Watch With the Kids
The Pitch
An introduction to Tolkien's world for the younger set.
Age Recommendations
Content Advisories
Bloodless fantasy violence. Very young children can be frightened by the giant spiders. There are songs.
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More Movies Like This
Kids interested in more Tolkien (through this movie, or the LEGO sets or video games) might also enjoy the 1980 Return of the King, drawn in the same style with the same voice cast. The Ralph Bakshi animated Lord of the Rings is... for completist nerds only.
A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid
It may be a few years before your kids are ready for the intensity and often gruesome violence of the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies (despite all the marketing they’ve been exposed to), and you might not yet be up to reading them 350-page chapter books. In the meantime you can try the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit, originally a TV special by the makers of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. While abridged, the film adheres to the book fairly closely, and uses Tolkien’s lyrics for most of the songs. The voice cast is unforgettable: John Huston as Gandalf, Hans Conreid as Thorin, plus Orson Bean, Otto Preminger, and the unmistakeable Paul Frees, Don Messick, and Thurl Ravenscroft. Gollum appears more amphibian here than human, but American dads have been attempting impressions of his raspy voice for more than thirty years. —