Hidden Family Friendly Gems On Netflix You Need To Watch

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Face it, most "family" films are anything but. You think parents are getting anything out of frantic and gaudy animated features, or lowbrow comedies in which every kid is a wiseass and every adult a bumbling idiot? You think kids want to sit through pandering coming-of-age tales with preachy moral lessons? You really believe that overly simplified storylines and sanitized, low-stakes drama is appealing to, well, anyone?

Putting together a good family film is like performing alchemy. You need young protagonists, interesting visuals, and yeah, the occasional fart joke to keep small children engaged. Older kids need a story they can follow but that doesn't talk down to them. On top of that, there has to be enough depth to hold adults' interest, as well as all of the things, like plot and characters and cinematography, that make movies great. A family film can't appeal to just one member of the household. If there's a member of the family who's not enjoying it, it's not getting the job done.

A movie like that can be hard to find, but it's not impossible. Cherish the following movies. No, they probably won't be beloved by everyone, but honestly? Outside of the big brand names — Pixar and Studio Ghibli, we're looking at you — these hidden gems have the best shot.

Y'know, if the acting thing doesn't work out for Chiwetel Ejiofor, the Kinky Boots and 12 Years a Slave veteran might just be able to hack out a career behind the camera. Just look at his debut feature, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. The film, which is based on a memoir by Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba, is a triumph. No, it's not particularly surprising — if you've seen this type of movie before, you know where The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is going — but when a movie is this well-made, that doesn't matter. You'll get swept up in the story anyway.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind begins when young William blackmails his teacher into letting him stay in school (technically, William is expelled because his family can't afford his tuition), and ramps up when a famine hits William's village, leading to robberies and riots. Thankfully, William has a plan. A habitual scavenger and a mechanical genius, he sets out to build a windmill to power an old water pump, which should help revive the village's crops.

It's an affecting tale anchored by remarkably strong performances, including Ejiofor as William's obstinate father. The modest scope helps, too. William's quest is important but small, showing the effect that one dedicated person can have on their local community. It makes The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind aspirational in addition to uplifting, and the movie is all the better for it.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella The Little Prince is one of the most famous books ever written. It's been translated into more languages than any other book, aside from religious texts. It's sold more copies than Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Alice in Wonderland, The Da Vinci Code, or almost any book not named The Lord of the Rings.

So, say you're going to adapt The Little Prince for the screen. No pressure, right? Well, thankfully, director Mark Osborne and the talented animators at Mikros Image paid tribute to Saint-Exupéry's legacy with a film that's remarkably faithful to the original novella even while making a number of notable changes. The film version of The Little Prince introduces a new main character, a young girl who becomes enamored with the unnamed narrator's story. It tacks on a new ending, which clears up the novel's intentionally ambiguous conclusion.

Somehow, it all works, expanding the world of The Little Prince while still honoring the source material. Also? The stop-motion animation is gorgeous, and the all-star voice cast, which includes Paul Rudd, Jeff Bridges, Rachel McAdams, James Franco, and plenty of others, brings its A-game. All in all? Just like the book it's based on, The Little Prince is an instant classic.

Talk about a debut. Mary and the Witch's Flower is the very first movie from Japan-based Studio Ponoc, a company founded and staffed by a number of former Studio Ghibli employees, and you can find hints of Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl's Moving Castle, and Ghibli's other classic animated films all over it.

Overall, however, Mary and the Witch's Flower might remind you more of Harry Potter than anything else. In the movie, which is based on a book by British fantasy author Mary Stuart, young Mary is whisked away by a broomstick to a school for up-and-coming witches, where she's misidentified as a magical prodigy. Unfortunately, Mary is a fraud — she gets her powers from a special flower known as fly-by-night, not natural talent — and before she can come clean, she's wrapped up in a sinister conspiracy that threatens to consume the entire college.

Before Mary, director Hiromasa Yonebayashi helmed When Marnie Was There for Ghibli, where he worked for 18 years. The connections are clear. Like many of Ghibli's offerings, Mary and the Witch's Flower is full of bizarre and whimsical characters, and it's never anything less than a joy to look at. That's not really a problem. Ghibli makes some of the best family films you can find. More of that? Yes, please.

In 2004, writer and director Juan Antin had an idea: What if he followed up his debut feature Mercano the Martian with a movie about what it would've been like for native South Americans to meet European colonizers, who they mistook for literal gods? Fourteen years later, Pachamama arrived on Netflix, telling the tale of a young boy who wants to be shaman for his tribe, but must prove he's overcome his selfishness by retrieving a precious artifact from an Incan tax collector first.

So, what took so long? Well, first, Antin spent a few years doing research, visiting Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru and digging into the culture and mythology of those countries' indigenous peoples (Antin's wife, an anthropologist, helped set up interviews with local community leaders). Next, he had to write the film and decide how it was going to be filmed — originally, Antin assumed that Pachamama would be done with stop-motion, only to later settle on a 2D-3D hybrid. Funding issues got in the way, forcing Antin to move production to France. Finally, Antin had to make the darn thing, which took the better part of three years.

Was it worth it? Judging by the end result, probably. Pachamama is a fascinating look at an underrepresented culture and mythology, and while it's a fantasy story, it doubles as a pretty solid history lesson for younger viewers. The story is slight and simple — kids are clearly the target audience here — but the animation is so compelling that adults should have no problem finding interesting things to look at during Pachamama's brief 71-minute runtime.

There's a reason sporting events make such great documentaries. Like any good story, they have good guys (the athlete or team you're rooting for) and bad guys (the ones you're rooting against). Their stakes are clearly defined — who's going to walk away with the big prize? — and conflict and drama are baked into the very premise. Even better, because they're not scripted, sports have an urgency that fiction can't match. Things don't always go according to formula. Sometimes, the wrong person wins.

The Short Game, Josh Greenbaum's 2013 documentary about a group of pre-teen golfers vying for the 2012 U.S. Kids Golf World Championship, has all of that, but it's the kids themselves who really make the show. There's tennis star Anna Kournikova's younger brother, Allan, a golf prodigy who desperately needs to be taken down a notch. There's Jed Dy, a shy, autistic kid who has a real shot at winning the tournament. Yang Kuang taught himself how to golf by watching videos. Amari Avery wants to be the next Tiger Woods, but must deal with her nightmare of a father first.

The Short Game can be hard to watch — it's unflinching when it comes to depicting the toxic atmosphere and overbearing parenting that sometimes accompany kids' sports — but it's also very compelling. If you have kids who're interested in spending some time on the links, show them The Short Game first. It might get them all fired up to go hit the driving range, or it might convince them to find a new hobby. Either way, they should be entertained.