Best Family Movies – Methodology
I searched far and wide for lists of best family movies of all time. Criteria included the movies being ranked, not just listed, and covering all time, not just a decade or streaming service. The lists were generally created by groups, whether teams or committees or based on general public voting (like Ranker.com).
I was able to find 27 lists. I took the 27 lists and added all their content into a spreadsheet, noting the rank of every film. The total number was 1,850 including all the repeats. I experimented with different formulas, trying to balance the value of being ranked high on any list and being included on the most lists. I ended up averaging the rankings each movie got (there were 304 that were on at least 2 lists) and dividing that average by a factor of the number of lists that movie was on. The lowest score meant a high ranking average on many lists. The complete spreadsheet is attached at the bottom.
The movies that were on the most lists (out of 27) were:
- The Wizard of Oz (1939) – 21 lists
- Toy Story (1995) – 20 lists
- Finding Nemo (2003) – 19 lists
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) – 19 lists
- The Princess Bride (1987) – 19 lists
- The Lion King (1994) – 18 lists
- The Sound of Music (1965) – 17 lists
- Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) – 16 lists
- Inside Out (2015) – 15 lists
- WALL-E (2008) – 15 lists
- The Incredibles (2004) – 15 lists
- Mary Poppins (1964) – 15 lists
- Up (2009) – 15 lists
Here are links to the lists I used along with dates the lists were created:
- IMDb, 10,000+ votes, by IMDb rating – 2 Jan 2023
- IMDb, 10,000+ votes, by popularity – 2 Jan 2023
- SignUpGenius – 2 Jan 2023
- The Digital Fix – 20 Dec 2022
- Reader’s Digest – 14 Dec 2022
- Palo Alto Library – 7 Dec 2022
- PureWow – 1 Nov 2022
- Entoin – 23 Oct 2022
- TimeOut – 12 Jul 2022
- Looper – 11 May 2022
- WWNYTV – 24 Nov 2021
- Feeding Trends – 9 Jun 2021
- HoneyKids – 14 Jan 2021
- BestLife – 29 Sep 2020
- Wonder Years – 1 Jul 2020
- MyKidsTime – 4 Mar 2020
- Parenting.com – 17 Jun 2019
- GoodtoKnow – 1 Feb 2019
- Stacker – 13 Nov 2018
- MommyBear Media – 13 Sep 2018
- FlickChart – 5 Aug 2014
- GodTube – 25 May 2013
- The Guardian – 10 Dec 2005
- Fandango – no date
- GamesRadar – no date
- MetaCritic – no date
- Variety Fun – no date