7 Top Tips On How To Have The Best Family Movie Night

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There’s nothing better than a family movie night. Cozying up on the sofa with your favorite people – what’s not to love?!

If you are anything like my family, family movie night is one of our weekly highlights. We love the excitement of choosing a movie together and snuggling up on the sofa with our favorite movie snacks.

But figuring out how to have the best family movie night didn’t happen overnight. It took time for our family to work together and in the process, we have come up with the perfect remedy.

We’ve saved you the trouble of figuring it out and have created a list of ideas and things to consider so that you and your family can enjoy the best family movie night together.

best family movie night featured

Top Tips to Have the Best Family Movie Night

To have the best family movie night, it is important to ensure everyone is involved in making decisions relating to the movie and snacks.

Making it a fun and low pressured event also adds to the enjoyment of the experience and will encourage your kids to want to do it again.

Choose a Family-Friendly Movie

This is a crucial step to getting movie night right. Movie night could be a disaster if the wrong movie was chosen. This is where your parental knowledge comes in handy and knowing what your kid’s likes and dislikes are. You can then make suggestions for appropriate movies that the family can choose from.

One way we enjoy selecting a movie together is from a surprise box. We (aka the grown-ups) write different movie titles on one end of a lollipop stick. The movie titles selected are based on the age of our kids and their interests.

We place these lollipop sticks in a jar and when it comes to movie night, our kids can select one from the jar for everyone to discuss. If we all agree, that’s the movie we will watch. If not, we put it back in the jar for another week.

Prepare in Advance

Alternatively, if your family isn’t good at coming to a decision promptly, it might be best to agree on a movie before movie night.

You could incorporate this as part of each movie night. Once your movie has finished, you can spend time together looking at different movie titles to decide what movie you’d like to watch next week.

Themed Nights

Another fun idea to have the best family movie night is to create themed nights. A themed night can bring lots of added excitement and adventure to an otherwise ordinary movie night.

Themed nights don’t have to be over the top or expensive. You can create a themed night with things from around your house e.g. toy cars when watching the movie Cars, mocktail pina colada, fruit salads, and homemade tissue paper Hawaiian necklace for a beach-themed movie night watching Moana.

Or, with younger children, perhaps you could make a robot out of recycled material ready to watch Walle.

When creating a themed movie night, consider different decorations, themed colors, snacks, and drinks, along with any fun props that could be made at home.

Snacks

Following on from themed nights, whether you choose this option or not, snacks are possibly one of the most important elements of a movie night. Get the snacks right and everyone will be content.

movie night snacks

It’s really important to consider the age of your children before selecting the snacks your family will share. For children younger than 5, certain snacks are considered a choking hazard and best to avoid. These foods include but are not limited to:

  • whole nuts,
  • peanuts,
  • uncut fruit,
  • hot dog sausages,
  • hard or gummy sweets,
  • marshmallows,
  • and even a movie night favourite, popcorn.

If your kids are over the age of 5, then these snacks might be suitable. It is best to know your child, ensure they are not left alone when eating, and chop larger or round items up into bite-sized pieces e.g. grapes.

Why not go all out and incorporate dinner into your family movie night?!

You can get everyone involved in choosing what they would like to eat and again, could even add in themed nights e.g. curry night, pizza, Chinese, or Italian. Your movie night snacks could follow on from the evenings theme.

For example, if you were enjoying Italian food such as pizza, you could have ice cream or amaretti biscuits as your snack. Or perhaps put on an Indian night with poppadoms, dips, samosas, and curry.

Comfort

Don’t forget to add in some home comfort too. A movie night won’t be enjoyed by your family if everyone is uncomfortable.

We like to add lots of cushions and blankets we can share and snuggle with on the sofa. Or, if we are having a themed movie night, we will often make a homemade den in the living room with lots of cushions on the floor.

If everyone is comfortable watching the movie, it limits complaints and the dreaded “fidgeting” throughout.

Add an Intermission

Particularly for younger children, adding a cinema-style intermission helps with the excitement, making it feel like a cinema experience at home.

It’s also a great practical top tip to enable young children to have a toilet break without fear of missing the movie. Plus everyone can top up their drinks and snacks too.

We enjoy adding an intermission and using it as an opportunity to talk to one another about the movie so far and what we think will happen next.

Post Movie Family Quiz

Saving the best till last, if you are a family who is quite competitive and thoroughly enjoy family games, then this tip to having the best family movie night is for you!

After the movie has finished, you can split into two or more teams as a friendly competition. Each team can create questions about the movie that the other team has to answer.

Questions could involve facts e.g. character voices, events from the movie itself, or even incorporating Pictionary and charades for teams to draw or act out specific parts of the movie.

This is such a family-fun post-movie activity that every age enjoys and can help make family movie night the best night of the week.

A Crazy Family

A Crazy Family strives to be the go-to destination for modern, savvy moms. Our aim is to share great tips, good food, recommendations, and helpful info for smart, busy moms just like you!

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