Family Movie Night Ideas: Movie Night Games and Snacks

The best family movie night ideas depend on the youngest viewer. With preschoolers, keep the movie short and turn the room into a pretend theater with paper tickets. School-age kids enjoy a game that runs while the movie plays, such as bingo for things that happen on screen. Teens usually want a say in the movie and a game that lets them argue about it afterward.

Each idea below lists how many people it suits, roughly how long it takes and what to print or set out. Game times are printed on the game sheets. The age bands and setup times are our own suggestions; shift them to fit your family.

Pick by situation

Your night	Try	Players	Time on top of the movie	Needs
Preschoolers, short attention spans	Living-room theater, blanket-fort screening	2 or more	About 15 minutes to set up	Paper, blankets, a non-popcorn snack
Mixed ages, kids who can’t read yet	Emoji movie guessing, room bingo	2 to 10	A short round before, bingo runs all night	Printed pages, a grown-up to read hints
Kids about 6 to 12	On-screen bingo, snack draft, animated movie trivia	2 to 10	20 to 40 minutes	Pens, printed sheets
Teens in the room	Team vote with a veto, charades, would you rather	4 to 12	30 to 60 minutes	A bowl for prompts, a timer
Cousins and grandparents over the holidays	Guest awards, conversation cards, a snack bar	3 to 12	20 to 40 minutes	Award sheet, cut cards
Two people on a quiet night	Prediction sheet, bingo, rating card	2	A few minutes before and after	Three printed pages

Before anything else: who’s watching and how long you have

Start with the clock, then pick the games. A movie night with games runs longer than the movie. A 100-minute film with games before and after can easily fill two and a half hours, which matters on a school night.

Next, settle the movie. The MPA rating on the box or streaming page is the quickest filter. G means all ages are admitted. PG means some material may not be suitable for children. PG-13 warns that some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. With a mix of ages, the youngest viewer decides the ceiling. Older kids can watch their PG-13 pick after the little ones go to bed.

Votes stop the arguing before it starts. The Pick the Movie sheet in our movie night party games has eight nomination lines and two votes per person, plus a veto column. It also has house rules to agree before voting: the longest running time allowed tonight, anything nobody is allowed to pick, and whether subtitles are on. Write the rating limit on that “nobody is allowed to pick” line, and the vote takes care of itself. The sheet suits 2 to 10 people and takes 5 to 10 minutes. The runner-up gets saved for next time, which softens the loss.

Movie night ideas for little kids

Preschoolers and kindergartners do best with a short movie, a clear start and something to do with their hands. These ideas need almost no reading, so a grown-up can run them while the kids enjoy the show.

A living-room theater with tickets

Turn the living room into a pretend movie theater. Kids draw their own tickets on scraps of paper, and one child plays the usher who tears them at the door. Set the snacks out on a counter as a concession stand, and dim the lights when the movie starts.

Allow about 15 minutes to set up. It works for any number of kids, and the setup doubles as the activity. If a younger child wants to be the usher every week, take turns in order and write the next usher’s name on the fridge.

Popcorn is the obvious theater snack, but the CDC lists popcorn, chips and pretzels among potential choking hazards for young children. For toddlers and preschoolers, pick another snack, like soft fruit, and keep popcorn for the older kids.

A blanket-fort screening in pajamas

Build a fort out of couch cushions and blankets in front of the TV. Everyone changes into pajamas first, so the night can end straight into bed. This is the easiest idea on the list, and it suits two kids or a whole sleepover.

Build the fort before dinner, not during the opening credits. Otherwise, the first 20 minutes of the movie turn into a construction project. Leave a clear path to the bathroom, too. A cushion wall across the doorway gets kicked down at the first pause.

Emoji movie guessing before the film

A row of emoji spells out a movie title, and the kids guess. A lion and a crown, for example, is The Lion King. Pre-readers can guess from the pictures while a grown-up reads the hint aloud.

Our emoji guessing games set has a movies round of 10 puzzles on pages 5 to 14, one large puzzle to a page. Each page has a hint line, such as “A Disney cub grows up to rule the savanna,” and the answer printed upside down at the bottom. Ten puzzles make a short warm-up, and kids can play alone or in teams.

Check the titles before printing. The round mixes family films like Finding Nemo, Frozen and Kung Fu Panda with Titanic, Jurassic Park and The Lord of the Rings. Young kids may never have heard of those last three, so print only the pages they can win.

Movie night bingo for things that happen in the room

Room bingo doesn’t watch the movie; it watches the family. The squares are things like “A snack runs out,” “Someone hides their eyes” and “The remote goes missing.” Little kids love catching a grown-up doing one.

The movie night kit has ten different room bingo cards for 2 to 10 players, and the game runs all night. Five in a row wins, and the winner shouts it. Pair each pre-reader with an older sibling or a parent who can read the squares. Shouting is part of this game, so save it for a comedy, not a quiet movie.

Movie night games for kids about 6 to 12

School-age kids can read the sheets and keep their own score. That means the games can carry through the whole movie instead of stopping when it starts.

On-screen bingo during the movie

On-screen bingo is the best fit for this age. Each card has squares for things that happen in the film, like “A door slams,” “A dog appears” or “Someone says the title.” Players cross off squares as they happen, and five in a row wins. Unlike room bingo, the winner stays quiet about it.

The movie night kit has ten screen cards for 2 to 10 players, printed four to a page across three pages. Print all three pages and cut the cards apart, so no two players hold the same card. Hand them out with a pencil before you press play, not twenty minutes in.

A snack draft while the popcorn pops

Kids take turns claiming snacks like a sports draft. Once a snack is taken, it’s gone. The board in the movie night kit lists snacks from popcorn and pretzels to ice cream and hot chocolate, and the draft suits 2 to 8 players in about 10 minutes.

The board uses British names, so “Crisps” are chips, “Biscuits” are cookies and “Fizzy drinks” are soda. Cross out anything you don’t actually have in the house before the draft starts. Otherwise, the first pick is a snack nobody can eat.

Animated movie trivia

Trivia works when the questions match the room. The movie night kit has a 25-question animated movie round for 2 to 10 players, which takes 15 to 20 minutes. Questions ask things like which 2016 Disney film follows a young Polynesian voyager.

Skip the general trivia rounds with kids. The Ultimate Movie Trivia round, for example, asks about film terms like the Kuleshov effect that most adults won’t know. The host guide in the kit also warns against starting with trivia when half the room doesn’t watch many movies. Start with something everyone can win, then bring trivia out after the movie.

Draw the movie

One player draws a movie scene while their team guesses it. There are no letters, numbers, talking or pointing. The prompts in the kit include “A house lifted by balloons” and “A yellow brick road,” with 24 prompts marked easy, medium or hard. Each drawing gets 60 seconds.

The game suits 4 to 12 players in two teams and takes 20 to 30 minutes. It needs a whiteboard or a stack of scrap paper and a timer. Give younger kids the easy prompts, because a hard one like “A typewriter and a snowy window” stumps most children.

Rate the movie like a critic

After the credits, everyone fills in a rating card. The card in the movie night kit scores the film out of ten on story, acting, characters, visuals, sound and music, pacing, entertainment, the ending and rewatch value, plus an overall score. The host averages the room’s scores for a final verdict. It takes 5 to 10 minutes for 1 to 10 people.

Kids under about 8 may find ten rows too many. Let them fill in only the overall line and one favorite part, and let older siblings do the full card.

Movie night ideas when there are teens

Teens stay for a family movie night when they have some control over it. Give them the vote, the remote or the job of running a game.

Let a teen run the vote

Hand the Pick the Movie sheet to a teenager and let them run the nominations. They write in the films, collect the votes and count the vetoes. Write the rating limit in the house rules first, so the vote can’t overrule it.

If the younger kids go to bed early, a teen can choose the second movie alone. The MPA defines PG-13 as “some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.” That gives an easy rule for younger siblings: they can watch the first film, and they leave before the second one starts.

Movie would you rather

Read two choices aloud, such as “Live inside a musical” or “Live inside a heist film.” On a count of three, everyone points at their choice. Whoever ends up in the minority has to explain why. The kit has 20 of these, and they need no movie knowledge at all.

Would you rather is the best warm-up when teens think they’re too old for games. Nobody can lose, and everyone gets an opinion. The 90-minute plan in the kit puts it early in the evening, before anything that needs answers.

Movie charades

Players act out a movie moment without words, sounds or pointing at objects, and their team guesses. The kit has 36 prompts to cut out, fold and drop into a bowl, from “A shark circling a swimmer” to “A spy crossing a room of laser beams.” Each player gets 60 seconds.

Charades suits 4 to 12 players and takes 20 to 30 minutes. Read the prompts before cutting them. A few lean on horror movies, such as a prompt about a phone call coming from inside the house. Pull those out if young kids are playing.

A read-the-book-first movie night

Pick a movie made from a book, and read the book together over the week before movie night. Afterward, everyone says one thing the movie changed and whether it was better or worse. This takes no printing, works with any number of readers and suits kids from early chapter books up to teens.

Choose the book by the reader, not the movie. A book that’s too long turns into homework by Wednesday, and the night loses its fun.

Holiday movie nights from Thanksgiving to winter break

Long weekends and winter break leave room for longer nights, bigger groups and a second movie. These ideas suit a house full of cousins, grandparents and kids who don’t have school tomorrow.

A popcorn and hot chocolate bar

Set out bowls of popcorn with a few toppings, and a pot of hot chocolate with mugs. Guests help themselves before the movie starts. The snack menu page in the movie night kit lists popcorn bar options to tick: salted, cinnamon sugar, sweet, grated cheese with black pepper, and half and half. Prop it up beside the bowls, so nobody has to ask what’s in each one.

Keep the hot chocolate away from the blanket fort, and keep the popcorn bowls out of reach of toddlers, too, for the same choking reason as above.

A winter-break double feature

Pick two movies with a common theme, like two holiday movies or two films from the same series. Plan a real break between them for dinner or a walk, and keep a game for that gap.

The conversation cards in the movie night kit are made for the gaps between films. There are 36 questions, such as “Which film made you cry the hardest?” and “What film did your family always watch?” Each person answers one in turn. The cards suit 2 to 12 people and take 20 to 40 minutes.

Guest awards for a house full of cousins

At the end of the night, hand out awards to the people in the room instead of the movie. The kit has 16 guest awards, such as “Best Snack Contribution,” “First to Fall Asleep” and “Best Sport.” Nominate, vote and write the winner’s name on the line. It suits 3 to 12 people and takes 15 to 20 minutes.

With a big, loud group, skip the games that need quiet writing. The host guide in the kit suggests charades and team guessing races instead. Check the awards before you print, too. “Worst Film Suggestion” is a joke between adults but can sting the kid who picked the movie.

If the TV stays off one night, try a card game instead: family game night ideas start with games for kids who can’t read yet.

Running the night: a plan for the hour around the movie

A movie night with games needs a plan, because the movie takes up most of the evening. The host kit in our movie night set has two run sheets that split the games into before and after the film.

The 60-minute plan suits 2 to 10 players. It puts 20 minutes before the film: the vote, the snack draft, a prediction sheet and handing out bingo cards. Bingo and a scene spotter run during the movie. After the credits come 40 minutes of rating, awards, a character vote and a winner certificate. The 90-minute plan for 3 to 12 players adds would you rather before the film, and charades and hot takes afterward.

Add up the times before you start. A 90-minute movie plus the 60-minute plan fills two and a half hours. If that’s too long for a school night, the host guide’s advice is to cut a middle round and keep the awards, because people remember how the night ended.

When the night goes wrong

The host guide in the kit has quick fixes for the usual problems:

• One person is way ahead. Switch to an open-ended game like awards or would you rather, where knowledge stops mattering.
• The room has gone quiet. That’s a reading game. Swap to charades and get someone on their feet.
• An argument won’t end. Call a vote, write the result on the sheet and move on.
• Someone doesn’t want to play. Give them the scoreboard. Keeping score counts as playing.

The kit’s scoreboard holds up to eight players. For a bigger family, play in teams, and put a movie fan on each team with someone who rarely watches movies.