National Treasure, The Rookie (baseball movie), Sky High, Pink Panther (new one)

Those are just a few off the top of my head that may be appropriate!! Hope it helps!

napoleon is pretty disrespectful, it depends on where you draw the line: potty mouth, disrespect.
its funny, but.

a walk to remember? oh wait, son said there is drinking in the beginning.
Thats a hard one to figure out.
Maybe leave time at the end of movie to discuss the questionable parts.

It all really comes down to personal conviction and the convictions of the church. In my current ministry setting I could show movies that you call “potty mouth” and no one would bat an eye. On the other hand movies that glorify war, or that indirectly (or directly) encourage the exploitation of the poor would be shot down by more than a few of the youth themselves.

National Treasure is a good one – I don’t know if High Schoolers would watch Sky High though. Maybe junior highers. Chronicles of Narnia is decent – as are the Harry Potter movies and the Lord of the Rings. Batman Begins, a bit violent, but otherwise pretty clean. As I recall the Spiderman movies are don’t have much of what one might call “potty mouth” though they are violent. The League of Extraordinary Gentleman is pretty decent.

Kicking and Screaming (Will Ferrell) is a good one for a mixed ages group.

i blogged about this very topic a while back, here’s the addy

http://doctorheadly.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/10-random-movies-to-use-in-ministry/

these are more oriented toward older teens and discussion afterward, and some of them would not work in your larger group settings. but all worth a look-see.

I can’t believe no one has suggested Remember the Titans! My youth director showed us that so many times I got sick of it. Gues he needed this list, too

From my personal collection, I’d go with:

Bruce Almighty
Cool Runnings
Oceans Eleven
Pirates of the Caribbean
The Princess Bride
Radio
The Rookie
Rudy
Secondhand Lions
Spiderman
Three Amigos
Tommy Boy
Sandlot
Holes
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Invincible

one we showed during the summer was ‘benchwarmers,’ which our youth loved, and we showed ‘bruce almighty’ a couple of years ago. we went to see ‘click’ during a mission trip to the philippines (oh yeah, we were ALL about serving, that day) but it had a couple of pretty unsavoury scenes. other than those scenes, it’d be excellent to illustrate living a life of no regrets, second chances, missed opportunities etc.

The Count of Monte Cristo is an excellent flick.

i agree with bronco. as memory serves it is clean and has a great message

I wouldn’t think of showing Tommy Boy or Three Amigos – there’s content in there that I’m embarrassed to watch, much less show to my students…

We watched Bruce Almighty at a lock-in. The film is fine except at one point when, out of the blue, he lets the “F” word fly. When it happened, I looked around the room — not one kid even reacted! : )

Get a Clearplay DVD player and you can watch any DVD you want (within reason).

Lionsgate is releasing a new “Christian Horror” flick from Ted Dekker and Frank Perettti, “House”. Saw a sneak peak…very scary, but messiah character with very very interesting talking points. No language…but very scary (i’m not into these type of movies so maybe I’m just a wimp.)

“Millions” is a great movie with lots of good stuff to talk about.

Why “Sorry, no Facing the Giants”? What does that mean?

Facing the Giants – a popular, but cheesy and badly done Christian movie

Harry Potter definately wouldn’t be something i recommend for youth Calvin, but thanks everyone else for some good ideas. I love the Rudy and Remember the Titans type movies for youth.

Also the best youth movie i could think of would definately be Simon Birch. Its fantastic.

How about Iron Will?

Bruce Almighty for teens okay? Have you watched the scene where Jim Carey is in the bedroom “moving his fingers about” while Jennifer Aniston is in the bathroom “getting pleasured”? Not okay for my teen to watch, especially at a church sanctioned function. Where have our morals and values gone?

It’s tough for me to make movie recommendations while keeping in mind that there is a battle for our youth’s worship and for their eyes… but here’s my thoughts on the following:

The Count of Monte Christo: I remember this as a great movie for me & my husband, but will watch it first before showing the youth

Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken: by Disney — I remember watching it about 15 years ago (??) but it’s still a good choice — I just watched it a few months ago to make sure! About a girl who goes into horse diving with the circus — little love story to it, too.

Check out pluggedinonline.com for reviews of a lot of movies before actually watching them. I always check the sexual content & the final conclusion for a very good, honest opinion of the movie!

I definitely recommend To End All Wars, it is powerful and has great message but has some torture and things so know your group

I’m appalled. I search for movies to show Church groups and there is virtually nothing religious. And the only one that is religious is characterized as cheesy and badly done. What is the concern? For the young people to show up or for their souls? Ultimately that’s what the point is. Movies in general have digressed so much that I can’t bring myself to watch them let alone my young people.

We have been watching the “Left Behind” series with our youth group. I think they are enjoying it and it has started to open up a lot of discussion in our Wednesday Night classes.

Thanks for lots of your thoughts.
How come no one has mentioned Nacho Libre? You can’t beat Jack Black, and it’s super clean and super hilarious. Planning to show that at camp for a movie night.
NACHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Tonight my group watched Faith in Potatoes. Pretty cool movie based on a true story. Girls and boys from 10-14 really, really liked it.

The movie choice for a church event is always a call I get hung up on. The hardest is when you have to choose a movie that is shown during an event that has games before or after (I’m thinking lock-in overnighter). In that situation the kids are amped up and you need something really great to keep their attention. I used Iron Man the last time and as long as you skip the unnecessary sex scene near the beginning you’re good to go.

I am planning to show “Love Comes Softly” at an all girls lock-in. There is actually 5-6 movies in the series. It has one of the best explanations as to why christians still experience tragic events even though God is always with us. Set back in the 1800′s, lends itself a little more to girls, but guys should enjoy it too.

For Junior High, I recommend “The Iron Giant”. It came out in 1999 but hardly anybody seems to have seen it. Cool 50s-style animation, great story about a boy who befriends a powerful, giant robot. Themes of nonviolence and sacrificial death. It’s PG, no problems as far as I can remember.

Our high schoolers loved The Ultimate Gift and The Peaceful Warrior
They are not your typical church kids or homeschooled as mentioned above. Not one of them has a parent who goes to church. Most of them have parents addicted to drugs and many of them struggle with it themselves. They also loved Facing the Giants. Maybe it is because they are seeking something different than the world offers that they enjoyed these movies. They sat glued to them and didn’t even get up to go get snacks.

Why do we show such cheesy and corny movies to our students that reflect a westernized Christianity that is nothing more than morality wrapped in a naive worldview that anesthetizes them to the reality of a world where people cuss, use drugs, sleep around, etc…)? Are we, as youth workers, ourselves so naive that we think our students are not exposed to worse on a daily basis? We need to get real with our students and their friends instead of constantly trying to provide a sterile atmosphere that creates dissonance between them and real world struggles. So keep on avoiding ‘potty mouths’ (really?) and anything that smells of ‘sin’ and you will end up in a place where grace and truth are scarce and self-righteousness and pop-Christianity abound.

Do you really want to show a movie ? Why? Hollywood sold out to values that have nothing to do with true discipleship. it’s like eating hot dogs – may taste good and are easy to fix but mixed in are cancer causeing nitrates and who knows what gets in the meat. Sure the kids hear garbage everyday at school but why add more to the pile? They watch plenty of movies on TV or on dates etc. Maybe it is better to find a game that you can play or do some skits or anything else that would have the goal of thinking about things God’s way. Go for a midnight walk, a treasure hunt or make up a mystery with clues.