Film

My Friend Walter

A 1992 family film where a Devon girl befriends the ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh, who's escaped the Tower of London to save her family farm from scheming brothers. It's a gentle, slightly whimsical adventure that treats its supernatural premise matter-of-factly, mixing history lesson with farmyard peril. Made for children but unpatronising, with real affection for both its characters and the English countryside.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy gentle, old-fashioned family adventures where a bit of ghostly mischief, a sly English villain and a plucky girl beat the odds with a wink, much like a cosy Sunday afternoon romp.

Skip it if you want fast pacing or modern visual flair; it moves at an unhurried, stagey clip, and its 1992 TV-movie look and broad performances can feel dated to younger viewers.

What it asks of you: It runs a full two hours on a leisurely rhythm, so it asks for patience with its chatty set-ups and a willingness to settle in for a light, mostly sunny story.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Box of Delights1984

A BBC Christmas classic with the same spirit of innocent adventure and magical intervention in everyday life. Perfectly paced, genuinely enchanting, and creates a world you want to step into.

But The special effects are intentionally theatrical rather than realistic, which some find charming and others find dated. The pacing is slow by modern standards.

The Box of Delights poster

The Dark Crystal1982

Jim Henson's entirely puppet-based fantasy epic that shares My Friend Walter's commitment to building a fully realised world. Visually inventive, strange, and absolutely sincere about its own mythology.

But Can feel bleak and unsettling rather than comforting. The practical effects, though brilliant, sometimes read as more unsettling than magical to modern viewers.

The Dark Crystal poster

Time Bandits1981

Terry Gilliam's baroque adventure through history with a child protagonist caught between forces larger than themselves. Gorgeously designed, wildly inventive, surprisingly emotional beneath the chaos.

But The tone whips around constantly, and the film can feel chaotic. Some of the historical figures are treated quite darkly for a family film.

Time Bandits poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from My Friend Walter

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A Matter of Life and Death1946

Both use the supernatural as a lens to explore what we owe to history and to those who came before us. The stakes are personal but the questions are eternal.

Powell and Pressburger's masterly film where a RAF pilot is caught between life and death, arguing his case to a heavenly bureaucracy. Visually stunning, philosophically ambitious, and deeply moving. It's also fundamentally about the same thing as My Friend Walter: ghosts and the living world colliding, and what each side owes the other.

But Over two hours, in black and white, with a courtroom climax that prioritises philosophical debate over plot momentum. It's a film that asks patience and assumes intelligence.

A Matter of Life and Death poster
More like this (4)

Aquila1997

Teenagers discover a Roman eagle buried in a hillside and must protect it from thieves. Well-constructed mysteries, likeable young cast, that same British sense of history layered beneath the present day.

But The production is decidedly budget-conscious in ways that show. It plays things very straight, with little lightness to offset the plot machinery.

Aquila poster

The Phoenix and the Carpet2004

E. Nesbit adaptation about children who find a magical carpet. Warmly acted, genuinely imaginative in how it visualises the magic, with real affection for both the source material and the characters.

But Very dependent on accepting a certain kind of children's television acting style and sensibility. Some of the effects are deliberately theatrical rather than seamless.

The Phoenix and the Carpet poster

Summerfield1977

Both films use children or young people as the lens through which a past event is investigated and resolved. Both trust their young cast entirely. Both suggest that youth and age might see the same truth differently.

An Australian film where a young teacher in a small town discovers his students know something about a decades-old mystery. Quietly unsettling, brilliantly acted, with a real sense of place and generational secrets. It's a mystery that respects the audience's intelligence.

But Extremely slow and deliberately cryptic. It ends without explaining everything, which some will find profound and others frustrating. Quite difficult to locate.

Summerfield poster

Princess Mononoke1997

Both films are fundamentally about protecting a way of life from greed and exploitation. Both refuse to make the antagonists cartoonish villains. Both are most interested in the moment when past and present clash, and what we choose in that moment.

Miyazaki's animated epic about a princess raised by wolf spirits and her fight to protect the forest from human destruction. Visually transcendent, emotionally complex, with the same commitment to honouring both nature and history that My Friend Walter has.

But Animated, Japanese, and quite long. The conflict is genuinely bleak with no easy resolution. Some violence and mature themes, though handled with care.

Princess Mononoke poster

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