Films to watch with my son

27 January 2021

It came as something of a jolt when I realised that my son turns 13 this summer and therefore I have 5 years or so left with my boy in my home and more or less under my parental care. As I have no idea where the last 12 years have gone, I realise those five will seem to go in a heartbeat. Oh my. I have five years left to prepare my son for adulthood, to arrive at that point as well prepared for that moment as I can. I have five years to ready myself!

With that in mind, I had been following Jon Tyson’s attempts at intentional fatherhood which he developed into a set of resources called The Primal Path. I had been slowly turning it over for a while and then I got a jolt. All the time I thought I had to prepare has gone. He’ll be a teenager in six months.

The key to it all is thinking about that future moment when he leaves home for college or whatever and ask yourself, what do I want him to know, what do I want him to be, what would I like him to experience? And there you go, you have something in mind to teach him – something of those things are life skills – just as I’ve taught him to read, write, ride a bike, swim and so on – what else do I want to teach him?

Part of the process is to have some fun but put in front of him some things to inspire and make him think about what it means to be a good man of courage in the world. So I’ve started creating a film list for us to watch together. These are films that either shows a good role model or raises themes and issues worth discussing. And here it is for your input and suggestions. Draft list 1.0

The list has been divided roughly into two parts (early teen years and later teen years) but other than that there is no particular order to them. Some of the films that were suggested to me, I haven’t yet seen and those are asterisked. Some of them we’ve seen already but we’ll be happy to watch again. Unsurprisingly given a lot of guys responded with ideas there are a fair few war/conflict films here. I’ve also deliberately not included documentaries and will be making a separate list for those. You’ll also see I’ve included a few questions or themes relating to the film, which I’ll update as I think of them or feel free to suggest some.

Films (13-15)

LOTR
The Case for Christ – to consider the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus
To Kill a Mockingbird – racism, injustice, honour
Chariots of Fire – What will make your life worth living? What principle won’t you budge on?
The boy who harnessed the wind – perseverance, environment,
The Mission – forgiveness, mission, culture, race
Life is Beautiful
The Blind Side
Hidden Figures
Selma
Gandhi
Up
Forrest Gump
Coach Carter
How to train your dragon 1-3
Finding Nemo
Dead Poets Society
Groundhog day – What will it take for you to learn from your mistakes?
The Karate Kid
Inside Out
Wall-e
Spiderman into the spiderverse
Sully
The Princess Bride
A beautiful day in the neighbourhood *
Christopher Robin *
Amazing Grace – some injustices will take your whole life to fight and it’s worth it
The Pursuit of Happyness
A man for all seasons *
About a boy
Hotel Rwanda