With the weather getting colder, families are finding less and less things to do together. If families don’t have sports games to run around to, they are usually sitting at home twiddling their fingers wondering what activity they can do together as a family. One activity families can do together is watch movies. So grab your popcorn (and the warm fuzzy blankets) while The Clarion tells you the 10 best family movies to watch this winter season.

1. The Goonies is about a group of adventurous kids that discover an old pirates map in an attic. The group of friends decide to follow the map and try to figure out where it takes them. Not only will they get help from older kids, but they will have to get past some dangerous obstacles to get to the spot the map shows. This movie is appropriate for all ages and is great for kids with a huge imagination.
2. The Harry Potter Series. This is a series that everyone knows about. The movies are all about a kid named Harry Potter who discovers he is a wizard. He is sent to Hogwarts, a magic school for wizards, to learn all about magic. Harry and his two friends, Ron and Hermione, go through obstacles throughout all 8 movies: from battling Voldemort to figuring out how to make a broom fly. These movies not only will entertain kids, but will also make adults feel like a child again.
3. If you love baseball and older movies you are sure to like The Sandlot. The Sandlot is all about a group of kids that like to go to the old baseball field and play baseball. One day while they are playing baseball the ball gets hit over the fence and the kids are scared to go over the fence because of some crazy rumor they believe.
4. Any kid nowadays loves his/her video games. If you want to pry them away from that, pop on the TV Wreck it Ralph. This is a movie all about the video game world when no one is playing. When Ralph leaves his video game, because he doesn’t want to be the villain anymore, the rest of the video game starts to suffer. Fix-It Felix Jr. also leaves the video game and recruits help to get Ralph back to the game before the arcade opens.
5. Despicable Me is an amazing family movie. It is all about a guy named Gru who wants to steal the moon, but his arch rival gets to do it first. Gru needs a new plan and adopts 3 girls that were selling cookies to his arch rival to help him get into his house to steal the moon. I could keep telling you all about this movie, but I suggest watching it instead of reading it.
6. Beetlejuice is about a couple that died in a car accident and they find themselves stuck haunting their country residence, unable to leave the house. When the unbearable Deetzus and their teen daughter Lydia buy the home, the Maitlands attempt to scare them away without success. Their efforts attract Beetlejuice, a rambunctious spirit whose “help” quickly becomes dangerous for the Maitlands and innocent Lydia.
7. Now we’re gonna get a little “witchy” here about the movie Hocus Pocus. After moving to Salem, Mass., teenager, Max Dennison, explores an abandoned house with his sister Dani and their new friend Allison. After dismissing a story Allison tells as superstitious, Max accidentally frees a coven of evil witches who used to live in the house. Now, with the help of a magical cat, the kids must steel the witches’ book of spells to stop them from becoming immortal. This Halloween movie is definitely a classic!
8. If you love Little Shop of Horrors, you’ll love  Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. When kids sneak into inventor Wayne Szalinski’s upstairs lab to retrieve an errant baseball, his experimental shrink ray shrinks them. When Szalinski returns home, he destroys the device — which he thinks is a failure — and dumps it in the trash, throwing out the kids along with it. The four children, now smaller than an ant, must survive the journey back to the house through a yard where sprinklers bring hectic storms and garden-variety ants stampede like elephants.
9. A great way to relax on a snowy day is to watch this Christmas classic,  Home Alone. When bratty 8-year-old Kevin McCallister acts out the night before a family trip to Paris, his mother makes him sleep in the attic. After the McCallisters accidentally leave for the airport without Kevin, he wakes up to an empty house and assumes his wish to have no family has come true. But his excitement sours when he realizes that two con men plan to rob the McCallister residence, and that he alone must protect the family home.
10. When a tornado hits Kansas, Dorothy and her dog, Toto, are whisked away in their house to the magical land of Oz, in The Wizard of Oz. They follow the Yellow Brick Road toward Emerald City to meet the Wizard, and while they’re walking they meet a Scarecrow that needs a brain, a Tin Man missing a heart, and a Cowardly Lion who wants courage. The wizard asks the group to bring him the broom of the Wicked Witch of the West to earn his help. The Wizard of Oz is such a fun family movie to watch.

These family movie classics are great to watch on a snow day, family night, spring break, winter break, etc. Sit back, relax, eat some popcorn and candy, and enjoy watching these entertaining movies.