Adventure films where courage costs something

Quick answer: Treasure Island (1950) at eight. Captains Courageous (1937) and Apollo 13 at ten. The Fellowship of the Ring and The Great Escape at twelve. Watch with him, and pause once.

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Plenty of adventure movies have a brave hero. Fewer have a hero who pays for it.

That's the filter. A boy can tell when a movie lies about the price. If the hero jumps off a building, lands fine, and quips, nothing was learned. If the hero keeps his word and it costs him a year, a friendship, or a night in freezing water, something stuck.

Loyalty works the same way. Loyalty to a friend who's easy to like is just company. The films below test it against a friend who's slow, flawed, or a burden.

Opinion: A lot of newer adventure stories treat courage as self-belief, a feeling you find inside yourself. The older ones treat it as a debt you owe somebody else. The second version is truer, and it's the one a boy can use.

Ages 8 to 10

Treasure Island (1950). Disney's first fully live-action film, with Bobby Driscoll as Jim Hawkins and Robert Newton as Long John Silver. Newton's Silver is so charming that you half want him to win. That's the lesson. Jim has to stay loyal to the honest men who trusted him while the most likable man on the ship works on him with flattery.

Content: pirate fighting, several killings, and an early scene where an old pirate gets the black spot and dies. It's tame by today's standards, but it can spook a seven-year-old. No sexual content, no crude humor.

Ask after: Why did Jim stay loyal when Silver was the nicer man?

Captains Courageous (1937). A rich, spoiled kid (Freddie Bartholomew) falls off an ocean liner and gets hauled onto a Gloucester fishing schooner. The crew doesn't coddle him. Spencer Tracy won the Oscar for playing Manuel, the Portuguese fisherman who takes the boy under his wing and teaches him the work. The boy comes in a liar and a bully. He leaves with calluses and a conscience.

Content: unrated, and very clean. There's a death at sea, handled with restraint, but it lands hard. Tell him ahead of time that someone he'll love in this movie doesn't make it home.

Ask after: What did Manuel give up for the kid? What did the kid owe him?

If your son likes old movies, The Classic Movies Your Kids Should See Before Thirteen has more where these came from.

Ages 10 to 12

Apollo 13 (1995). It's rated PG. There's some mild profanity, and the tension is real, but nobody is gutted on screen. Three men are stranded in a crippled capsule, and the courage on display is mostly quiet: stay calm, do the next thing, do it right.

The loyalty is the part boys miss on a first watch. Ken Mattingly was pulled from the crew days before launch because of a measles exposure. He then spent the flight on the ground in a simulator, working out how to bring his replacements home on the power they had left. Nobody gave him a medal for that scene. He did it anyway.

Ask after: Mattingly had every reason to sulk. Why didn't he?

Twelve and up

The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). Rated PG-13 for battle violence and frightening imagery. The Balrog, the Ringwraiths, and the Uruk-hai are intense for a sensitive kid, and Boromir's death isn't gentle. Preview it, or watch the first hour together and decide.

Two scenes are worth the whole three hours. Boromir fails badly, tries to take the Ring, then dies defending Merry and Pippin. A boy should see that a man can fall and still finish well. And Sam wades into the river after Frodo's boat, can't swim, nearly drowns, and gets hauled in. He says he promised Gandalf he wouldn't leave him. That's the best picture of keeping your word you'll find in a movie.

Ask after: What did Boromir get right at the end? What was Sam really keeping, a promise or a friend?

The Great Escape (1963). Allied prisoners dig three tunnels out of a German camp. The film is long, about three hours, and funny in the first half and heavy in the second. Hendley (James Garner) takes a forger who's going blind along on the run, because leaving him would be easier and wrong.

Content: wartime shootings, including prisoners killed after recapture, some tense interrogation scenes, and mild language. The film changes details, and it invents some characters. The real breakout from Stalag Luft III in March 1944 sent 76 men out. Fifty of the recaptured were executed, and three made it home. Tell him that after the credits, not before.

Ask after: Who in this camp was brave, and who was just loud?

How to watch it with him

You're not teaching a class. You're sitting next to him with popcorn.

Pause once. Pick the scene where someone chooses the harder thing, stop it, and ask one question. Don't follow up with a second. If he shrugs, press play. The point lands later, usually in the car, usually a day after.

Watch it yourself first if it's a PG-13 or you don't know it. Vet a Movie in Eight Minutes Before Family Night shows how to do that without giving up your evening.

And be honest about the limits. A movie won't build a boy's character. You will. He's watching how you handle a late shift, a broken promise, and a friend who needs help on a Saturday. The film just gives you the words for it.

What to hold back

Raiders of the Lost Ark is rated PG and is a great picture, but the ending is genuinely frightening. A ten-year-old doesn't need it yet. Wait until thirteen or so, and tell him what's coming.

If your son wants more after this list, Survival Films Worth Pausing to Talk About With Your Kids is a good next shelf.

He may forget the speeches and the rules you gave him. He won't forget a man who couldn't swim wading in anyway.