Films to watch as a family on HBO Max
24 films worth watching on HBO Max right now, with audience ratings and exactly where to watch them. Updated November 13, 2026
Spirited Away leads with 8,5 out of 10, ahead of Wolf Children (8,2). Ratings range from 6,5 to 8,5. The oldest, Castle in the Sky, goes back to 1986. The selection leans toward films from the 2010s, 11 of 24.
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Coraline
Wandering her rambling old house in her boring new town, 11-year-old Coraline discovers a hidden door to a strangely idealized version of her life. In order to stay in the fantasy, she must make a frighteningly real sacrifice.
Spirited Away
A young girl, Chihiro, becomes trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call upon the courage she never knew she had to free her family.
Despicable Me
Determined to prove he's the world's greatest supervillain, Gru hatches an audacious plan to steal the Moon. To pull it off, he adopts three orphaned girls—Margo, Edith, and Agnes—intending to use them as pawns in his scheme. But the unexpected bond they form forces him to question the criminal life he's always known.
My Neighbor Totoro
Two sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros, magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away from home, the older sister seeks help from the spirits to find her.
The Polar Express
When a doubting young boy takes an extraordinary train ride to the North Pole, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery that shows him that the wonder of life never fades for those who believe.
Kiki's Delivery Service
A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.
Castle in the Sky
A young boy and a girl with a magic crystal must race against pirates and foreign agents in a search for a legendary floating castle.
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
Animal pals Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria are still trying to make it back to New York's Central Park Zoo. They are forced to take a detour to Europe to find the penguins and chimps who broke the bank at a Monte Carlo casino. When French animal-control officer Capitaine Chantel DuBois picks up their scent, Alex and company are forced to hide out in a traveling circus.
Rise of the Guardians
When an evil spirit known as Pitch Black lays down the gauntlet to take over the world, the immortal Guardians must join forces for the first time to protect the hopes, beliefs and imagination of children all over the earth.
Ponyo
When Sosuke, a young boy who lives on a clifftop overlooking the sea, rescues a stranded goldfish named Ponyo, he discovers more than he bargained for. Ponyo is a curious, energetic young creature who yearns to be human, but even as she causes chaos around the house, her father, a powerful sorcerer, schemes to return Ponyo to the sea.
Space Jam: A New Legacy
When LeBron and his young son Dom are trapped in a digital space by a rogue A.I., LeBron must get them home safe by leading Bugs, Lola Bunny and the whole gang of notoriously undisciplined Looney Tunes to victory over the A.I.'s digitized champions on the court. It's Tunes versus Goons in the highest-stakes challenge of his life.
ParaNorman
In the town of Blithe Hollow, Norman Babcock can speak to the dead, but no one other than his eccentric new friend believes his ability is real. One day, Norman's eccentric uncle tells him of a ritual he must perform to protect the town from a curse cast by a witch centuries ago.
Whisper of the Heart
Shizuku lives a simple life, dominated by her love for stories and writing. One day she notices that all the library books she has have been previously checked out by the same person: "Seiji Amasawa."
The Lego Batman Movie
A cooler-than-ever Batman must face the usual villains as the Joker plots a takeover of Gotham City. But when Bruce Wayne accidentally adopts a teenage orphan who wishes to become his sidekick, he’s forced to give up his lone-vigilante ways and learn to work with others.
Arrietty
14-year-old Arrietty and the rest of the Clock family live in peaceful anonymity as they make their own home from items "borrowed" from the house's human inhabitants. However, life changes for the Clocks when a human boy discovers Arrietty.
Horton Hears a Who!
An imaginative elephant named Horton hears a faint cry for help coming from a tiny speck of dust floating through the air. Horton suspects there may be life on that speck and despite a surrounding community, who thinks he has lost his mind, he is determined to save the tiny particle.
Kubo and the Two Strings
Kubo mesmerizes the people in his village with his magical gift for spinning wild tales with origami. When he accidentally summons an evil spirit seeking vengeance, Kubo is forced to go on a quest to solve the mystery of his fallen samurai father and his mystical weaponry, as well as discover his own magical powers.
The Cat Returns
Young Haru rescues a cat from being run over, but soon learns it's no ordinary feline; it happens to be the Prince of the Cats.
Space Jam
With their freedom on the line, the Looney Tunes seek the help of NBA superstar Michael Jordan to win a basketball game against a team of moronic aliens.
Epic
A teenager finds herself transported to a deep forest setting where a battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil is taking place. She bands together with a rag-tag group of characters in order to save their world—and ours.
DC League of Super-Pets
When Superman and the rest of the Justice League are kidnapped, Krypto the Super-Dog must convince a rag-tag shelter pack - Ace the hound, PB the potbellied pig, Merton the turtle and Chip the squirrel - to master their own newfound powers and help him rescue the superheroes.
Wolf Children
After her werewolf lover unexpectedly dies in an accident, a woman must find a way to raise the son and daughter that she had with him. However, their inheritance of their father's traits prove to be a challenge for her.
The Boxtrolls
An orphaned boy raised by underground creatures called Boxtrolls comes up from the sewers and out of his box to save his family and the town from the evil exterminator, Archibald Snatcher.
When Marnie Was There
Upon being sent to live with relatives in the countryside due to an illness, an emotionally distant adolescent girl becomes obsessed with an abandoned mansion and infatuated with a girl who lives there - a girl who may or may not be real.
What to know before choosing
Watching as a family is the hardest case of all, because very different attention spans have to be satisfied at once. The criterion that works is not "what age" but "how long before the youngest checks out". This list sorts on popularity rather than rating: a film everyone already knows has passed that test in thousands of living rooms.
HBO Max carries two catalogs with nothing in common: the Warner library, very wide and very old, and the in-house productions, few and much noticed. A by-genre list almost always leans to the Warner side, which gives an unusually spread-out distribution across decades. It is one of the rare catalogs where looking for a 1970s film genuinely makes sense.
Frequently asked questions
How were these 24 films chosen?
They come from the TMDB catalog, filtered on audience rating and on a minimum number of votes — without that second filter, a film rated 9 out of 10 by eleven people would outrank a classic. No place is for sale: no platform, distributor or studio can enter this list other than by being well rated.
Which film in this list is rated highest?
Spirited Away (2001), with 8,5 out of 10 from 19,210 audience votes.
Are these films really available on HBO Max in the US?
Yes, as of the day the page was built. Availability comes from TMDB and JustWatch for the catalog in the US, and the list is rebuilt daily. Streaming catalogs move constantly: a title can leave between two passes, which is why the page carries its date.
How often does this list change?
It is recomputed every day. Ratings move slowly, catalogs move fast: availability is what mostly pushes titles in and out.
Do I need an account?
No. Taro eira is free, asks for no account and no subscription, and the two-or-three-question flow works without installing anything.
See also
- Films to watch as a family
- HBO Max
- Films to watch as a family on Netflix
- Films to watch as a family on Prime Video
- Films to watch as a family on Disney+
- Films to watch as a family on Apple TV+
- Films to watch as a family on Hulu
- Films to watch as a family on Paramount+
- Films to watch as a family on Peacock
- Films to make you laugh
- Films that scare you
- Films that make you cry
- Films that make you think
- Films to escape into
- Films to watch with friends
- Films full of adrenaline
How this list is built
Films come from the TMDB catalog, filtered on audience rating and vote count, then cross-checked against real availability in the country. No paid placement, no partnerships. How we choose the films.
Film data and posters: TMDB. This app uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.