Film

A Monster Calls

A tearjerker with teeth: Conor's mother is dying, his home life is fraying, and each midnight a towering yew-tree monster arrives to tell him three brutal stories before demanding the truth he's hiding. J.A. Bayona directs beautifully — the animation sequences for the monster's tales are gorgeous — but this is a properly sad film for children and adults alike, unflinching about grief. Bring tissues.

TMDb rating7.3

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Bridge to Terabithia2007

Two lonely kids build an entire kingdom in the woods together, and the film trusts the fantasy as much as it trusts the gut-punch of real loss waiting at the end.

But The marketing sold it as a Narnia knockoff, so the grief that arrives midway can catch unprepared viewers off guard.

Bridge to Terabithia poster

Pan's Labyrinth2006

Guillermo del Toro's fairy tale runs alongside fascist Spain, and its lonely heroine escapes into a mythic underworld that's every bit as dangerous as the war outside — gorgeous, ferocious filmmaking.

But It's genuinely violent and frightening in places — this is fantasy for adults grieving childhood, not a children's film.

Pan's Labyrinth poster

Big Fish2003

A son tries to make peace with his dying father by finally believing his tall tales, and Tim Burton turns that reconciliation into a string of gorgeous, impossible stories.

But Burton's whimsy can tip into cuteness, and some find the father's mythologising more grating than moving.

Big Fish poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Babadook2014

Same core idea as A Monster Calls — grief given a body and a voice — but pushed into full horror register, with the monster as an unwanted houseguest rather than a storyteller.

Essie Davis is extraordinary as a mother unraveling under grief and a demanding child, and the monster in the walls is one of horror's great metaphors — this is grief that refuses to be tidy.

But It's a horror film, full stop — tense, upsetting, and not remotely gentle with its young characters.

The Babadook poster
More like this (8)

Where the Wild Things Are2009no page yet

Spike Jonze takes Max's inner chaos and gives it fur and teeth, turning a boy's loneliness and anger into a whole island of monsters who feel exactly as complicated as childhood does.

But It's melancholy and slow rather than adventurous — younger kids expecting a romp may get restless.

The Iron Giant1999

A boy befriends a towering, mysterious machine in this beautifully animated Cold War fable about fear, loneliness, and choosing who you become.

But It's gentler and less overtly sad — the grief here is buried under adventure rather than sitting at the centre.

The Iron Giant poster

Room2015

Brie Larson and young Jacob Tremblay anchor a story about protecting a child's inner world when the outer one is unbearable — tender, clear-eyed, never exploitative.

But There's no fantasy cushion here at all — it's realism about trauma, which can be a harder watch.

Room poster

The Book Thief2013no page yet

Death itself narrates this story of a girl finding words and family amid WWII's horrors, with the same instinct to soften unbearable truths through storytelling.

But Some critics found its whimsical narration sits oddly against the very real historical horror underneath.

Coco2017

Pixar's vivid Land of the Dead turns grief and memory into something joyful rather than frightening — a gentler, more colourful way into the same conversation about loss.

But It's aimed younger and resolves more warmly — don't expect the same weight or ambiguity.

Coco poster

My Girl1991

A sweet, funny, ultimately heartbreaking film about an eleven-year-old's first real encounter with death, anchored by a wonderful performance from a young Anna Chlumsky.

But It's a much smaller, more old-fashioned film — no fantasy element, just plain grounded childhood grief.

My Girl poster

Grave of the Fireflies1988

Same premise, stripped of comfort — a child leaning on a sibling and on stubborn imagination to survive loss, but animated, wartime, and without any monster arriving to help make sense of it.

Studio Ghibli's devastating wartime story follows a boy and his little sister trying to survive alone, and it's often called one of the most heartbreaking films ever animated for good reason.

But There's no fantasy scaffolding and no mercy — this is one of the bleakest, saddest films you'll ever watch.

Grave of the Fireflies poster

Forbidden Games1952

Decades before Conor built his own private ritual to survive his mother's illness, this French classic showed two children constructing an elaborate secret world — a graveyard for dead animals — to process death during wartime.

A quietly devastating French classic about two children inventing their own private ceremony for death because the adult world offers them nothing useful — tender, strange, and quietly furious.

But It's black-and-white, in French, and from 1952 — a real tonal and stylistic leap for a modern audience.

Forbidden Games poster

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