The 8 Most Fun Kids Movies of the 1980s, Ranked
Sign in to your Collider account
The 1980s had a wonderfully loose idea of what children could handle. Parents disappeared for whole afternoons. Kids wandered into caves, befriended aliens, got shrunk smaller than breakfast cereal, flew spaceships without permission, and occasionally confronted enough nightmare fuel to keep the hallway light on for a week. The movies trusted young viewers with genuine danger, sadness, and weirdness, then gave them an adventure worth surviving.
That freedom is all over this ranking. These films never feel like adults carefully arranging approved fun for children. They feel closer to the stories kids invent themselves, where frightening things can be hilarious five minutes later and the impossible is accepted almost immediately. Some will make you laugh more now than they did at eight. Others still hit the exact childhood nerve they found forty years ago. Allow me to help you circle back.
8 'An American Tail' (1986)
An American Tail turns a frightening situation into an enormous child-sized journey through a city where every doorway seems to lead somewhere new. Fievel Mousekewitz (Phillip Glasser) hears that America has no cats, which sounds like excellent news when your family is made up of Russian-Jewish mice fleeing persecution. The promise lasts roughly until the Mousekewitzes reach New York and discover that, unfortunately, America has plenty of cats. Worse, Fievel gets separated from his family during the voyage.
Fievel is small enough that New York feels impossibly huge, but he never becomes helpless. He meets Tony Toponi (Pat Musick), the wonderfully dramatic Bridget (Cathianne Blore), and eventually joins a plan involving one gigantic mechanical mouse built to scare the cats away. The movie can get genuinely sad, especially whenever Fievel and his family narrowly miss each other, but it always keeps hope nearby. “Somewhere Out There” may have emotionally destroyed a few generations of children, yet the adventure around it remains warm, funny, and surprisingly lively.
7 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids' (1989)
This movie is exactly as chaotic as its title. Literally. Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis) invents a machine that can shrink objects. His children accidentally end up in front of it, get reduced to microscopic size, and are then swept into the garbage without anyone realizing what happened. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids takes an ordinary suburban backyard and suddenly makes it more dangerous than most fantasy worlds.
Grass becomes a forest. A sprinkler becomes deadly weather. A discarded cookie is enough food to celebrate finding civilization. The kids ride an ant they name Antie, dodge a scorpion, and spend half the movie trying to cross a distance their parents could cover in seconds. That scale is the whole pleasure because familiar objects become enormous without the movie needing to invent a magical kingdom. There is also something deeply satisfying about watching Wayne tear apart his own lawn searching for children he cannot even see. Every backyard looked slightly more adventurous after this movie.
6 'Flight of the Navigator' (1986)
David Freeman (Joey Cramer) falls into a ravine in 1978, climbs back out, and discovers that eight years have passed while he somehow has not aged a day. That is already a fantastic mystery for a kid. Flight of the Navigator then adds NASA, a gleaming alien spacecraft, a collection of strange extraterrestrial creatures, and a computer intelligence called Max (Paul Reubens) that slowly becomes much less serious than anyone expects.
The first half has a genuine eerie pull because David returns to a family that has lived eight years without him. Then he gets inside the ship and the movie opens up. Max scans his brain, David discovers why he disappeared, and suddenly this frightened kid is flying over America in something nobody on Earth can catch. Once Max starts picking up David’s personality, the whole thing gets sillier in exactly the right way. Few childhood fantasies beat being handed control of a spaceship and realizing the adults chasing you have absolutely no chance of keeping up.
5 'The NeverEnding Story' (1984)
The NeverEnding Story keeps moving between the lonely boy holding the book and the adventure slowly becoming far more connected to him than he realizes. Bastian Bux (Barret Oliver) ducks into a bookstore while hiding from bullies, steals a mysterious book, and begins reading alone in his school attic. Inside it, Fantasia is being consumed by the Nothing, and young warrior Atreyu (Noah Hathaway) has been sent to find a way to save the Childlike Empress (Tami Stronach).
This one earns its fun through wonder rather than nonstop jokes. Falkor (Alan Oppenheimer) is the luckdragon every child deserved to ride at least once. The Rock Biter (Alan Oppenheimer) looks enormous and frightening until he speaks with heartbreaking gentleness. The racing snail and giant turtle make Fantasia feel like a place designed from someone’s wildest bedtime story. And yes, the Swamps of Sadness are still devastating, because apparently children in 1984 were expected to process Artax and simply continue with their afternoon. That darkness gives the joy real weight. Fantasia feels worth saving because it has already made you love being there.
Collider Exclusive · The Sorting Hat Awaits Which Hogwarts House Are You? Gryffindor · Slytherin · Hufflepuff · Ravenclaw
Four houses. One destiny. The Sorting Hat has considered thousands of students — now it's your turn. Answer honestly and discover where you truly belong at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
🦁Gryffindor
🐍Slytherin
🦡Hufflepuff
🦅Ravenclaw
01
What quality do you value most in yourself? Answer as honestly as you can — the Hat always knows.
02
A friend is being treated unfairly. What do you do? How you protect others says everything about who you are.
03
What does success look like to you? What you're working toward defines who you're becoming.
04
What is your greatest fear? Fear is the most honest thing about a person.
05
The rules say no. Your gut says go. What do you do? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.
06
What kind of friend are you? Who you are to the people you love is who you really are.
07
You look into the Mirror of Erised. What do you see? The mirror shows the deepest desire of your heart.
08
The Sorting Hat pauses. It whispers: "You could do well in any house. But what matters most to you — truly?" This is your tiebreaker. The Hat always listens.
The Sorting Hat Speaks Your House Has Been Chosen
After careful deliberation, the Sorting Hat has made its decision. This is the house your values, your instincts, and your particular way of being in the world were made for.
🦁 Gryffindor
You have nerve. Not the reckless kind, but the deep, quiet courage that shows up even when you're terrified — especially then.
- Gryffindors don't act because they're fearless — they act because they understand that some things are worth being afraid for.
- You stand up for people when it would be easier to look away.
- You charge toward what's right even when the odds are terrible.
- Harry, Hermione, Ron — the heroes of Hogwarts's greatest chapter — all called the tower with the scarlet and gold home. And now, so do you.
🐍 Slytherin
You are driven, sharp, and utterly clear-eyed about what you want and how to get there.
- Slytherin has long been misunderstood — painted as the house of villains when it is, at its best, the house of those who refuse to accept limits placed on them by others.
- You are resourceful, strategic, and you play the long game.
- You know your worth. You protect your own fiercely.
- The dungeon common room with its view of the Black Lake is yours — and the ambitions that will take you further than anyone expects are yours too.
🦡 Hufflepuff
You are the kind of person that makes the world genuinely better just by being in it.
- Hufflepuff is not the "safe" house or the "leftover" house — it is the house of those with the greatest heart and the most unwavering integrity.
- You show up. You work hard. You don't need glory or recognition — you do what's right because it's right.
- Your loyalty never wavers, even when tested.
- Nymphadora Tonks, Cedric Diggory, Newt Scamander — some of the wizarding world's finest. And now you join them.
🦅 Ravenclaw
Your mind is your greatest gift, and you've always known it.
- Ravenclaws are the thinkers, the questioners, the ones who find a puzzle irresistible and a good book better company than most people.
- Ravenclaw is not merely about intelligence — it's about the love of learning, the pursuit of truth, and the rare courage to admit you don't know something yet.
- You see the world with unusual clarity and depth.
- Luna Lovegood, Filius Flitwick, Rowena Ravenclaw herself — all extraordinary, all original. And so are you.
4 'The Land Before Time' (1988)
Littlefoot (Gabriel Damon) loses his mother and has to reach the Great Valley without her. That is a brutally sad beginning for a children’s movie about dinosaurs, but The Land Before Time understands that young viewers can handle grief when a story also gives them friendship, adventure, and a reason to keep going.
Littlefoot soon gathers the most wonderfully incompatible little dinosaur group imaginable. Cera (Candace Hutson) is stubborn enough to argue with geography. Ducky (Judith Barsi) is endlessly cheerful. Petrie (Will Ryan) is a flyer who cannot properly fly. Spike (Frank Welker) mainly seems interested in eating, which may make him the most sensible member of the party. Their journey has tar pits, collapsing landscapes, scarce food, and Sharptooth appearing often enough to keep everyone nervous. Yet the friendships are what stay with you. These kids come from species taught to keep apart and discover very quickly that surviving together is much more useful. It is sweet without being soft, which is why it still works.
Elliott (Henry Thomas) finds an alien hiding near his family’s California home and reacts less like someone discovering extraterrestrial life than a lonely kid who has finally found a friend who belongs entirely to him. He hides E.T. (Pat Welsh) in his bedroom, introduces him to Reese’s Pieces, and starts teaching him about Earth with whatever happens to be nearby. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial makes first contact feel like the greatest secret a child could ever have.
The little details make the friendship irresistible. E.T. gets drunk because Elliott does. He dresses up in a wig and somehow looks pleased about it. He learns enough language to ask to “phone home,” turning three words into one of the most recognizable lines in movie history. Then government agents arrive and the adventure suddenly belongs to every kid on a bicycle. That flight across the moon is iconic for a reason, but the movie’s real magic is quieter. Elliott gets to love something completely strange without needing it to become less strange first.
2 'The Goonies' (1985)
Mikey Walsh (Sean Astin) and his friends are about to lose their homes when they find an old map supposedly leading to the treasure of pirate One-Eyed Willy. Adults would probably call someone, verify the map, and make several boring phone calls. In The Goonies, the kids head underground. They become a full-on Stranger Things’ gang.
That decision gives The Goonies its scruffy, irresistible energy. Everyone talks at once. Plans fall apart. Data (Ke Huy Quan) brings gadgets that seem equally likely to rescue him or injure him. Chunk (Jeff Cohen) gets captured by the Fratellis and somehow turns captivity into a friendship with Sloth (John Matuszak). Then the caves deliver booby traps, waterslides, skeletons, a bone organ, and eventually an honest-to-God pirate ship. Mikey believes finding the treasure can save everyone’s homes, so even the wildest stuff carries real urgency for the kids. It feels less like a polished family adventure than the greatest unsupervised afternoon anyone ever had.
1 'The Muppets Take Manhattan' (1984)
Kermit (Jim Henson) and the gang finish college with a musical called “Manhattan Melodies” and make the perfectly reasonable decision that Broadway obviously needs it. New York disagrees. Producers say no, money runs out, friends take jobs elsewhere, and Kermit keeps trying because giving up would mean admitting that the dream everyone shared might actually be over. The Muppets Take Manhattan somehow makes struggling young artists painfully relatable while most of those artists are made of felt.
And then it fills the struggle with Muppet nonsense. Miss Piggy (Frank Oz) gets jealous with Olympic intensity. Rizzo (Steve Whitmire) and the rats take over a restaurant kitchen. Kermit develops amnesia and joins an advertising agency full of frogs named Bill, Gil, and Jill. The Muppet Babies sequence became such a hit that it helped inspire an entire animated series. Through all of it, the gang keeps finding its way back together, until Manhattan Melodies finally reaches the stage and the wedding gets suspiciously real. That is the movie’s secret weapon. It is silly enough for kids, sharp enough for adults, and sincere enough to make a bunch of puppets chasing Broadway dreams feel completely worth rooting for.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.