Family Movie Night: How to Make it Memorable

For this post, I thought I’d go back to a classic: family movie night becaause who doesn’t love to cuddle up with their loved ones and watch a good movie? My family and I absolutely love family movie night. We have done lots of different things in the past, but have some tried and true things we do. I’ll share with you some of my favorite family movie night tricks that make the night a little more fun. These ideas are simple enough that I am happy to do them even when I’m tired from a long week.

This time around, we did a family movie night for when the Barbie movie came out on HBO Max, so you’ll see references to what I did for that.

I’ll give you some ideas to take your next family movie night to the next level and create lasting memories:

• How to pick a movie for family movie night because this can be difficult
• Creating a fun theme night that reflects the movie
• Snack ideas
• Make it a cozy family movie night
• Other games and activities

Let’s get started with some simple ideas for your family movie night because you really can make a movie night special!

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How to Pick a Movie for Family Movie Night

We love to watch movies, especially after a tiring week of work and school. If you’ve ever had your own family movie night, you know that sometimes just picking the movie to a watch can be a challenge. This is especially true when you have a large age range like we do. Below you’ll find some great ideas to help make this simple:

Use an upcoming new release

Create excitement around family movie night, and forget all the fuss, by centering it around what movies are coming out soon. Plan your next family movie night based on that new release. For example, when we learned the Barbie movie was coming out on HBO Max, we planned to have a family movie night to celebrate. Since we planned ahead, we were all excited for it and there was no question about what we were watching.

Make a way to pick at random

There are multiple ways you could pick at random. The below ideas are things you could use time and again because no one wants to start over each family movie night.

• Print off this simple movie picker
• Write movies on popsicle sticks and pick one at random. With this idea, it’s easy to add new movies to the list as they come up.
• Have envelopes with movies and food ideas. This is the one we do. We even use it sometimes when I don’t feel like going all out and making some elaborate dinner to go along with the movie. On these days, we simply pick the movie envelope, watch that movie, then put it back for a day when we do have the energy. Because these envelopes have become popular, you can find pre-made ones pretty cheap, including these which we use.

For ideas of movies to use for any of these examples, check out this book: 101 Movies to See Before You Grow Up.

Educational Idea: Discuss probability with older kids (4th Grade and above). Some example questions can be: what are the chances that X movie will be chosen? What’s the chance that a cartoon will be chosen?

Creating a Fun Theme for Family Movie Night

Once you know your movie, you can start coming up with ideas for creating a fun family movie night centered around the theme of your movie. Below are some of our go-to activities.

For our “Barbie” movie night, our daughters decided they wanted to dress all in pink.

Family Movie Night Tickets

My oldest daughter loves to make movie tickets for everyone in the family. She has done this several times and it is her way of getting excited for family movie night. Due to her excitement, she will even sometimes set up our living room to look like a movie theatre. Sometimes she’ll even take our tickets at the entrance.

Educational Idea: For your youngest kiddos (ages 2-4) this could be a great way to practice 1:1 correspondence. You can do this by having them lay out chairs or pillows for each person who will be attending as well as counting the movie tickets as people come in.

Here are some free movie tickets I made to use for family movie night because who doesn’t love a free template:

Decorate your house

Let your kids go all out and decorate for movie night. They can make a “Now Showing” sign for the entrance to your living room (or wherever you have family movie night). They could also find things from around the house that go with the theme for the movie. For example, set-up a toy kitchen for watching “Ratatouille” or laying out seashells for “The Little Mermaid.” Kids love this stuff and it requires nothing extra from you as the parent.

For our Barbie family movie night, my kids found pink stuff and anything Barbie to lay out in our living room.

Make it phone free

We make sure that movie time is family time. To aid in this and really get into the spirit of going to the movies, we make our family movie night tech free in order to emulate a theater experience. My husband and I have been trying to put our phones away more so we can be more present with out kids. Family movie night is a great opportunity for this since phones are supposed to be silenced in movie theaters anyway.

Set up a concession stand

I go more into snack ideas in the next section, but consider setting up a “concession stand” that houses all of your snacks and food for the evening.

Educational Idea: Use fake money to have everyone “buy” their snacks. This can help with a variety of concepts, such as counting for the youngest kids, addition/subtraction as well as money values for elementary aged kids, and even multiplication/division for older kids.

Family Movie Night Snack Ideas

Popcorn

You have to have popcorn for your family movie night! Make it a little more fun by purchasing popcorn containers. I like these because they’re reusable!

Candy

Candy is always a must-have for any family movie night. You can try to match your candy to the theme of your movie. For example, for our “Barbie” family movie night, we went in search of only pink candy (picture below).

Mix the two

One of our favorite snacks to have at family movie night is popcorn and candy mix. I really love it because it’s super easy! All you have to do is set everything out and let kids fill their own bowl or box. They get to make whatever mix they want. Our kids usually lean a little heavier on the candy side and I’m ok with it because it’s a fun night.

Here is our spread for our “Barbie” movie night:

Theme snack

The name of the game when it comes to snacks for family movie night is to keep it simple. Come up with just 1-2 snacks that go with the theme of the movie and your kids will be super excited! For example, you could have coconut chips for “Moana” or apple slices with caramel dip (or caramel apples) for “Snow White.”

Theme drink

You can also add some fun to family movie night by including a themed drink. Again, keep it simple! For example, you could have hot chocolate for “The Polar Express” or use ice cubes with figurines frozen in them for “Frozen.”

For our “Barbie” family movie night, I made pink lemonade.

Educational Idea: Cooking is always a great place to easily incorporate educational concepts. For example, young kids can help you count and measure or they could sort ingredients by some characteristic such as dry vs. wet. Older kids can do fractions, including adding and finding equivalent fractions. Bring in literacy concepts by having kids sequence the steps in the cooking process.

Make it a Cozy Family Movie Night

If nothing else, make this family movie night a little different by making it ultra cozy. You can do this by throwing pillows and blankets on the ground to snuggle up in and having everyone in their pajamas. Another idea could be to build a fort like in my Snow Day post.

You could also do the opposite and make it a fancy affair and have everyone dress up in their finest. This could be especially fun if you are watching an older movie. As a family, you could discuss how going to the movie theater has changed over time. People used to get super dressed up!

Other Games and Activities for your Family Movie Night

I stumbled across this post about 10 popcorn games and thought it was really fun! Check it out if you want something a little extra.

Educational Idea: Another activity idea for after your family movie night can be to have kids write reviews for the movie. They can also make a movie poster using things they deem as important to design it. Doing so is a great educational skill tied to identifying the main idea and important details (this is a skill that becomes super important in grades that take state standardized tests – 3rd Grade and above here in Colorado). It could also be really cool to collect their movie posters over time! Check out my free movie review download with some ideas to guide this discussion. It also has some great movie vocabulary for kids to learn and use.

Let’s Wrap It Up

I hope you were able to find some simple ideas to make your next family movie night a little more memorable. Comment below to let me know what you tried and how it went!

Here is a consolidated list of all the materials I reference in this post so you have a clear materials list on hand:

• popsicle sticks
• 101 Movies to See Before You Grow Up
• popcorn containers

Enjoy your next family movie night and let me know how it goes!