Matilda
This beloved Roald Dahl adaptation follows a brilliant little girl who discovers she has telekinetic powers and uses them to stand up to neglectful parents and a truly terrifying school principal. The story's heart is warm and empowering, but the villain Miss Trunchbull and scenes of child mistreatment can be genuinely frightening for younger or more sensitive viewers.
Most comfortable for kids around 7 and up, especially those who enjoy a little spooky-funny and can tell cartoon-mean from real-mean.
If you’d rather skip
Matilda's father grabs her by the hair and drags her to her room after she defies him about going to school.
Miss Trunchbull swings a girl by her pigtails across the playground and over a fence in a prolonged, exaggerated sequence that is the film's most visually intense moment of physical violence against a child.
The chocolate cake force-feeding scene is extended: Trunchbull forces a boy to eat an enormous cake in front of the whole school, culminating in her smashing the glass plate on his head; tone swings between funny and genuinely uncomfortable.