Educational Movies the Whole Family Will Enjoy

Can’t stomach another family movie night featuring Hanna Montana or Clone Troopers? Screen one of these family-friendly movies and your kids won’t even realize they’re learning something new while they munch popcorn on the sofa. All are available on Netflix.com or Blockbuster.com, or your local video store or library (at no cost!).

• Follow along with three animal families as they endure the ups and downs of a year, in the BBC’s amazing eleven episode series Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series (2007), a showcase of worldwide natural wonders. You’ll climb the highest mountains alongside snow leopards; you’ll plunge into the deepest seas with whale sharks—all from the comfort of your living room sofa. Play the related online game, Mission Planet, where you’ll be thrust into the director’s seat and asked to manage a film crew as it travels across the continents.
• Step into the hidden world of bugs, ants, and other creepy crawlies in Microcosmos (1996; Directed by Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou; Narrated by Kristen Scott Thomas and Jacques Perrin). Enjoy a close-up view of beetle battles, marching ant armies, and the birth of a butterfly. Critically acclaimed for its fine-tuned cinematography, this movie is one of the most creative and lyrical documentaries you’ll ever see.   
• You don’t need a 60 x 80 feet movie screen to bring the excitement and spectacular footage of an IMAX movie into your home: IMAX has released all of it’s popular documentaries in DVD format. Join an expedition to some of the most biodiverse islands in the world with Galapagos: IMAX. Hike through one of our nations true treasures in Yellowstone: IMAX. Zoom 220 miles above our Earth and check into the International Space Station: IMAX. There are a trove of IMAX films to fit in with any of your family’s interests (or to provide more in-depth knowledge and understanding of your child’s current unit of study in school). Check out the IMAX Ultimate Collection, which contains 20 of the most popular IMAX movies on DVD.
• March of the Penguins (2005, Directed by Luc Jacquet; Narrated by Morgan Freemen) gifts viewers with a touchingly intimate glimpse into the difficult life of the Emperor Penguin. Witness the perseverance of these tuxedoed penguins as they trek across huge distances to their breeding grounds and protect their tiny hatchlings in the most brutal climate in the world.
• Yet another polar favorite, Arctic Tale (2007; Directed by Adam Raetch and Sarah Robertson; Narrated by Queen Latifah and Katrina Agate), tells the story of Nanu, a baby polar bear, and Seelah, a newborn walrus. Follow along as these two amazing animals make it through a precarious infancy then travel into youth, where they’ll be trained in hunting and fighting by their respective mothers. You’ll also witness the negative effects of global warning in the surrounding Arctic environment.