80s movies your kids need to see

So we are here….again. Tools are down, schools are either closed or a as good as, those still with jobs are working from home or on reduced hours, but hey at least we can watch the Olympics (is that still on? Who knows anymore). I am an 80s kid and with this lockdown thing, it is THE perfect time to drag your kids away from tik tok and introduce them to the best kids movies from the 80s that you grew up with. No excuses now. We have a captive audience, who are now legally required to sit with us in the lounge room and watch whatever we tell them. Now is our time to shine! Right so where do we start. Here is my top 11 Fam movies of the 80s (Because Top 10s are so pre-pandemic)

11) The Garbage Pail Kids – I put this on here because it is absolutely mind blowing what was classed as kids entertainment back in the 80s. How on earth did I turn out so well? I don’t even know how to describe this. How was it ever made? Kid finds weird garbage bin friends and they do stuff. Shut up and take my money.

10) Willow – Truly weird AF when you look back at it. What is cool is watching this and realising that Warwick Davis (Willow) has been in so many insanely cool movies over the past 30 years. Harry Potter, Star Wars and some really scary ones that it turns out I was too much of a sook to watch. See if you can spot Val Kilmer.

9) The Wizard – Probably a bit of an unknown this one, but as a kid I LOVED it! Fred Savage (If you don’t remember The Wonder Years we cannot be friends), who is like the Diet Coke version of Macaulay Culkin when it comes to 80s/90s child stars (I mean he was good but nowhere near the original), hooks up with a video game genius and 8 year old me just ate this up.

8) The Explorers – 3 young kids create a working space ship out of junk and go on an adventure. 2 out of the 3 kids ended up being famous. Probably don’t tell River Phoenix’s story to your kids, they have enough scary stuff going on at the moment.

7) The Goonies – No 80s list is complete without The Goonies. I re-watched this (because I have no life) about 3 months ago and yeah look, it hasn’t aged well. But you will recognise a lot of memes and also Thanos is in it. Tell that to your kids. Also tell them if they don’t like it you will lock them in the basement like Sloth.

6) ET – If you ever told your kid they couldn’t have a pet, maybe skip this one because they will want an alien friend next. Drew Barrymore was in this when she was about 5 years old too. Feel old yet?

5) Labyrinth – Scary looking dude with monster mates breaks into house and steals baby, so he can try and lure teenage girl into his lair. Now if that isn’t the plot line for a sure fire kids classic then I don’t know what is! The epitome of weird and awesome and brilliant. A classic.

4) The Princess Bride – I loved wrestling as a kid (and as a slightly older, more adulty kid) so to see Andre the Giant on screen with Forrest Gump’s girlfriend was something I wasn’t going to miss. Everyone watches this once every 5 years or so, get onto it during Iso time.

3) The Never Ending Story – Just reading those 4 words then made you immediately go ‘aaaaah oooooh, aaaah oooooh’. Another ‘damn 80s kids movies are insane’ entry where they thought ‘you know what kids love? Horses dying in the swamp’. God dammit why did they do that to Artax! He deserved better.

2) Flight of the Navigator – This movie just gets me. Even now I just bloody love it. Kid makes friends with an intelligent space ship and go on an epic adventure.

1) Back to the Future – Of all the movies about a time travelling teenager who almost pashes his mum, this is my favourite. One of the best movies of all time, not just the 80s.