The Best Kids' Movies of 2025 to Get Your Family Excited About
It's been a long time since we've seen such a strong roster of upcoming releases!
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I still remember with horror the beginning of 2023, when there was a months-long fallow period between Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and The Super Mario Bros. Movie where there were no new kids' movies being released into theaters. While we made do with at-home re-watches and a few theatrical revivals, as a movie-loving family we yearned for our cinema outings.
The year 2025 seems, to my eyes at least, the opposite of those darks days. (Woo-hoo!) The schedule is packed — the year starts out strong with a new Wallace and Gromit — and families are spoiled for choice when it comes to the best movies to watch. These are the best kids' movies coming out in 2025, listed in order of release date. Like any year, there are plenty of sequels to old favorites and live-action remakes of classics. But there are also interesting original stories, both in live action and animation, that might jump-start some new fandoms. Take a look, and mark your calendar with your favorites. (And in between new releases, make sure to catch up with the best kids' movies of 2024.)
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
Release Date: January 3, 2025
Wallace and Gromit return to the screen for another adventure — one that sees them teaming up against an old foe who might be familiar to longtime Aardman fans who have seen The Wrong Trousers. But kids who have never seen any Wallace and Gromit before can still delight in the antics, which sees Wallace inventing a garden gnome that's supposed to just do yard work but ends up taking on so much more (including bedeviling Gromit). MPAA Rating: PG
The Colors Within
Release Date: January 24, 2025
Art, music, friendship and other manifestations of creativity combine in this lovely anime from the director of A Silent Voice. It follows a girl named Totsuko, who associates people with colors. She's drawn to the color of her classmate, Kimi, and her fascination leads her to starting a band with Kimi and another classmate, Rui. MPAA Rating: PG
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Dog Man
Release Date: January 31, 2025
The perennial Good Housekeeping Kids' Book Award winner makes the leap from the page to the big screen, but still keeps its zany, cartoonish style. For his first movie outing, they go back to the beginning, telling the story of how a dog's head gets attached to a cop's body, and how the newly formed Dog Man must go after his rival, Petey the Cat. Pete Davidson provides the voice of Petey. MPAA Rating: PG
Paddington in Peru
Release Date: February 14, 2025
Paddington returns for another gentle adventure. This time, he goes back to his country of origin when he gets word that his Aunt Lucy has been acting strangely; when he arrives, he finds out Lucy is missing in the jungle, and he has to go and rescue her. MPAA Rating: PG
A Sloth Story
Release Date: February 28, 2025
Speedy sloths? You better believe it. This movie tells the tale of one quick sloth and her family, who, after a storm, decides to try life in the fast-paced city after a big storm destroys their home. Can they make their food-truck business work? MPAA Rating: PG
Night of the Zoopocalypse
Release Date: March 7, 2025
Who says you have to wait for Halloween for zombie fun? This Canadian/Belgian/French import shows what happens when a meteor turns a bunch of zoo animals into mutant gummy zombies. The story idea comes from horror master Clive Barker. MPAA Rating: PG
Plankton: The Movie
Release Date: March 7, 2025
Move over, SpongeBob — it's Plankton's turn in the spotlight. In this Netflix movie, Plankton gets angry when his sentient computer girlfriend tries to take over the world without him. (Really!) Will he try to save the world, or beat her at her own game? Rating: TV-Y7
The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie
Release Date: March 14, 2025
It's been a minute since there was a new Looney Tunes movie, and this one puts two of the best characters front and center: Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. In the movie, the two uncover an alien plot to take over the world (despicable!), and they become Earth's best hope to stop it. MPAA Rating: PG
Disney's Snow White
Release Date: March 21, 2025
Snow White is next up on Disney's list to get the live-action remake treatment, this time with West Side Story's Rachel Zegler in the lead role and Wonder Woman's Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen. Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the creators of Dear Evan Hansen, wrote new songs for the film. MPAA Rating: PG
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip
Release Date: March 28, 2025
Inspired by the book by Judith Viorst, this Disney+ original movie follows 11-year-old Alexander and his family as they take a road trip through Mexico. Only Alexander believes an idol has placed a curse on his family, causing everything to go wrong, and the bad luck will keep rolling until they return it to its rightful place. MPAA Rating: PG
A Minecraft Movie
Release Date: April 4, 2025
Fans of mobs, ores and creepers probably already have this Minecraft movie adaptation in their calendars already. Jack Black, who already stars in Jumanji and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, goes for a kid-video-game-movie hat-trick by stepping into the role of Steve; Jason Momoa also stars, and it's directed by Napoleon Dynamite's Jared Hess. MPAA Rating: PG
The King of Kings
Release Date: April 11, 2025
Released to coincide with Easter, this animated movie has an unusual premise: It's about Charles Dickens narrating the life of Jesus Christ to his son, Walter, as a bedtime story. As he does so, Walter imagines himself in the past, witnessing the events first-hand. The voice cast includes many names adults will recognize, like Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Mark Hamill, Pierce Brosnan, Forest Whitaker, Ben Kingsley and Oscar Isaac. MPAA Rating: PG
The Legend of Ochi
Release Date: April 18, 2025
For families who love fantasy and folktales, this film take place in a village that shuts down at night in fear of the terrifying monsters called Ochi that roam the woods. But when a young girl finds a lost baby Ochi, she vows to return it to its pack, and wonders if they're not as bad as they're made out to be. Fans of practical effects should be pleased to learn that the baby Ochi is a puppet operated by seven people. MPAA Rating: PG
Sneaks
Release Date: April 18, 2025
Kids will get their kicks out of this one (get it?), an animated musical about anthropomorphic sneakers who get nabbed by a nefarious collector. Anthony Mackie, Chloe Bailey and Martin Lawrence provide voices, and Laurence Fishburne is the voice of the Collector. MPAA Rating: PG
Lilo & Stitch
Release Date: May 23, 2025
If you've been to an elementary school recently, you'd know that Stitch is having a moment — a resurgence if you will. That makes this the perfect time for a Lilo & Stitch remake, this time with real actors and a CGI Stitch. MPAA Rating: PG
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Lost in Starlight
Release Date: May 30, 2025
For the romance fans, Netflix's Korean-language animated film follows a pair of star-crossed lovers — really star-crossed. As in, it follows an astronaut who leaves for Mars while their better half stays on Earth. Fan of K-dramas will thrill to know that it uses the voice talents of Kim Tae-ri and Hong Kyung. MPAA Rating: TV-PG
How to Train Your Dragon
Release Date: June 13, 2025
Disney isn't the only one getting into the live action/CGI remake game this year. There will also be a re-do of How to Train Your Dragon, just in time for the opening of the Land of Berk in Universal Studios's Epic Universe theme park. MPAA Rating: PG
Elio
Release Date: June 20, 2025
The next Pixar movie is an out-of-this-world one, literally. Elio longs to explore the galaxy, but he gets more than he bargained for when he's abducted by aliens — who mistake him for the leader of Earth. MPAA Rating: PG
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KPop Demon Hunters
Release Date: June 20, 2025
What can't K-Pop bands do? In this Netflix film, three K-Pop superstars spend their off-hours using secret powers to protect their fans from supernatural threats. (And you thought they were only good at singing and dancing.) But what happens when the threat comes in the form of another, super-catchy pop group? MPAA Rating: PG
Zombies 4: Dawn of the Vampires
Release Date: July 10, 2025
Zed and Addison have had run-ins with zombies, werewolves and aliens — and now the can add vampires into the mix during this, the fourth installment of the Zombies franchise. The pair and their friends get caught up in a conflict between vampires and Daywalkers, with consequences for all involved. MPAA Rating: NR
Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; previously, she wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother. She lives with her toy-collecting husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found helping out her team at bar trivia or posting about movies on Twitter and Bluesky.
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