From friendly ghosts to singing witches, these 10 best Halloween movies for kids deliver scares and laughs that’ll keep them coming back for more.
The best Halloween movies for kids strike that magical balance between spooky and silly, delivering just enough thrills to feel daring without the nightmares. These 10 films have earned their place as October essentials, offering young viewers everything from singing witches and friendly ghosts to stop-motion marvels and animated adventures. Whether it’s their first Halloween movie or their fiftieth viewing of a favorite, these selections guarantee laughter, mild scares, and memories that’ll last long after the jack-o’-lanterns go dark.
10. Hocus Pocus (1993)
PG | Ages 6+
Director: Kenny Ortega
Despite bombing at the box office (opening behind The Firm and Sleepless in Seattle), Kenny Ortega’s witch comedy found immortality through annual TV airings, becoming Disney’s accidental Halloween crown jewel. When teenage virgin Max Dennison (Omri Katz) lights the Black Flame Candle, he resurrects the Sanderson Sisters—Winifred (Bette Midler), Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker), and Mary (Kathy Najimy)—three 17th-century witches hungry to steal children’s souls before sunrise.
Midler’s scene-chewing performance and the film’s “I Put a Spell on You” musical number transformed what could have been forgettable into quotable gold. The sisters’ fish-out-of-water antics in modern Salem balance genuine spookiness with slapstick charm, while Thackery Binx, the immortal talking cat, gives kids a heroic protector to root for. With its blend of mild scares, laugh-out-loud moments, and themes of sibling loyalty, Hocus Pocus proves that the best Halloween movies for kids don’t need gore, just three cackling witches and a flying vacuum cleaner.
9. Casper (1995)
PG | Ages 5+
Director: Brad Silberling
Brad Silberling’s live-action/CGI hybrid arrived when digital effects were still finding their footing, yet Casper the Friendly Ghost (voiced by Malachi Pearson) remains surprisingly expressive decades later. Teenage Kat Harvey (Christina Ricci, Yellowjackets) and her ghost-therapist father (Bill Pullman, Independence Day) move into Whipstaff Manor only to encounter Casper and his obnoxious uncles—Stretch, Stinky, and Fatso—who’d rather scare than share their haunted mansion. Add in some bumbling no-goodniks (Eric Idle and Cathy Moriarty) and the hijinks include both the living and the dead. The film finds a surprisingly emotional core in Casper’s loneliness and his innocent crush on Kat, giving kids something to invest in beyond the haunted-house hijinks.
What makes Casper essential Halloween viewing is how it treats death with unexpected tenderness; Casper’s backstory packs genuine pathos without being heavy-handed. The uncles provide comic relief that never feels mean-spirited, while James Horner’s ethereal score elevates every ghostly encounter. The transformation scene at the Halloween party delivers wish-fulfillment magic, and those celebrity cameos (Dan Aykroyd, Mel Gibson) are catnip for parents watching along. It’s a film that insists friendship can transcend life and death, wrapping profound themes in accessible entertainment.
8. Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)
PG | Ages 7+
Director: John Cherry
John Cherry’s cult oddity shouldn’t work. Jim Varney’s rubber-faced Ernest P. Worrell fighting trolls feels like midnight madness programming instead of children’s entertainment; yet it’s become a secret handshake among millennials who grew up with it. When Ernest accidentally releases an ancient troll named Trantor from under an oak tree, the creature begins turning the children of Briarville, Missouri into wooden dolls, planning to unleash his troll army on Halloween night. Armed only with milk (the troll’s weakness, naturally) and his trademark dim-witted courage, Ernest must save the kids before midnight.
The troll designs are legitimately unsettling; the Chiodo Brothers’ practical effects create nightmarish figures that belong in a much scarier film. Trantor’s face-morphing abilities and the wooden doll transformations still creep out adults who remember watching this as kids. What makes Ernest Scared Stupid essential viewing is its tonal whiplash: Ernest’s slapstick antics (the cafeteria scene, the vacuum mishap) sit alongside genuinely dark horror imagery. Varney commits completely, finding heart beneath the stupidity. Ernest may be an idiot, but he’s a brave idiot with a heart of gold who loves these kids. The film’s “authentic Bulgarian miak” revelation is absurdist comedy fodder and once you add the purring Eartha Kitt to the mix, the wildly fun formula is complete. It’s the definition of underrated: weird, scary, hilarious, and utterly unique in a sea of predictable Halloween fare.
7. The Little Vampire (2000)
PG | Ages 7+
Director: Uli Edel
Uli Edel’s German-British co-production vanished without a trace in American theaters, yet it’s a hidden gem that deserves rediscovery. When Tony Thompson (Jonathan Lipnicki, Jerry Maguire) moves from California to Scotland, he’s lonely until he meets Rudolph Sackville-Bagg (Rollo Weeks), a 300-year-old vampire kid. Rudolph’s family has been cursed to remain vampires for centuries, and only a magical amulet can restore their humanity. But vampire hunter Rookery (Jim Carter) is hunting them, and Tony must help his undead friend survive until they can break the curse during a rare lunar alignment.
The Scottish Highlands provide atmospheric Gothic beauty; crumbling castles and moonlit moors make every scene painterly. What elevates The Little Vampire beyond typical kids’ fare is its themes of belonging: Tony’s an outsider in a new country, Rudolph’s an outsider in mortality itself. Their friendship goes beyond life and death, literally. The flying sequences, where vampires soar through clouds, are surprisingly beautiful for a modestly budgeted film. Rookery’s vampire hunter provides comic menace without being truly frightening. It’s sweet without being saccharine, scary without being traumatizing, and a solid example that sometimes the best Halloween movies are the ones nobody remembers to recommend. Your kids will love it; you’ll wonder why it’s been forgotten.
6. The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)
PG | Ages 9+
Director: Mark Waters
Mark Waters adapts Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black’s beloved books into something darker and more visceral than its PG rating suggests. When the Grace family moves into the dilapidated Spiderwick Estate, twin brothers Jared and Simon (both played by Freddie Highmore, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger) discover their great-great-uncle Arthur Spiderwick’s field guide—a book cataloging the invisible faerie world surrounding them. Revealing the guide’s existence enrages Mulgarath (Nick Nolte), an evil ogre who’ll stop at nothing to possess it and use its knowledge to destroy humanity.
The creature designs are remarkably inventive: hobgoblins with rat-like features, a house brownie named Thimbletack who transforms from helpful to homicidal, and goblins that are genuinely menacing rather than cute. Industrial Light & Magic’s effects make the invisible world feel tangible. When Jared uses the seeing stone, we experience his wonder and terror simultaneously. What makes Spiderwick special is its treatment of family dysfunction: Jared’s anger about his parents’ divorce manifests in real danger, and his journey toward accepting change runs parallel to the fantasy adventure. The film doesn’t shy from darkness. The goblin attack on the house is intense, and Mulgarath’s final form is freaky. It’s a fantasy that earns its scares while delivering genuine emotional resonance.
5. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
PG | Ages 7+
Director: Henry Selick
Henry Selick brings Tim Burton’s delicate poem to painstaking stop-motion life, creating Halloween’s most iconic crossover with Christmas. Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon, sung by Danny Elfman), the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, stumbles through a forest portal into Christmas Town and becomes obsessed with hijacking the holiday. Enlisting his citizens, including rag-doll Sally (Catherine O’Hara), who harbors unrequited love for Jack, he transforms Christmas into something both wonderful and terrifying, much to Santa’s dismay.
Elfman’s songs have become seasonal standards, from “This Is Halloween” to “What’s This?” to Sally’s haunting “Sally’s Song.” Each frame required meticulous manipulation of puppets and sets, and the production took three years to create, inspiring a generation of animators. What makes Nightmare perennial viewing is its refusal to choose a holiday: it belongs equally to October and December, celebrating both darkness and light. Jack’s existential crisis resonates deeper than most kids’ films dare, questioning identity and purpose while wrapped in Burton’s Gothic aesthetic. The film’s message: be yourself, even if you’re a skeletal king, has made it a misfit anthem for decades, demonstrating that Halloween’s best gift is accepting who you are.
4. Frankenweenie (2012)
PG | Ages 8+
Director: Tim Burton
Tim Burton returns to his 1984 short film roots, expanding his loving tribute to classic monster movies into a feature-length stop-motion marvel shot in glorious black-and-white. When young Victor Frankenstein’s (Charlie Tahan) beloved dog Sparky dies, his science-fair experiments lead him to a shocking discovery: electricity can restore life. Victor resurrects Sparky, stitches and all, but keeping a zombie bull terrier hidden proves impossible when his classmates discover his secret and decide to reanimate their own pets…with catastrophic results.
Burton crafts a love letter to 1950s creature features, from Frankenstein to Godzilla, that works whether kids catch the references or not. The stop-motion animation captures genuine emotion in Victor and Sparky’s relationship; even their initial reunion is unexpectedly tearful. When the town’s pet cemetery unleashes were-rats, turtle-zillas, and a vampire cat, the climactic windmill sequence pays homage to Burton’s influences while delivering spectacular action. What sets Frankenweenie apart from typical kids’ fare is its thoughtful portrayal of grief and the dangers of playing God. Victor learns that love means letting go, a profound lesson wrapped in B-movie fun. It’s Burton at his most personal, channeling childhood feelings of loss into something simultaneously dark and deeply touching.
3. The Addams Family (1991)
PG-13 | Ages 7+
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Barry Sonnenfeld’s big-screen adaptation of Charles Addams’ cartoons (and the TV series) found the perfect tone: macabre without being mean, weird without being alienating. When con artist Abigail Craven (Elizabeth Wilson) and her son Gordon (Christopher Lloyd) pose as long-lost Uncle Fester to steal the Addams fortune, family patriarch Gomez (Raul Julia) welcomes “Fester” with open arms. But Morticia (Anjelica Huston, The Witches), Wednesday (Christina Ricci), and Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) aren’t easily fooled, especially when Thing notices Gordon doesn’t quite fit.
Julia and Huston have intoxicating chemistry. Their tango is cinema’s most alluring dance sequence, showing audiences that passionate marriage can be cooler than any teenage romance. Ricci’s deadpan Wednesday steals every scene, her smile during electrocution therapy revealing a character equally disturbing and delightful. Sonnenfeld’s background as a cinematographer creates a Gothic wonderland where the production design becomes a character: hidden passages, torture devices, and a carnivorous plant named Cleopatra. What makes The Addams Family timeless is its central message: normal is overrated. The family’s outsider status becomes their strength, and their unwavering support for each other—no matter how bizarre—models the kind of acceptance every kid deserves. It’s creepy, kooky, and utterly perfect.
2. ParaNorman (2012)
PG | Ages 9+
Directors: Sam Fell, Chris Butler
Laika Studios’ stop-motion masterpiece tackles bullying, mob mentality, and the Salem witch trials through the story of Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Road), an 11-year-old misfit who can see and speak with the dead. When his eccentric uncle (John Goodman) warns him about a centuries-old witch’s curse about to wake the dead, Norman must convince his bully, his sister, and her jock boyfriend to help him save their Massachusetts town from an actual zombie uprising. The problem? The zombies aren’t the real monsters.
The animation achieves remarkable subtlety—Norman’s expressions convey volumes, and the zombies are simultaneously threatening and pathetic. What elevates ParaNorman is its unexpected empathy: the witch isn’t evil, she’s a scared little girl wrongly executed by fearful Puritans, and the zombies are her executioners forced to relive their sin. The film’s climactic confrontation replaces violence with understanding, as Norman recognizes the witch’s pain and helps her find peace. It’s remarkably sophisticated storytelling that trusts kids to handle complex themes about how fear creates monsters. The film’s embrace of the weird kid who doesn’t fit in makes it essential viewing, proving that compassion defeats cruelty every time.
1. Coraline (2009)
PG | Ages 10+
Director: Henry Selick
Henry Selick’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel doesn’t coddle—it disturbs, and brilliantly so. Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) discovers a hidden door in her new home leading to a parallel world where her “Other Mother” (Teri Hatcher) has button eyes and grants every wish. It’s a paradise compared to her real parents’ inattention, until Coraline realizes the Other Mother wants to sew buttons into her eyes and trap her forever in this too-perfect prison. Escaping requires courage, cleverness, and help from a sarcastic cat (Keith David).
The stop-motion animation is Laika Studios at their finest—every frame took meticulous planning, and the attention to detail creates a tactile world that feels disturbingly real. Selick uses 3D not as a gimmick but as a tool to make the Other World simultaneously alluring and claustrophobic. What makes Coraline the apex of Halloween viewing for kids is its refusal to simplify: the Other Mother is a pure nightmare-inducer, a spider-limbed creature whose love is suffocating possession. Yet Gaiman and Selick trust young viewers to process these terrors, delivering a film that encourages appreciation for what you have and the recognition that perfect parents don’t exist. It’s genuinely scary, visually stunning, and emotionally resonant. It’s Halloween cinema at its most darkly magical.
