

When an ancient prophecy opens up a portal allowing a multiverse of classic movie monsters to terrorise the real world, it’s up to a group of horror-loving tweens to send them back to the Universal backlot from whence they came. Boasting a script co-written by Lethal Weapon scribe Shane Black, this marginally scary cult comedy threads a tight needle between silly and corny that should entertain pre-teens and cynical high schoolers alike. Certainly, everyone will enjoy learning that, when it comes to physical vulnerability, the Wolfman is still a ‘man’ after all. Rated PG-13.

Features: killer plants, death, innuendo, dentistry

In an attempt to stoke business at his struggling flower shop, Seymour Krelborn (Rick Moranis) purchases a rare plant of mysterious origin, which he names after his girlfriend, Audrey. His plan goes awry, however, as ‘Audrey II’ begins growing, talking and then demanding human flesh for sustenance. Little Shop of Horrors existed at first as a Roger Corman curio, then as a Broadway musical. But it reached full flower (ahem) with this lavish, all-star film version, which includes several hilariously deranged musical numbers, a great Steve Martin performance as a sadistic dentist and a tremendous visualisation of Audrey herself from director and Muppets alum Frank Oz. Rated PG-13.

Features: scary images

This candy-colored dark comedy is now a horror classic, the film that launched the career of Tim Burton and turned Johnny Depp into a movie star. It's probably more stylized than you remember: those houses, those dresses, those stilted conversations. It's also probably more cruel—Edward has a rough time of it. This is a film to watch with your older kids and tweens. Rated PG-13.

Features: killer tomatoes, death

By the end of the 1970s, movie audiences had seen every monster imaginable… or so they thought. Behold: murderous fruit! Absurdly silly, this Z-grade cult classic couldn’t scare even the most veggie-phobic toddler, but it’s still tons of ridiculous fun and free of gore – unless you count splatters of ketchup and tomato innards. Make sure to check out the sequel, too, and keep your eyes peeled for a young man who looks suspiciously like George Clooney. Rated PG.