The best HBO Max family movies: the best films for all ages

These are the best HBO Max family movies to stream right now

Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Lion look at something off-screen in The Wizard of Oz (Image credit: MGM)

Are you looking for the best HBO Max family movies? If you are, we’ve got a really handy guide for you.

HBO Max is best known for its prestige drama, with iconic shows like House Of The Dragon, The Sopranos, Succession, and The White Lotus among its sizable TV contingent. However, it also has a meaty catalog of movies, with numerous family-friendly flicks to watch alongside your kids.

Okay, HBO Max might not be as family-friendly as, say, Disney Plus. But there are plenty of animated and live-action films that are perfect for the whole family on one of the world’s best streaming services. Below, we’ve rounded up the best of the best, so you don’t have to spend hours searching for the best HBO Max family movies. And, with the holiday season right around the corner, there’s no better time to check that out with your family, popcorn or other confectionary in hand.

Here, then, are the best HBO Max family movies to stream right now.

The best HBO Max family movies

Free Guy

Free Guy has just enough about it to be considered family-friendly. (Image credit: 20th Century Studios)

Ryan Reynolds leads this big-budget action-comedy, which is fun-filled, explosive, and full of big laughs. 

Helmed by Stranger Things’ Shawn Levy, who will also direct Reynolds in forthcoming Marvel movie Deadpool 3, Free Guy follows Reynolds’ Guy, a bank teller who discovers that he is a non-player character in a massive multiplayer online game (not dissimilar to Grand Theft Auto) and decides not to play along anymore. Teaming up with Millie (Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer), the pair go on various adventures. While Guy just wants to expand his world, though, Millie has ambitions of bringing down Antwan Hovachelik (Thor: Love and Thunder’s Taiki Waititi), the dastardly CEO behind Free City. 

Not one for the whole family, admittedly – Free Guy comes packed with some cartoonish violence – but it’s nonetheless makes for a rip-roaringly good time. 

The Wizard Of Oz

The Wizard of Oz is an all-time classic. (Image credit: MGM)

Not just one of the best HBO Max family movies, The Wizard of Oz is one of the best movies ever created.

An adaptation of L. Frank Baum novel’s genre-bending novel, The Wizard of Oz follows Judy Garland’s Dorothy, who is whisked away from Kansas by a tornado to Munchkin City, where she accidentally squashes the Wicked Witch of the East upon landing. Her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West vows revenge, leaving Dorothy in a race against time to get home. So she sets off on that legendary yellow brick road to see the Wizard of Oz, hoping he can tell her how to get home, making friends and enemies along the way.

It’s an iconic, tender, and truly timeless classic, and one that the whole family can enjoy. It’s a bit dated these days but you’ll laugh, cry, and cheer as Dorothy and company bravely face the odds stacked against them.

Space Jam/Space Jam: A New Legacy

Space Jam and its sequel are worthwhile watches. (Image credit: Warner Bros.)

Space Jam: A New Legacy might not have lived up to the beloved 1996 original, but they’re still thoroughly entertaining and big-hearted family adventures. 

The original starred basketball legend Michael Jordan, who bizarrely finds himself enlisted by the Looney Tunes characters to aid them in a basketball match against visiting aliens. Win and the Looney Tunes earn their freedom. Lose, however, and they’ll be enslaved them as attractions at the aliens’ amusement park. 25 years later, NBA icon LeBron James stepped into Jordan’s shoes as he faced down another extraterrestrial threat on the basketball court.

Zany, wacky, and so much fun, they’re both must-watches for kids of all ages. Adults will invariably get a kick out of both films’ multiple cameos, too.

The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie is one of the best animated movies of all-time. (Image credit: Lego)

When Warner Bros announced it was developing a movie around Lego’s iconic toy range, people were not impressed. It looked like a marketing exercise and one long piece of product placement but, as it turned out, the end result is a truly fantastic film.

Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) brought together Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie, Charlie Day, Liam Neeson, and Morgan Freeman for the voice cast and sculpted a bright, energetic, and hugely fun adventure. 

So, what’s it about? The Lego Movie focuses on Pratt’s Emmet, an ordinary Lego minifigure who finds himself part of a resistance movement to stop a tyrannical businessman from gluing everything in the Lego world into his vision of perfection. It’s incredibly well animated and, without spoiling much, there’s a twist around two-thirds of the way through that make this a much more emotionally investing film than it ought to be. One to catch if you’re yet to see it.

Hugo

A family-friendly flick from Martin Scorcese? Sign us up. (Image credit: Paramount Pictures)

Martin Scorsese is a cinematic icon, but he’s not someone with a history of making movies for the whole family. Or, really any age group beyond adults with a strong stomach.

In 2011, that changed with the arrival of Hugo. Scorsese’s only dabble in 3D centers on Asa Butterfield’s Hugo, a 12-year-old orphan boy who lives alone in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris in the 1930s. 

Hugo keeps busy by fixing clocks and works daily to keep the train station chronographs running. What really keeps him going, though, is an automaton, left to him by his dead father, that doesn’t work without a special key. To find the key and unlock the secret he believes it contains, he’ll need to befriend George Melies, a secretive shopkeeper, and avoid being caught by the over-eager ticket inspector. 

It’s beautifully shot, full of wonder, and has a great script, with Sacha Baron-Cohen and Christopher Lee excelling in supporting roles. Well worth checking out.

DC League of Super-Pets

DC League of Super-Pets is a fun-filled superhero-like adventure. (Image credit: Warner Bros)

The DC Extended Universe (DCEU) is undergoing a radical reset right now, with co-studio heads James Gunn and Peter Safran effectively rebooting Warner Bros’ superhero movie slate.

While the DCEU was a mixed bag – read our DCEU movies in order guide for more details – Warner’s DC League of Super-Pets was one of the few cinematic offerings that’s a) ripe for kids/families, and b) is actually half-decent.

The movie begins with Krypto, Superman’s Dog, enjoying time with his owner. However, the duo’s recreational time is rudely interrupted when Superman is kidnapped by Lex Luthor. To get him back, Krypto unites a rag-tag group of household pets and sets out to free the Justice League. 

A-listers in Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, and Keanu Reeves, plus Andor’s Diego Luna, Russian Doll’s Lyonne, and Sonic the Hedgehog 2’s Ben Schwartz, lend their voices to an impressively stacked cast. Kids will love the humor, animation fans will appreciate the, well, animation, and parents will get around 100 minutes of peace. Well worth sticking on, then.

Scoob!

Scoob! is a CGI-based Scooby Doo flick that’ll enthrall new and old fans alike. (Image credit: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

The beloved cartoon with the cowardly dog and his hapahazard gang of friends was given a new lick of paint in 2020 with Will Forte, Mark Wahlberg, Jason Isaacs, Gina Rodriguez, Zac Efron, and Amanda Seyfried among the voice cast. 

A classic slapstick caper, Scoob! tracked the gang as they stumbled upon a plot to unleash the ghost dog Cerberus upon the world and somehow found themselves racing to stop this dogpocalypse. 

it’s brilliant fun, quite silly, and one that’s a good fit for the whole family. Clocking in at just 93 minutes, it’s also on the short side form a runtime perspective. If you’ve got kids whose attentions starts to wane after a while, this should be short enough to keep them engrossed.

For more HBO Max-based content, get the lowdown on everything worth knowing about the streamer in our HBO Max: all you need to know guide. Alternatively, check out the best HBO Max movies, best HBO Max shows, or HBO Max free trial articles.

Tom Goodwyn

Senior Entertainment Editor

Tom Goodwyn is TechRadar’s Senior Entertainment Editor. He oversees TechRadar’s coverage of the best TV shows, documentaries and movies across streaming services, theaters and beyond. Based in East London, he loves nothing more than spending all day in a movie theater, well, he did before he had two small children…