Family Movie Nights

To help families spend time together and share common experiences, The Leadership Institute provides recommendations for Family Movie Night. Each week, a new movie recommendation and explanation is available for your consideration. Enjoy the show!

If you are looking to see where a particular movie is streaming or is available online, please visit https://www.justwatch.com

Fly Away Home
When her mother dies, 13-year-old Amy (a young Anna Paquin) moves from New Zealand to Canada to live with her father (Jeff Daniels), an eccentric sculptor and inventor. After such… Read More
The Young Messiah
With Easter on the horizon, here’s a film that takes us back to Jesus’s day. The Bible says almost nothing about Jesus’s early youth other than being found in the… Read More
The Wind Rises
Studio Ghibli is best known for its fantastical adventure stories, but in this week’s film we take a look at something different from them, as they dramatize the life of… Read More
Free Willy
This week’s film is a popular classic from the 90s. Hanging out with the wrong crowd, the 12-year-old orphan Jesse has become a liar and a thief. When police catch… Read More
The Straight Story
Alvin Straight is 73 and in poor health. When he gets a call that his older brother has had a stroke, he decides he must pay him a visit. Ten… Read More
Empire of the Sun
It’s the 1940s, and Jamie Graham (played by a young Christian Bale) is a British schoolboy living in Shanghai with his parents. He enjoys an upper class lifestyle, but takes… Read More
The Long Walk Home
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, here’s an historical drama from 1990. In 1955 Montgomery, Alabama, the upper-class well-to-do Miriam (Sissy Spacek) is happy to have the help… Read More
Going My Way
It’s the final movie night of the year. For a change of pace, why not end with a calm and uplifting classic? Bing Crosby stars as the Father Charles O’Malley,… Read More
3 Godfathers
While most Christmas films are sure to feature iconic seasonal imagery like snow and evergreen trees, this one’s a bit different. It’s a Christmas western set in the arid deserts… Read More
Les Misérables
“To love another person is to see the face of God.” When prisoner Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is released on parole, his status as an ex-convict makes him an outcast,… Read More
Monsieur Vincent
Here’s a classic French film based on the life of a famous saint. It’s the year 1617 when Vincent arrives in Chatillon, France, to serve as the area’s new priest.… Read More