Programming movies for summer camps is a delightful task. What kid doesn’t like movies? You almost can’t lose.
While there are hundreds of options that will entertain, anyone programming movies for campers has the opportunity to infuse their selections with powerful themes, stories that resonate with the camping experience, adventures that illuminate the power of the friendships being forged, and, if they’re lucky, put new favorites in front of young eyes.
Below, summer camp administrators will find 10 movies (with some alternate options thrown in for good measure) that will entrance campers.
Moonrise Kingdom
Deeply stylized, like all Wes Anderson movies, Moonrise Kingdom offers programmers a movie with plenty of camping and humor.
Its protagonists are a pair of unpopular kids who escape what they see as the shackles of childhood and the world of adults. Two 12-year-olds, Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward), run away from home on a tiny New England island to embrace their burgeoning love of one another and escape the kids, adults, and family who don’t understand them. A star-studded cast of adults searches frantically for them across the island while Suzy introduces Sam to music and art, and he shows her the finer points of camping. Through the course of their adventure, they find a new appreciation of friends and family, leading to a heartwarming finale.
For camp counselors, it offers a connection to traditional camping activities and features characters who really think and talk like kids.
Get your copy of Moonrise Kingdom on DVD here.
The Addams Family and Addams Family Values
The two Addams Family movies released in the ‘90s are quietly great camp movies. In the first, the macabre family comes together to thwart a pair of con artists, one of whom might be their long-lost Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd), attempting to steal the family fortune.
While the first may be broadly considered a superior movie, programmers will appreciate that Addams Family Values features a summer camp. A murderer (Joan Cusack) feigning love for Fester needs to get the suspicious Addams children, Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley (Jimmy Workman), out of the way to enact her nefarious plan. To do so, she convinces parents Morticia (Anjelica Huston) and Gomez (Raúl Juliá) that the kids secretly want to go to summer camp.
Administrators will find these movies about the Gothic Addams crew satisfy a desire for scary stories at camp without actually being scary. They also contain positive messages about family, feature camp activities, and may even be of interest to a younger generation familiar with Netflix’s Wednesday, which also stars Ricci, albeit in a different role.
Get your copy of The Addams Family and Addams Family Values on DVD here.
Black Panther
Marvel movies have a well-documented appeal for kids. However, picking a superhero movie in general can be tough for adults who aren't familiar with the deluge of superpowered films. Black Panther features a relatively rare dose of diversity and one of the more thematically potent MCU films. The story of T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) becoming king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda, a title that includes inheriting the mantle of the Black Panther, offers narrative threads about environmental stewardship, the importance of family, and social responsibility. Those are all addressed in ways kids can understand without talking down to them.
For programmers, it also offers a Marvel movie that kids unfamiliar with the broader universe can understand without needing a primer. It does, however, have the largely bloodless violence common to superhero films. Though, there aren't many options for superhero movies with a PG rating. (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Ultraman Rising, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and the Christopher Reeve Superman movies are all rated PG.)
Get your copy of Black Panther on DVD here.
The Rocketeer
While The Rocketeer was popular upon its release in 1991, it doesn't get much love today. It stars Billy Campbell as Cliff, a young stunt pilot who finds a state-of-the-art jet pack. That discovery rockets him into the middle of an espionage plot that involves the FBI, a power-hungry movie star (Timothy Dalton), conflict with his girlfriend (Jennifer Connolley), and a group of Nazis looking to acquire the technology.
It’s an action-packed movie centered on young people with big dreams. It also has, at its heart, the Spider-Man-like theme of “with great power comes great resonsibility.” It’s a fun movie that has aged well and gives summer camp staff the chance to screen a fun movie with a positive message that isn't likely to be familiar to many kids.
Get your copy of The Rocketeer on DVD here.
Wild Robot
The Wild Robot isn’t about camping, but does involve wilderness survival in a way that will resonate with campers. A robot crash-lands on an island solely inhabited by animals. The robot, Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), adopts a gosling (Kit Connor), and they, along with a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal), become a chosen family. Each of them is an outsider in their own way, but must discover that they're stronger together than on their own.
Its setting will resonate with campers, and its recency will make it a popular pick.
Get your copy of Wild Robot on DVD here.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Based on a viral web series, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is the story of, well, a tiny shell with shoes and just one eye. It’s set up as a documentary about Marcel (Jenny Slate), who hilariously describes how he survives life as a tiny shell in an Airbnb for normal-sized humans.
For summer camp programmers, there are a ton of reasons to consider Marcel. It's a charming story about family and friends that's also delightfully absurd and enough under the radar that it's likely to be new to many campers.
Get your copy of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On on Blu-Ray here.
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 was a TV show about a man trapped in space by villains searching for a movie so bad they could use it to take over the world. It's so preposterous that its original run lasted more than a decade and has been rebooted multiple times since. The man, played at times by Joel Hodgson and Mike Nelson during the original run, ridicules the movie with his robot friends, turning absolutely any movie into a comedy.
It's the kind of absurd humor that can hit home with kids. The Brain That Wouldn't Die is a classic episode, but many would be a good pick for campers. MST3K often offers, similar to The Addams Family, a movie that isn't actually scary, but contains elements of horror that can evoke the feeling of telling scary stories at camp.
Get Mystery Science Theater 3000 on DVD here.
Holes
Movies with adventures where kids band together against adults who don't understand what it's like to be a kid are great fodder for camp screenings. (See: The Goonies, Super 8, E.T., Hook, Spy Kids.) Holes is a little darker, but it's a classic for a reason.
Stanley (Shia LaBeouf) is sentenced to a detention camp for kids after being wrongly accused of a crime. The adults in charge abuse their power, making the kids aid in their search for a lost treasure. Holes has elements of camping that will resonate with campers, as well as themes around friendship, chosen family, and believing in yourself.
Get your copy of Holes on DVD here.
Cool Runnings
Like Holes, Cool Runnings is part of a subgenre of sports films that routinely resonate with young audiences. It features athletes who are underestimated and must band together to prove to themselves they're capable of great feats.
After an accident, three Jamaican track athletes (Leon, Rawle D. Lewis, and Malik Yoba) miss qualifying for the Olympics in track. Along with one of their friends (Doug E. Doug), they take up bobsledding in hopes of finding another path to their dream.
Based on a true story, it's a feel-good movie in a mold that kids love. (Others along these lines include The Mighty Ducks, Little Giants, Rudy, The Sandlot, and Kicking & Screaming.)
Get your copy of Cool Runnings on DVD here.
My Neighbor Totoro
This Hayao Miyazaki anime classic is rated G, making it appealing for programmers with a younger audience. However, it doesn’t feel like it’s for little kids. My Neighbor Totoro is a movie that adults love and revisit frequently.
After moving to the countryside to visit their sick mother, two girls discover a landscape loaded with awe-inspiring spirits who take them on an adventure. It's a gorgeous, uplifting movie, and, like many of Miyazaki's beloved movies, tackles the trials of childhood without talking down to its audience.
Get your copy of My Neighbor Totoro on DVD here.
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