Family Matinees

Beverly Hills socialite Phyllis Nefler (Shelley Long) is in the middle of a divorce. To maintain a bond with her daughter, Hannah (Jenny Lewis), she resolves to take on the role of leading the Wilderness Girls Troop Beverly Hills. The troop’s unconventional methods under Phyllis’s leadership catch the ire of rival leader Velda Plendor (Betty Thomas) of the Culver City Red Feathers, who aims to sabotage Phyllis and the rest of Troop Beverly Hills. Though initially panned by critics, the film has garnered a cult following and become a beloved classic in the years since its release.

This sequel reunites the entire cast from The Addams Family (1991), expanding it further when Morticia and Gomez (Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia) have a third child and decide to hire a nanny. Enter Debbie Jellinsky (Joan Cusack), whose true intentions are to marry Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd) and murder him to inherit his wealth. To distract the too-wise older children Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley (Jimmy Workman), Debbie convinces Morticia and Gomez to send them to Camp Chippewa, the worst nightmare for two staunchly indoor kids. Perfect for every goth child and their adults, this sequel has a darker edge than the first film, likely leading to its growing status as a cult classic.

Piled together in a big yellow bus, the entire Peanuts gang—Charlie Brown, Sally, Lucy, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Marcie, Schroeder, and Franklin—barrel away toward summer camp, followed closely by Charlie’s steadfast beagle, Snoopy, and the yellow bird, Woodstock. With plenty of antics to entertain children and enough clever visual gags to appeal to adults—Snoopy, Charlie, and Woodstock are briefly styled like Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider—this animated classic, the third feature-length adaptation of the revered comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, takes the Peanuts outside their hometown and out into the wilderness for the first time.

Arlo, an 11-year-old apatosaurus, finds himself lost and alone after a terrible storm. In searching for his home, Arlo must journey through unfamiliar landscapes. However, along the way he befriends a human, and together they learn how to face fears and discover their bravery. The feature film debut from Oscar-nominated director Peter Sohn, The Good Dinosaur stars Academy Award–winning actor Frances McDormand and Academy Award–nominated actor Jeffrey Wright in this beautifully animated film about finding your courage when faced with the unknown.

Though they had their debut on the TV show Full House before their first birthday, identical twin actors Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen didn’t star in a theatrically released film until eight years later, at the age of 9. Amanda (Mary-Kate) and Alyssa (Ashley) are look-alike young girls from different backgrounds who literally run into each other at a summer camp owned by Alyssa’s father (Steve Guttenberg). Like The Parent Trap (1961) but with even more slapstick, Amanda and Alyssa band together to matchmake Alyssa’s father and Amanda’s social worker to try and give them both the happily-ever-after they deserve.

Forget your typical summer camp: for the Thornberry family, every day is a camping trip! For five seasons on Nickelodeon, television nature show host Nigel Thornberry and his filmmaker wife, Marianne, traveled the globe with their family. In this feature-length film adaptation, the Thornberrys are on safari in Kenya when precocious daughter Eliza finds she can suddenly communicate with animals. None of the spunk of the series is lost by carrying the maximalist Klasky-Csupo character design into the feature film format, and this action-packed story proved to be a critical darling, earning an Oscar nomination for Original Song with “Father And Daughter” by Paul Simon.

When Charlie Hinton (Eddie Murphy) loses his high-powered marketing job and is forced to pull his son from an expensive private school, he decides to open a daycare center with the help of other unemployed fathers. Continuing Murphy’s successful string of family-friendly comedies—Dr. Dolittle (1998), Shrek (2001)—this super silly project convenes an incredible supporting cast including Jeff Garlin, Steve Zahn, Regina King, Anjelica Huston, and Kevin Nealon, and ultimately promotes a student-centered learning model for early childhood education. And if you’ve ever wondered what Eddie Murphy looks like dressed as a stalk of broccoli, this movie makes that dream come true.

Nominated for an Oscar for Original Screenplay, Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola’s quirky tale finds 12-year-olds Sam and Suzy escaping from Camp Ivanhoe and absconding into the wilderness off the New England coast. The pair fall too deep into their cute courtship to care that every adult in their lives is trying to locate them before a dangerous storm makes landfall. Featuring first-time actors Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward as the charming tweens in a budding romance, this off-kilter camp story hints at the Andersonian magic that would follow in films like The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and Asteroid City (2023).

Captain Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson), a merry jokester, gets roped into an entertaining adventure with gutsy botanist Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) and her fashionable brother, MacGregor (Jack Whitehall), as the fearless trio embarks on an ambitious journey to find a healing tree along the Amazon River. Jungle Cruise is an action-filled fantasy film based on Disneyland’s classic theme park ride, which will take filmgoers of all ages through a supernatural jungle experience on-screen full of excitement, humor, and animals galore!