This is a marathon of family films from the VHS era, 1982 to 1998, not a connected story. Each title stands alone: kids on treasure hunts, alien friends, magic board games, underdog sports teams and families pulled apart and put back together. Watch them in any order.
- Recapped
- 27
- Watch time saved
- 47 hours
- Latest
- 1998
No. 01 · 1982 · Film
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial recap
A group of alien botanists collecting plants in a California forest are chased off by government agents, and one of them is left behind. Ten-year-old Elliott, whose father has left the family, finds the creature in the garden shed, lures it inside with candy and hides it in his closet. He shows it to his older brother Michael and little sister Gertie, keeping it secret from their mother Mary. The alien, E.T., learns words from Gertie and television, and Elliott starts to feel what E.T. feels, getting drunk at school when E.T. drinks beer at home. E.T. builds a radio from a Speak and Spell and an umbrella to phone home, and on Halloween Elliott takes him into the woods to send the signal, the bicycle lifting into the air on the way. E.T. falls ill, and so does Elliott. Government scientists seal the house, and E.T. appears to die.
How E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ends
E.T. comes back to life as his ship returns. Elliott, Michael and their friends smuggle him out in a van and escape the agents on bicycles, which E.T. lifts into the sky. In the forest, the ship lands; E.T. says goodbye to the family, tells Elliott he will be right here, touching his forehead, and flies home, leaving a rainbow across the sky.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 02 · 1984 · Film
The NeverEnding Story recap
Bastian Bux is a lonely, bullied boy whose mother has died. Hiding from bullies in an old bookshop, he takes a book called The NeverEnding Story and reads it in the school attic. In the book, the land of Fantasia is being swallowed by the Nothing, and the Childlike Empress is dying. She sends the young warrior Atreyu on a quest to find a cure, wearing the amulet AURYN. Atreyu loses his horse Artax in the Swamps of Sadness, consults the giant turtle Morla, and is rescued by the luckdragon Falkor. He passes the Sphinx gates and a magic mirror, which shows him Bastian reading, and the Southern Oracle tells him the Empress needs a new name from a human child. The wolf Gmork, servant of the power behind the Nothing, explains that the Nothing is people giving up on their dreams, and Atreyu kills him as Fantasia falls apart. Bastian slowly realises the story knows he is there.
How The NeverEnding Story ends
Fantasia is destroyed except for a single grain of sand, and the Empress begs Bastian to give her a name. He shouts it out the attic window, and she tells him he can rebuild Fantasia with his wishes. Fantasia returns, Atreyu and Falkor are restored, and Bastian starts wishing the world back into being. In the last scene, he rides Falkor into the real world and chases the bullies who tormented him into a dumpster, while the bookseller who lent him the book smiles to himself.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 03 · 1985 · Film
The Goonies recap
In Astoria, Oregon, the Goon Docks neighbourhood is about to be bulldozed for a country club, and Mikey Walsh's family will lose their house. On their last weekend, Mikey and his friends Chunk, Mouth and Data find an old treasure map in the attic leading to the gold of the pirate One-Eyed Willy. They head to the coast, dragging along Mikey's older brother Brand and the girls Andy and Stef. The map leads to a restaurant used as a hideout by the Fratellis, a family of criminals, and a tunnel under it. Chunk is caught by the Fratellis and locked up with Sloth, the deformed brother they keep chained up, and they become friends. The other kids work their way through Willy's booby traps, including a bone organ that must be played correctly, with the Fratellis right behind them.
How The Goonies ends
The kids find One-Eyed Willy's ship full of treasure, but the Fratellis catch them. Sloth, freed by Chunk, saves them, and as they escape, the ship sails out to sea. On the beach the kids are reunited with their families, the Fratellis are arrested, and Chunk invites Sloth to live with him. Mikey still has a bag of gems in his pocket, enough to save the Goon Docks, and his father tears up the papers.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 04 · 1986 · Film
Flight of the Navigator recap
On July 4, 1978, in Fort Lauderdale, twelve-year-old David Freeman falls into a ravine in the woods and is knocked out. When he wakes and goes home, it is 1986: eight years have passed, his parents have aged, his little brother Jeff is now sixteen, and David has not aged a day. At the same time, NASA captures an alien ship that crashed into power lines. Tests show David's brain holds star charts and alien data; scientist Dr. Faraday works out that David was taken to the planet Phaelon, a trip that took hours for him and years on Earth. David is kept at a NASA site against his family's wishes. He sneaks aboard the ship and meets its robot pilot, which he names Max, and they escape together. Max needs the star charts stored in David's head, but after copying them he starts acting strangely human.
How Flight of the Navigator ends
With NASA closing in on his family's house, David asks Max to take him back to 1978, even though the trip might kill him. He wakes in the ravine on July 4, 1978, walks home and finds everything as he left it. Jeff discovers the small alien creature David brought back in his backpack, and Max flies off over the fireworks.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 05 · 1989 · Film
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids recap
Wayne Szalinski is an inventor working on a shrink ray that keeps blowing up whatever he tests it on. While he is out, a baseball from next door breaks the attic window and knocks the machine into working, and it shrinks his children Amy and Nick and the neighbours' sons Russ Jr. and Ron to the size of ants. Wayne comes home, does not notice them, and sweeps them up with the trash, putting them out at the back of the garden. The four kids have to cross the lawn, which is now a jungle, to get home. They ride a bee, are befriended by an ant who saves them from a scorpion and dies, sleep in a Lego block and survive the sprinklers. Amy and Russ start to fall for each other. Wayne and his wife Diane realise what has happened and search the lawn on hands and knees.
How Honey, I Shrunk the Kids ends
The kids make it back to the house, where Nick ends up in a spoonful of his father's cereal and is saved by the family dog just in time. Wayne fixes the machine and brings all four children back to full size. The two families make peace, and the film ends with them sitting down to a giant turkey Wayne has enlarged for dinner.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 06 · 1990 · Film
Home Alone recap
The night before the McCallister family flies from Chicago to Paris for Christmas, eight-year-old Kevin is sent to the attic after a fight and wishes his family would disappear. A power cut makes them oversleep, and in the rush to the airport they leave him behind. Kevin wakes to an empty house and thinks his wish came true. He eats junk, watches gangster films and shops for himself, while his mother Kate realises mid-flight and struggles to get home, eventually hitching a ride with a polka band. Two burglars, Harry and Marv, are robbing empty houses in the neighbourhood and decide Kevin's house is next. Kevin fools them for a while with cardboard cutouts and a gangster film, but learns they will break in on Christmas Eve. At church he talks to his scary old neighbour, Marley, who is estranged from his own son, and Kevin decides to defend the house.
How Home Alone ends
Kevin turns the house into a trap, hitting Harry and Marv with paint cans, an iron, tar, nails and a blowtorch, then leads them to the house next door. When they catch him, Marley knocks them out with a snow shovel, and the police arrest them. On Christmas morning, Kate comes home, followed by the rest of the family, and Kevin watches Marley reunite with his son.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 07 · 1991 · Film
Hook recap
Peter Banning is a workaholic lawyer who has no memory of his childhood and breaks his promises to his children, Jack and Maggie. On a family trip to London to see his wife's grandmother Wendy, the children are kidnapped, and a note is signed by Captain James Hook. Wendy tells Peter that he is Peter Pan, grown up. Tinker Bell carries him to Neverland, where Hook is disappointed by the overweight, out-of-shape man who cannot fly or fight. Tink persuades Hook to give Peter three days to get ready. The Lost Boys, now led by Rufio, doubt Peter but train him. Meanwhile Hook, with Smee's help, sets out to win Jack's love, and Jack starts to see Hook as a father. Peter finally remembers his past and finds his happy thought, the birth of his son, and he flies again.
How Hook ends
Peter leads the Lost Boys against the pirates and wins back his children, but Hook kills Rufio. Peter beats Hook in a duel and spares him, and Hook is swallowed by the stuffed crocodile that crashes down on him. Peter names Thudbutt leader of the Lost Boys and returns to London with Jack and Maggie, a changed father who says to live would be an awfully big adventure.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 08 · 1992 · Film
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York recap
A year later, the McCallisters fly to Florida for Christmas, and in the airport rush Kevin follows a man in the same coat as his father onto a plane to New York. With his father's bag and credit card, he checks into the Plaza Hotel, where the concierge Mr. Hector grows suspicious. Kevin tours the city, visits a toy store owned by the kind Mr. Duncan, who is giving the day's takings to a children's hospital, and meets a lonely pigeon lady in Central Park. Harry and Marv, escaped from prison, are in New York too and plan to rob Duncan's toy store on Christmas Eve. When the hotel learns the card is stolen, Kevin flees, runs into Harry and Marv, and escapes. He sets up traps in his uncle's house, which is empty for renovation.
How Home Alone 2: Lost in New York ends
Kevin lures Harry and Marv into the house, where bricks, a staple gun and a toilet full of kerosene await them. They chase him into Central Park, where the pigeon lady covers them in birds, and the police arrest them. His mother finds him at the Rockefeller Center tree, and Kevin gives the pigeon lady one of a pair of turtle doves. On Christmas morning, Mr. Duncan sends a truckload of presents, and the family discovers Kevin's room service bill.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 09 · 1992 · Film
Beethoven recap
A St. Bernard puppy escapes from two dognappers, Harvey and Vernon, and wanders into the home of the Newton family. George Newton, a stressed businessman, does not want a dog, but his wife Alice and children Ryce, Ted and Emily talk him into keeping it, and Emily names him Beethoven. Beethoven grows into a huge, drooling dog that helps the children with their problems: he scares off Ted's bullies, helps Ryce with her crush and saves Emily at a pool party, while ruining George's barbecue for two investors who are secretly trying to cheat him. The family's vet, Dr. Varnick, secretly needs large dogs for cruel experiments. He visits the house, provokes Beethoven into biting him and threatens to sue unless the dog is put down. George reluctantly takes Beethoven to the clinic.
How Beethoven ends
George realises Varnick was faking, and the Newtons track Beethoven to Varnick's warehouse. George crashes through the skylight, a dog Beethoven befriended bites Varnick, and Ted drives the car in, knocking Varnick into a cart of sedative syringes. The family frees all the captive dogs, Harvey and Vernon are chased by guard dogs, and all three are arrested. George finally accepts Beethoven.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 10 · 1992 · Film
The Mighty Ducks recap
Gordon Bombay, an arrogant Minneapolis lawyer, is arrested for drunk driving and sentenced to community service coaching District 5, the worst team in a pee-wee hockey league. Bombay has his own bad memories of hockey: as a boy he missed a penalty shot that lost a championship for the Hawks and their harsh coach, Jack Reilly. District 5 has no gear and no skill, and loses its first game to Reilly's Hawks 17 to 0. Bombay teaches them to cheat, and the player Charlie Conway stands up to him. After visiting his old mentor Hans, Bombay rediscovers his love of the game, gets his law firm to sponsor the team, and renames it the Ducks. New players join, including figure skaters Tommy and Tammy and the hard-shooting Fulton. Bombay discovers that the Hawks' star Adam Banks lives in their district and forces his transfer, which costs Bombay his job.
How The Mighty Ducks ends
The Ducks reach the final against the Hawks, whose players knock Banks out of the game. The Ducks tie it late, and in the last seconds Charlie is tripped and gets a penalty shot, just as Bombay did years ago. Bombay tells him only to do his best, and Charlie scores with the move Bombay taught him to win the title. Bombay leaves for a minor-league tryout, promising to return next season.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 11 · 1993 · Film
The Sandlot recap
In the summer of 1962, Scotty Smalls moves to a new neighbourhood in Los Angeles with his mother and stepfather Bill. He does not know how to play baseball, but Benny Rodriguez, the best player on the local sandlot, invites him onto the team with Ham, Squints, Yeah-Yeah and the others. The kids spend the summer playing, going to the pool, where Squints fakes drowning to kiss the lifeguard Wendy Peffercorn, and getting sick on chewing tobacco at the fair. Beyond the outfield fence lives the Beast, a huge dog of legend that eats any ball that goes over. When the team loses its ball, Smalls takes one from Bill's den without realising it is signed by Babe Ruth, and hits it over the fence. The boys spend days trying to get it back from the Beast with ever more elaborate contraptions, and all fail.
How The Sandlot ends
Babe Ruth appears to Benny in a dream and tells him to go get the ball. Benny jumps the fence, the Beast chases him through town, and the fence falls on the dog when the boys climb back. They meet the owner, Mr. Mertle, a blind former ballplayer who knew Ruth, and he trades the chewed ball for one signed by the 1927 Yankees. The adult Smalls narrates what became of everyone, and Benny grows up to play for the Dodgers.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 12 · 1993 · Film
Rookie of the Year recap
Henry Rowengartner is a twelve-year-old Little Leaguer with no talent who lives with his mother Mary. He breaks his arm, and when the cast comes off, the tendons have healed so tightly that he can throw over 100 miles an hour. At Wrigley Field, he throws a home run ball back to home plate on the fly, and the Chicago Cubs' general manager, desperate to sell tickets, signs him. Henry becomes a star relief pitcher and a celebrity, looking up to the aging pitcher Chet Steadman. Mary's boyfriend Jack, who acts as Henry's agent, gets Steadman released and tricks Mary into a deal to sell Henry to the Yankees, so she throws him out. Henry's fame also strains his friendship with George, and he decides to finish the season and then give up baseball.
How Rookie of the Year ends
In the final game against the Mets, Steadman injures his arm and Henry comes in, but he slips and his arm goes back to normal. He finishes the inning with tricks, including a hidden-ball play, and strikes out the Mets' slugger Heddo with a slow floater his mother signals from the stands. The Cubs win the division and later the World Series. Next spring, Henry plays Little League again, coached by Mary and Steadman.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 13 · 1993 · Film
Hocus Pocus recap
In Salem in 1693, the witch sisters Winifred, Mary and Sarah Sanderson drain the life from a girl named Emily Binx to stay young. Her brother Thackery is turned into an immortal black cat, and the sisters are hanged, cursing the town to bring them back if a virgin lights the Black Flame Candle on Halloween. Three hundred years later, Max Dennison, new in town from Los Angeles, takes his little sister Dani trick-or-treating and tries to impress his classmate Allison. In the Sanderson house, now a museum, he lights the candle, and the witches return. Thackery, still a cat, helps the kids steal Winifred's spellbook. The witches chase them through Salem on Halloween night, raise Winifred's old lover Billy Butcherson from the grave, and take over a town party with a song. The kids trap the witches in a school kiln, but they survive.
How Hocus Pocus ends
The witches kidnap Dani to steal her life before sunrise, and Max drinks the potion to save her. Billy turns against the sisters, the sun comes up, and all three turn to dust. Thackery dies and is freed, joining his sister Emily's ghost, and Billy returns to his grave. Max, Allison and Dani watch the two ghosts walk away together. In the last shot, back in the Sanderson house, the eye on the spellbook's cover opens.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 14 · 1993 · Film
Free Willy recap
A young orca is captured off the Pacific Northwest coast and sold to an amusement park. Jesse, a twelve-year-old runaway living on the streets of Portland, is caught vandalising the park and is placed with foster parents, Glen and Annie, in Astoria. As punishment, he has to clean off his graffiti, and he bonds with the whale, Willy, who responds to his harmonica. When Jesse falls into the tank, Willy saves him. The keeper Randolph and the trainer Rae see that Willy only listens to Jesse, and Jesse gets a summer job training him. On opening day, Willy refuses to perform because children keep banging on the glass. Jesse finds that Willy is calling to his family, and learns that the park's owner, Dial, plans to kill Willy for the insurance money after his men damage the tank.
How Free Willy ends
Jesse, Randolph and Rae move Willy in a truck to the sea, and Glen and Annie arrive to help when the truck gets stuck. They break through the marina gate and slide Willy into the water, but Dial's boats block him in. Jesse runs to the breakwater, says a prayer Randolph taught him, and Willy leaps over Jesse and the wall to the open ocean and his pod. Jesse embraces his foster parents.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 15 · 1993 · Film
Cool Runnings recap
Jamaican sprinter Derice Bannock is tripped in the trials for the 1988 Summer Olympics and misses his chance. He learns that Irv Blitzer, a former American bobsled champion now living in Jamaica, once tried to recruit sprinters for bobsled, and decides to form Jamaica's first bobsled team for the Winter Olympics in Calgary. He recruits his friend Sanka, a pushcart champion, and the two runners from his failed race, Junior and Yul. Irv, disgraced and bitter, agrees to coach them. The team trains on the island with no snow, and Junior sells his car to pay for the trip. In Calgary, they freeze, borrow an old sled and get mocked by other teams, especially the East Germans. Olympic officials, including Irv's old coach, disqualify them; Irv admits he was banned for cheating and pleads for them, and they are reinstated.
How Cool Runnings ends
After two improving runs, the team is in contention, but on the final run the sled flips and crashes. The four men pick it up and carry it across the finish line, and the crowd, including the teams that mocked them, applauds. Irv watches them cross the line together. An epilogue says the team returned to the Olympics four years later and were treated as equals.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 16 · 1993 · Film
Mrs. Doubtfire recap
Daniel Hillard, a voice actor in San Francisco, loses his job and throws his son a chaotic birthday party, and his wife Miranda asks for a divorce. The court gives Miranda custody of Lydia, Chris and Natalie, with Daniel allowed one visit a week until he finds a steady job and home. When Miranda advertises for a housekeeper, Daniel uses his brother Frank's make-up skills to become Euphegenia Doubtfire, an elderly Scottish nanny, and is hired. As Mrs. Doubtfire, he spends every day with the children, learns to cook and clean, and becomes the person Miranda confides in, including about her new boyfriend, Stu. Lydia and Chris discover the truth and keep the secret. Daniel lands a meeting with a TV boss who wants him to host a show, at the same restaurant where Miranda is having her birthday dinner with Stu and Mrs. Doubtfire.
How Mrs. Doubtfire ends
Daniel switches between himself and Mrs. Doubtfire all night until Stu chokes and Mrs. Doubtfire saves him, losing the mask in front of everyone. The court gives Miranda full custody and allows Daniel only supervised visits. Daniel becomes the star of a children's show as Mrs. Doubtfire, and Miranda, seeing how much the children miss him, asks Daniel to look after them himself.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 17 · 1994 · Film
Angels in the Outfield recap
Roger is a boy in foster care whose father rarely sees him. When Roger asks when they will be a family again, his father says it will happen when the California Angels win the pennant, and Roger prays for it. At the next game, he sees a group of angels, led by one called Al, helping the Angels win, though only he can see them. The team's grumpy manager, George Knox, starts keeping Roger and his friend J.P. at games to tell him which players the angels are helping, and the last-place Angels climb to the top of the division. Roger learns in court that his father has given up custody of him. A sportscaster who hates Knox finds out about the angels and tells the owner, who threatens to fire him, until Roger admits the truth and the team stands by their manager.
How Angels in the Outfield ends
In the pennant game, the angels do not help, because championships must be won on their own. Knox keeps the old pitcher Mel Clark, who has months to live, on the mound, and Clark makes the final catch to win the pennant. The owner fires the sportscaster. Roger's foster mother tells him he must move on to a new home, but Knox has asked the court to adopt him, and he takes J.P. as well. Al watches over the new family from the window and flies off.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 18 · 1994 · Film
Little Giants recap
In the small town of Urbania, Ohio, Kevin O'Shea is a local football hero who coaches the town's pee-wee team, while his brother Danny lives in his shadow. Danny's daughter Becky, nicknamed Icebox, is one of the best players at tryouts but is cut because she is a girl, along with a group of less skilled kids. She persuades her father to coach a rival team, the Little Giants, and the brothers agree to a game to decide which team represents the town. Danny recruits misfits, including a strong-armed quarterback, Junior, son of his old crush Patty. He tries to trick a talented new kid, Spike, into joining, but Spike ends up on Kevin's team. Becky quits to become a cheerleader to get Junior's attention. A bus of NFL stars stops in town and gives the Little Giants a lesson.
How Little Giants ends
The Little Giants fall behind but fight back, and when Spike injures Junior with a dirty hit, Becky suits up again and stops Spike at the goal line. On the last play, a trick play called the Annexation of Puerto Rico sends Jake on a 99-yard run to win the game. Danny drops their bet and asks that the town water tower honour both brothers, and he starts dating Patty.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 19 · 1994 · Film
Richie Rich recap
Richie Rich is the richest boy in the world, living in a Chicago mansion with his parents, the loyal butler Cadbury and the inventor Professor Keenbean. He has everything except friends, until he meets Gloria and a group of working-class kids playing baseball, and he tries to win them over. The family company's finance chief, Laurence Van Dough, plots with his security chief Ferguson to kill the Riches and take their fortune, which he believes sits in a family vault. A bomb is hidden on the parents' plane to England; they survive the crash on a life raft but are thought dead. Van Dough takes over the company, has Cadbury arrested for the bombing and keeps Richie locked in the mansion. Richie breaks Cadbury out of jail, and with Gloria and her friends, he fights back with Keenbean's gadgets as Van Dough captures his parents.
How Richie Rich ends
Van Dough forces the family into the vault inside a mountain carving of the Riches and finds no money, only family keepsakes, since the fortune is in banks and stocks. He shoots Richie, who is protected by Keenbean's bulletproof spray, and the family and Cadbury overpower him and Ferguson. The villains end up working as gardeners on the estate, and Richie finally has friends to play baseball with.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 20 · 1995 · Film
Casper recap
Carrigan Crittenden inherits Whipstaff Manor in Maine and learns it hides a treasure, but the house is haunted. She hires Dr. James Harvey, a therapist who counsels ghosts and is searching for the ghost of his late wife. He moves in with his daughter Kat, who has trouble making friends. The house belongs to Casper, a friendly young ghost, and his mean uncles, the Ghostly Trio. Casper falls for Kat and helps her, while the Trio torments her father. Kat's classmates choose the house for their Halloween party. Casper remembers how he died as a boy, and he and Kat find the Lazarus, a machine his father built to bring him back to life. Carrigan steals the treasure, which turns out to be Casper's old baseball, and dies in a crash, returning as a ghost. Harvey dies in an accident and returns as a ghost too.
How Casper ends
Casper gives up his one chance to live again so that Harvey can be brought back for Kat, and Carrigan is tricked into crossing over. Harvey's late wife appears as an angel and makes Casper human until ten o'clock, and he dances with Kat at the party. When the clock strikes, he becomes a ghost again in front of Kat, and the Ghostly Trio arrive and scare the party guests away.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 21 · 1995 · Film
Jumanji recap
In 1969, twelve-year-old Alan Parrish finds a board game called Jumanji at a construction site and plays it with his friend Sarah. Alan is sucked into the board, and a swarm of bats chases Sarah out of the house. In 1995, orphaned siblings Judy and Peter move into the empty Parrish house with their aunt and find the game. Their rolls release giant mosquitoes, monkeys and a lion, and then Alan himself, now a grown man who has survived in the jungle for 26 years. Alan learns his parents died while looking for him. To undo everything, they must finish the game, so they find Sarah, now a fortune teller haunted by that night. Each turn brings something new: a stampede through town, a hunter called Van Pelt who chases Alan, monsoon flooding, carnivorous plants and an earthquake. Peter tries to cheat and starts turning into a monkey.
How Jumanji ends
Alan reaches the end and calls Jumanji, and everything the game released is pulled back in. Alan and Sarah find themselves children again in 1969, and Alan makes up with his father. Years later, married, they meet young Judy and Peter and their parents and stop the trip that would have killed them. The game ends up on a beach, where two girls hear its drums.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 22 · 1996 · Film
Matilda recap
Matilda Wormwood is a brilliant girl born to parents who ignore her: Harry, a crooked used car dealer, and Zinnia, who watches TV and plays bingo. She teaches herself to read and spends her days at the library, getting back at her father with pranks such as glue in his hat. Her parents send her to Crunchem Hall, run by the cruel headmistress Agatha Trunchbull, who throws children by their pigtails and makes a boy eat a whole cake. Matilda's teacher, Miss Honey, recognises her gift and becomes her friend. Matilda discovers she can move things with her mind and tips a newt onto Trunchbull. Miss Honey reveals that Trunchbull is her aunt, who took her house after her father's suspicious death. Matilda sneaks into the house to recover Miss Honey's things, and Trunchbull nearly catches her.
How Matilda ends
Using her powers, Matilda makes chalk write a message from Miss Honey's dead father, and the children chase Trunchbull out of the school for good. Miss Honey becomes headmistress and gets her house back. The FBI comes after Harry, and as the Wormwoods flee to Guam, Matilda persuades her parents to sign papers letting Miss Honey adopt her. Matilda and Miss Honey live together happily in the house, and Matilda goes on using her gift and her love of books.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 23 · 1996 · Film
Harriet the Spy recap
Eleven-year-old Harriet Welsch lives in New York City and wants to be a writer, so she spies on her neighbours and writes down everything she thinks in a notebook. Her nanny and confidante, Ole Golly, encourages her, and her best friends are Sport and Janie. Her parents fire Golly after a mix-up, and Golly leaves, telling Harriet to keep observing people. At school, Harriet's classmates, led by her rival Marion, find her notebook and read aloud the cruel things she has written about them. Sport and Janie turn on her, the class forms a club to torment her, and Marion's group pours blue paint on her. Harriet strikes back with nasty pranks on each classmate, making things worse, and her parents take away her notebooks and send her to a psychiatrist.
How Harriet the Spy ends
Golly visits and tells Harriet she must apologise and that good friends are worth fighting for. Harriet makes up with Sport and Janie, wins a class vote to replace Marion as editor of the class newspaper, and uses her first column to apologise to everyone. At the school pageant, the three friends set off a stink bomb and everyone dances.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 24 · 1996 · Film
Space Jam recap
Michael Jordan retires from basketball to play baseball. In space, Mr. Swackhammer, the owner of a failing amusement park, sends his small alien henchmen, the Nerdlucks, to kidnap the Looney Tunes as new attractions. Bugs Bunny bargains for a chance to win their freedom in a basketball game, so the Nerdlucks steal the talent of five NBA players and become the giant Monstars. The Tunes pull Jordan down a golf hole into their world, and he agrees to lead their team, the Tune Squad, with Bugs, Daffy, the newcomer Lola Bunny and others. His assistant Stan follows him down. Meanwhile, the NBA players who lost their skills cannot play. The Monstars crush the Tunes in the first half, until Bugs hands out a bottle of secret stuff, really just water, and the Tunes fight back with cartoon tricks. Jordan bets his own freedom against the stolen talent.
How Space Jam ends
In the last seconds, Jordan stretches his arm across the court, cartoon style, to dunk the winning basket. The Monstars, freed from Swackhammer, send him to the moon, give back the talent and shrink back to the Nerdlucks, who stay with the Tunes. Jordan and Stan return to Earth, where Jordan gives the talent back to the NBA players, and he decides to return to basketball himself.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene beyond the Looney Tunes "That's all folks" sign-off at the end of the credits.
No. 25 · 1997 · Film
Flubber recap
Professor Philip Brainard is an absent-minded chemistry teacher at Medfield College, which is about to close unless it finds money. He has already missed two weddings to the college president, Sara, because he was lost in his work, and his old rival Wilson Croft is trying to steal both his ideas and Sara. On the day of the third wedding, with the help of his flying robot assistant Weebo, Brainard creates a bouncy green goo that gains energy each time it bounces, and misses the wedding again. He uses Flubber to make his car fly and his bowling balls bounce, fends off the henchmen of a businessman named Hoenicker, and secretly makes the college basketball team fly. Weebo, who loves Brainard, shows Sara a video of him saying how he feels, and the couple reconcile, but Hoenicker's men break in, destroy Weebo and steal the Flubber.
How Flubber ends
Brainard finds Weebo's farewell message and a backup that becomes a new robot, Weebette. He and Sara trick Hoenicker and Wilson and defeat them using Flubber. The college is saved through a deal with Ford, and Brainard and Sara finally marry, this time with Brainard actually at the ceremony. They fly off on their honeymoon in the Thunderbird, taking Weebette and a lump of Flubber with them.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 26 · 1998 · Film
Small Soldiers recap
A defence contractor buys a toy company and orders its designers to make toys that really fight: the Commando Elite soldiers and the Gorgonite monsters. To meet a deadline, the designer Larry uses a military microchip in them, skipping safety tests. Teenager Alan Abernathy gets a shipment of the toys at his father's toy store and finds they are alive. The commandos, led by Chip Hazard, are programmed to destroy the Gorgonites, who were designed to hide and lose, and Archer, the Gorgonite leader, befriends Alan. The commandos wreck the store and attack Alan's house, but his parents do not believe him. The Gorgonites want to find their homeland of Gorgon. Chip's troops kidnap Alan's neighbour Christy and turn her Gwendy dolls into soldiers to force him to hand over the Gorgonites, and Alan and Archer rescue her.
How Small Soldiers ends
Chip leads a new army against the Abernathy and Fimple houses. Alan climbs a power pole and knocks Chip into a transformer, setting off an electromagnetic pulse that fries every commando. The company boss pays both families off and decides to sell the commandos to the military. The Gorgonites survived, and Alan takes them to Yosemite and sends them off in a toy boat to look for Gorgon.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
No. 27 · 1998 · Film
The Parent Trap recap
At a summer camp in Maine, Hallie Parker from California and Annie James from London discover they look exactly alike and start a prank war that gets them sent to an isolation cabin together. They work out that they are identical twins: their parents divorced when they were babies, and each parent took one child. They decide to switch places to meet the parent they never knew. Annie goes to Napa, where their father Nick runs a vineyard, and Hallie goes to London to their mother Elizabeth, a wedding dress designer. Annie finds that Nick is about to marry Meredith, a young woman who is after his money. When the butler Martin discovers the swap, the girls confess and arrange for both parents to meet in San Francisco to bring the twins back together.
How The Parent Trap ends
The twins sabotage a camping trip that leaves Meredith furious, and she leaves Nick. Elizabeth and Annie fly home to London, but Nick and Hallie are already waiting for them there, and Nick asks Elizabeth to try again. The film ends with their wedding in the rain, and with the butler Martin proposing to the housekeeper Chessy. The family is whole for the first time since the twins were babies.
Post-credits scenes
No. There is no post-credits scene.
Common questions
What is the '90s Kids story so far?
This is a marathon of family films from the VHS era, 1982 to 1998, not a connected story. Each title stands alone: kids on treasure hunts, alien friends, magic board games, underdog sports teams and families pulled apart and put back together. Watch them in any order.
Where did '90s Kids leave off?
The Parent Trap (1998) is the latest. The twins sabotage a camping trip that leaves Meredith furious, and she leaves Nick. Elizabeth and Annie fly home to London, but Nick and Hallie are already waiting for them there, and Nick asks Elizabeth to try again. The film ends with their wedding in the rain, and with the butler Martin proposing to the housekeeper Chessy. The family is whole for the first time since the twins were babies.
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