Watch · FamilyNo. 8373 · The 2026 edition
Family-friendly Halloween movies that are spooky, not scary.
Family-friendly Halloween movies for a spooky-not-scary movie night: every pick is mildly spooky, from Monsters, Inc. to Hocus Pocus.
The best family-friendly Halloween movies have one job: make the night feel spooky without anyone turning up in your bed at 2 a.m. Every pick here carries the Fieldguide’s mildly spooky scare level, so the ghosts crack jokes, the witches get musical numbers and the monsters are mostly misunderstood.
We ranked them by popularity — how many viewers have rated each one — so the crowd-pleasers come first and the quieter gems follow. Each title shows its scare level, plus where it’s streaming now. Pick by age, pick by mood, but check the runtime before you promise anyone a bedtime.
-
01
Monsters, Inc.
A monster factory that runs on children’s screams, and one toddler who breaks the whole business model. The gentlest possible way to learn the thing in the closet is scared too.
-
02
Spirited Away
A sulky ten-year-old strands herself in a world of gods, witches and spirits and has to work her way home. Strange rather than scary — and at just over two hours, start it early.
-
03
Coco
Pixar’s Día de Muertos story: Miguel defies his family’s music ban and lands in the Land of the Dead, hunting for a legendary ancestor. Bright and musical; tissues advised for grown-ups.
-
04
Ghostbusters
Four paranormal investigators, proton packs and a marshmallow giant loose in Manhattan. The library ghost still sends a few kids behind the sofa; everyone else just quotes it.
-
05
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Elliott hides a stranded alien in his closet and smuggles him out on Halloween under a ghost sheet. Spielberg’s family classic; the men from the government are the only real scare.
-
06
Maleficent
Sleeping Beauty told from the villain’s side, with Angelina Jolie in the horns. More dark fairy tale than Halloween, but the curse-and-thorns look earns its seat.
-
07
Beetlejuice
A freshly dead couple hires the worst ghost in the afterlife to evict the living. Tim Burton at his most gleeful — and very 1988, so expect some salty language.
HBO MAX Watch ▸ -
08
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Jack Skellington gets bored of Halloween and tries to borrow Christmas. Seventy-six minutes of stop-motion, songs and exactly the right amount of creepy — the family pick that works twice a year.
Disney+ Watch ▸ -
09
Corpse Bride
A nervous groom practices his vows in the wrong spot and wakes a bride from the grave. Burton stop-motion where the dead get all the color and the best songs.
-
10
Hotel Transylvania
Dracula runs a humans-free resort for monsters until one backpacker wanders in and falls for his daughter. Pure slapstick; the only scary thing is how overprotective Dad gets.
-
11
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
A single mom and her two kids inherit a creaky farm and a family link to the original team. Mini marshmallow men included; best after the kids have seen the 1984 film.
-
12
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Disney’s first feature-length cartoon, and its Evil Queen is still the scariest thing on this list. The poisoned-apple transformation is peak mildly spooky.
-
13
The Addams Family
Con artists try to fleece the Addamses with a fake Uncle Fester, which goes about as well as you’d hope. Raul Julia and Anjelica Huston make macabre look like a very happy marriage.
-
14
Monsters vs. Aliens
A bride hit by a meteorite on her wedding day becomes a giant and joins a team of oddball monsters to stop an alien takeover. Loud, silly and easy on the nerves.
-
15
Hocus Pocus
The new kid in Salem lights the wrong candle on Halloween night and brings back three 17th-century witches. Bette Midler and company make it the sing-along of the season.
Disney+ Watch ▸ -
16
Labyrinth
A teenager has thirteen hours to cross a goblin maze and rescue her baby brother from David Bowie. Jim Henson puppets, big hair and a few properly unsettling moments.
-
17
Hotel Transylvania 2
Dracula tries to coax the vampire out of his half-human grandson before Mavis moves the family away. Grandparent comedy with fangs, pitched squarely at the under-tens.
-
18
-
19
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
A giant-vegetable contest, a village under siege and something enormous loose in the allotments. Aardman’s affectionate send-up of old monster movies, gentle and full of jokes for grown-ups.
-
20
Monster House
Three friends work out that the grumpy neighbor’s house is a living, breathing monster. Built around trick-or-treat night, it sits at the braver end of this list; best for kids who like a jolt.
-
21
Scooby-Doo
Mystery Inc. reunites, grudgingly, on a spooky island resort. The 5.4 rating says grown-ups weren’t won over; kids who love Scooby rarely notice, and Matthew Lillard’s Shaggy is uncanny.
-
22
Frankenweenie
A boy uses lightning and a science-fair rig to bring his dog back from the dead. Black-and-white stop-motion Frankenstein from Tim Burton — heads-up, the dog has to die first.
Disney+ Watch ▸ -
23
Addams Family Values
Fester marries a gold-digging black widow, and Wednesday gets packed off to summer camp. Arguably funnier than the first, and the camp Thanksgiving play is a small masterpiece.
-
24
ParaNorman
A boy who talks to the dead has to save his town from a centuries-old witch’s curse. Laika stop-motion that gets genuinely eerie in places, with a big heart under the zombies.
-
25
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Three siblings move into a run-down estate and find a hidden world of faeries — not all of them friendly. A solid adventure for kids who like their fantasy with teeth.
Spooky enough to feel like Halloween, gentle enough to sleep after. That’s the whole brief.
Still deciding? The Fieldguide’s full watchlist covers every Halloween movie we track, with the gentler holiday picks shelved apart from the horror — so you can build a night that suits the youngest person on the sofa, and the oldest.