Hand-drawn classics, with the scary parts flagged

Quick answer: Start a young child with Pinocchio or The Jungle Book, and an older one with Kiki's Delivery Service. Save The Secret of NIMH for age eight or so. Keep Watership Down for adults. Every one of these has a scene worth previewing, and I've named them below.

Why they last

Snow White cost Walt Disney roughly a million and a half dollars in 1937, and the industry called the whole project his Folly. Then it opened in December and people stood in line for it.

What they saw was a person's work. Every frame of a hand-drawn picture was inked and painted by someone, and the animators acted through their pencils. When the Queen turns into the hag, you're watching an artist decide how an old woman reaches for a cup.

Computers can make anything shine. They can't make anything mean something, and that gap shows up in the films that don't age. The ones below age fine because the characters are doing something. Nobody is just rendering.

For the youngest, with a warning or two

Pinocchio (1940, rated G). The best-made film on this list, and a better parenting tool than most books. A boy lies, falls in with bad company and pays for it. Then he does the hard thing for his father. No lecture comes with any of it.

The concerns are real. On Pleasure Island, boys smoke cigars, drink beer and wreck a room, and then they turn into donkeys and cry for their mothers. That scene frightens plenty of kids. Monstro the whale is loud and big. Watch the Island with your child and say nothing until it's over. Then ask what the coachman wanted.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937, G). The forest scene, where the trees grab and the eyes blink in the dark, is the problem for under-fives. The witch is frightening, and she dies in a storm falling off a cliff. Nothing is shown in detail. For a child of six or seven it's a first good scare, and the ending resolves it.

Bambi (1942, G). The hunter never appears on screen. A gunshot, then a quiet scene, and Bambi's mother is gone. Prepare a younger child for that one beat. And notice what starts the forest fire later: men who walked away from a campfire still burning. It's the old rule about leaving the place better than you found it, taught in one reel.

One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961, G). It was made with a copy process that put the animators' pencil lines straight onto the film, so it looks scratchier and funnier than its older siblings. Cruella smokes constantly, and her plan to make coats out of puppies is menacing but never shown. The film's a rescue story and a good one. Dogs, a farmhouse, a long night.

The Jungle Book (1967, G). The last film Walt personally oversaw. Kaa's hypnosis is the creepiest scene, the tiger's fight with fire is intense and the songs are the best part. It's a boy who has to choose between the jungle and his own kind, which is a decent thing for a nine-year-old to chew on.

For older kids and parents

Kiki's Delivery Service (1989, G). The Studio Ghibli film for a thirteen-year-old girl who leaves home for a year, rents a room and starts a delivery business. When she loses her confidence, it isn't a plot twist. It's burnout, and the movie treats it like burnout. A solid pick for a daughter who's about to take her first job.

Name the concern plainly: Kiki is a witch, because her family is, and magic is built into the world. It's treated like a trade, closer to a family business than a belief system. If your house is wary of that, watch it first. It's gentle, and the airship scene at the end is the only real peril.

My Neighbor Totoro (1988, G). Two sisters move to the country while their mother is in the hospital. Forest spirits appear. Nothing is explained, and the film is better for it. The tense stretch is when the younger girl goes missing. Little ones panic, so sit next to them.

The Secret of NIMH (1982, PG). Don Bluth left Disney because he thought the studio had lost its nerve, and this was his answer. A widowed field mouse has to move her family before the plow comes. Some scenes are dark. There are rats that escaped a laboratory, a glowing amulet, a sword fight and a death. A mother risks everything for her sick son, and that's why the film works. It's a fair test of a kid's readiness for harder stories. Eight and up.

Watership Down (1978, PG). The film is bloody. A rabbit warren is gassed and there's a fight to the death. It's a serious adaptation of a serious book, and it's for adults and older teens. Don't let the rabbits fool you.

For the grown-ups, in six minutes

Find What's Opera, Doc? (1957) and watch it. It's under seven minutes. Chuck Jones put Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd inside a Wagner opera, and every pose is timed to the music. It's cartoon violence and nobody bleeds.

A word on the older Looney Tunes in general. Some from the 1940s carry ethnic caricatures that were common then and are ugly now. Collections often come with a disclaimer. Check the title before you hand a whole disc to a child.

Opinion: what these films do that newer ones skip

This is commentary. The villains in these movies are bad. The Queen, Stromboli, Cruella and the coachman have no tragic backstory and no apology tour. Kids need to see evil recognized as evil, because they meet it eventually, and a story that teaches them to be understanding first and wary second is doing them no favors.

The heroes pay for their mistakes. Pinocchio doesn't get a reset. The good characters are good because they choose it, and the films trust a six-year-old to follow that without a narrator explaining it.

Most of the live-action remakes of these films throw that out. If you have to choose, pick the drawing.

How to watch

• Use the biggest screen you have. These were made for theaters, and a phone flattens them.
• Preview the scary scene, not the whole film. Two minutes of Pinocchio is enough to know. The eight-minute vetting routine works for animation too.
• Check the library before adding a subscription. Most of this list is available on disc, free, with a card. Before you pay for another service, see what's on the shelf.
• Sit with the youngest. A scary scene is a good one when Dad's there to say "that's the bad guy, and he's going to lose."

If your kids are getting past the cartoons, the next step is the classics they should see before thirteen.

Then turn the lights off and let the old drawings do what they were made to do.