What Family Movies to watch on Starz

Eleven year-old Akeelah Anderson's life is not easy: her father is dead, her mom ignores her, her brother runs with the local gangbangers. She's smart, but her environment threatens to strangle her aspirations. Responding to a threat by her school's principal, Akeelah participates in a spelling bee to avoid detention for her many absences. Much to her surprise and embarrassment, she wins. Her principal asks her to seek coaching from an English professor named Dr. Larabee for the more prestigious regional bee. As the possibility of making it all the way to the Scripps National Spelling Bee looms, Akeelah could provide her community with someone to rally around and be proud of -- but only if she can overcome her insecurities and her distracting home life. She also must get past Dr. Larabee's demons, and a field of more experienced and privileged fellow spellers.

Maire O'Donnell is a loving woman as rare as a double rainbow. Joyful, warm, and caring, she adopts a young orphan named Tomas and whisks him to a new home on remote Corry Island, off the coast of Ireland. Maire shares with Tomas the joys of her island home and introduces him to the whimsical local folklore, including the secret of the seals, and teaches him that everything you need is inside you, if you really look. But Maire's stern husband Alec silently disapproves of Tomas' timidity and halting speech. He can't hide his disappointment that Tomas isn't the kind of child he was hoping for, and his reluctance to get to know the boy makes Tomas unsure of whether he really belongs. But Tomas soon falls in love with his home, befriending local children, descending into a secret bat-filled cave, and saving a stranded baby seal. When tragedy strikes, however, Tomas is faced with his greatest challenge yet. He'll lose everything unless he can find--and share--his unique gifts. Risking all, Tomas embarks on a perilous journey where he will need to call on his ability to see joy and color even in the darkest place, in order to triumph and come home. A Shine Of Rainbows is a story about the transformational power of love, about finding acceptance, discovering ourselves, and realizing that rainbows are all around us--and within us.

Earth is a memory of the past; it's the 31st Century and humanity is on the brink of total annihilation, all except for one young man who holds the map to the universe's last hope: Titan. In a race against time, the human race has to find the Titan before the illusive Drej destroy it.

The animals at the Franklin Park Zoo decide to break their time-honored code of silence and reveal their biggest secret to zookeeper Griffin Keyes (Kevin James): They can talk!

Charlie Hinton and Phil Ryerson are back in this hilarious, all-new adventure. When they expand their day care magic to underdog Camp Driftwood, they discover that teamwork, combined with some down-right crazy antics, is the right mix to give the kids an unforgettable camp experience.

In this irreverent, hilarious, adventurous buddy comedy for audiences of all ages, directed by Jimmy Hayward (Horton Hears a Who!), two turkeys from opposite sides of the tracks must put aside their differences and team up to travel back in time to change the course of history - and get turkey off the holiday menu for good.

Hood vs. Evil will find a teen such as Red Riding Hood who will be training in a distant land with a mysterious, covert group called the Sister Hoods. When Red and the Wolf get called upon by Nick Flippers the head of the Happily Ever After Agency over to investigate the disappearance of Hansel and Gretel.

The tale of three unlikely heroes - a misfit mouse who prefers reading books to eating them, an unhappy rat who schemes to leave the darkness of the dungeon, and a bumbling servant girl with cauliflower ears - whose fates are intertwined with that of the castle's princess.

1920s Indochina. In the wild, a pair of adult tigers have just had a litter of two male cubs. It is a loving family unit, with the two brothers having a bond through their adventurous spirit. In different incidents, the cubs are captured individually, and although both in captivity live very different lives. Their individual captures were directly or indirectly associated with the work of Aidan McRory, a treasure and big game hunter, whose main goal is to make as much money for himself by selling his largely illegally obtained artifacts and animal parts at auction in Europe. Through the process, he has an emotional connection with one of the cubs, who is eventually named Kumal, but of who he eventually loses track. The cubs' lives are affected negatively by a number of other people who are working solely toward their own end goals, but the other cub, who is eventually named Sangha, also makes an emotional human connection to a young boy named Raoul Normandin, the son of the area administrator. Similar to Kumal and Aidan, Raoul eventually loses track of his tiger friend. The second year of the cubs' lives, they now full fledged adult tigers, is different than their first, with a question being how their individual experiences in captivity will affect how they function in their much different new environments. Both Aidan and Raoul are determined to do whatever necessary to make sure what happens to the tigers are for the benefit of the lives they should be leading based on their history, with Aidan and Raoul perhaps having a different perspective on what that actually is.

Returning from a hunting trip in the forest, the Henderson family's car hits something in the road. At first, they fear it was a man, but when they examine his "body", they find he's a "bigfoot". They think he's dead, so they decide to take him home. As you guessed, he isn't dead. Far from being the ferocious monster they fear him to be, he's a friendly giant. In their attempts to keep him a secret, they have to hide him from the authorities and a man who has made his goal in life to catch a "bigfoot".

Moving from Los Angeles to a backwater town is always difficult, but especially for the one doing the moving. After her father's death, Beth Easton and her mother, Kate, move to the house left to the family by a deceased aunt. Kate meets up with several old friends, but Beth has none. Slowly, however, she makes some, despite the lack of a nearby mall or anything else to do. Soon she meets up with two boys fighting...except one isn't a boy. It's a girl. She, Jody, is shunned by her peers as a "bad kid". As the film progresses, we see her as the apparent victim of a bad relationship between her own widowed mother and Ray, a man who, like everybody else, grew up in the town. Somehow, Beth sees that Jody isn't all that bad; "she just needs a friend." Beth sticks by her, even when she is blamed for almost killing Beth. She has a dream about finding lost gold left in Bear Mountain by a legendary woman named Molly Morgan. Jody has a map, and a "condo" in the mountain near the entrance to a series of caves and tunnels leading to the supposed gold. On the first day of summer, she and Beth find the cave where the gold supposedly is hidden. The movie continues digging deeper into Jody's life through Beth's eyes. Although the legend of Bear Mountain is the prime motivator of several incidents, it's Jody's relationship to Ray, her mother, Beth, and the rest of the townspeople that provides the focus of the movie.

Moon Blake is raised by his loving but government-paranoid father Oliver in a hidden cave in the Alabama forests. Oliver dies from a leg wound he refuses to have medically treated, so Moon is told to move away, alone, and start a new home in the Alaskan wild-lands. Constable Sanders, however - the mean local cop - finds the boy with his father's guns, abuses him and has him locked away till majority age for 'assault' within Mr. Gene's grim Pinson home for boys. Moon soon makes friends with shy, sickly Kit and apparent bully Hal, then sets up a mass escape, on which only the trio actually follows through. Sanders fails to catch them, but the unforgiving elements reshuffle the cards dramatically. An uncle is meanwhile found.

Four kids embark on the ultimate journey to discover if a magical creature can really make all their wishes come true. Set on the beautiful Cornish coast, Four Kids and IT is a fun-filled family adventure based on Jacqueline Wilson’s hugely popular children’s book, Four Children and IT, starring Paula Patton, Matthew Goode, with Russell Brand and Michael Caine.

After six years of keeping our malls safe, Paul Blart (Kevin James) has earned a well-deserved vacation. He heads to Vegas with his teenage daughter before she heads off to college. But safety never takes a holiday and when duty calls, Blart answers.

In a city park, Surly the Squirrel has finally gone too far with his latest caper . Now exiled, Surly and his rat buddy Buddy's collective nightmare on the streets ends when they discover a nut store to raid. With no other options, she arranges a deal to help in Surly's heist for the colony, even while Surly fully intends to betray it. However, there is more going on with the nut store being a front for bank robbers while Raccoon has his own agenda to ensure his own power. In the mayhem to come, Surly finds himself challenged in ways he never expected and discovering the real prize to treasure in this adventure.

Lem is just an average teenager working on getting the girl and furthering his career at the local planetarium - except that he's an alien. At least to U.S. astronaut Captain Charles T. Baker who lands on Lem's planet hoping for a quick flag plant and a hasty return to earth and his millions of screaming fans. But on this alien planet the media has tagged spacemen as brain-eating, zombie-creating monsters, causing Baker to run for his life and into Lem's house. Now it's up to the green native to get the clumsy astronaut back to his spaceship before military dictator General Grawl and mad scientist Professor Kipple manage to exterminate the Earthly visitor.

Optometrist Steve Finch loves those Christmas traditions he has set up with his family and his town. As such, he has a schedule of activities for them starting on December 1st and is the unofficial consultant for anything Christmas-related in his town of Cloverdale, Massachusetts. During the Christmas season, the Halls move into the house across the street from the Finches. They, in general, are different in outlook and temperament than the Finches. Unlike Steve, Buddy Hall scams his way through life and never follows through with anything he starts. While Kelly Finch, Tia Hall, and their children begin friendships based largely on those differences, Steve and Buddy butt heads based on those differences. It begins with Buddy striving to have his house seen from space by decorating it as lavishly and brightly as possible. One of the results of this task is that he becomes the new go-to guy for anything Christmas-related in Cloverdale, usurping Steve's coveted position. As Steve and Buddy's open animosity grows, they may threaten the joy of Christmas for all, most specifically their families who have their own ideas of what they would like to do over the Christmas season.

The year is 2010. Teenager Alan Tracy, sent off to a distant boarding school, is the youngest of the sons of Jeff Tracy, a retired American astronaut. Jeff, a widower, has formed International Rescue, and raised his sons to act as a secret, volunteer organization which uses highly advanced technology to save lives worldwide. Jeff and his older sons John, Virgil, Scott, and Gordon, who like Alan were named after the Mercury Seven astronauts are joined in this effort by Lady Penelope and her butler/chauffeur Parker. Their futuristic hardware is largely developed by a genius scientist known as Brains, who lives at the International Rescue base on Tracy Island, somewhere in the Pacific.

Oscar Diggs (James Franco), a small-time circus magician with dubious ethics, is hurled away from dusty Kansas to the vibrant Land of Oz. At first he thinks he's hit the jackpot-fame and fortune are his for the taking. That all changes, however, when he meets three witches, Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz), and Glinda (Michelle Williams), who are not convinced he is the great wizard everyone's been expecting. Reluctantly drawn into the epic problems facing the Land of Oz and its inhabitants, Oscar must find out who is good and who is evil before it is too late. Putting his magical arts to use through illusion, ingenuity-and even a bit of wizardry-Oscar transforms himself not only into the great and powerful Wizard of Oz but into a better man as well.

Join the pack in this wild, warmhearted and totally pawsome adventure starring everyone's favorite alphas and omegas.

McKenna has been such a bright reader up until 4th grade. But she slowly started having problems comprehending what she was reading and it was hard for her to tell her friends that her tutor ,Josie Myers was her reading tutor. Then, her friends wonder if she has a private "Gymnastics" coach. Then an ankle injury sends McKenna's life off track.

Fairy tales collide when Mambo and Munk tip the scales of good and evil once again. This time Princess Snow White is a misguided teenager who'd rather have fun with friends Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and Little Bo Peep than help peasants. When Snow White's father is matched up with Lady Vain - a scheming witch brewing to rule the kingdom - Snow White becomes a thorn in Lady Vain's side. Snow White is soon tricked by Lady Vain (with Rumpelstiltskin's help) into spreading vicious gossip about the townspeople, forcing her to flee. Through rebuilding the three little pigs' houses with the seven dwarves leading the way, Snow White learns the value of helping others. Only Snow White can foil her dad's wedding to stop Lady Vain. With Mambo and Munk in tow, Snow White proves she can rule the kingdom, while bringing balance back to the scales of good and evil.

Jack Sadelstein is a successful advertising executive in Los Angeles, with a beautiful wife and kids, who dreads one event each year--the Thanksgiving visit of his fraternal twin sister, Jill. Jill's neediness and passive-aggressiveness is maddening to Jack, turning his normally tranquil life upside down.

ZOO is the unforgettable true story of Buster the baby elephant, who was rescued from Belfast Zoo during the air raid bombings of 1941 by twelve-year-old Tom and his gang of unlikely friends.