20 best movies like Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)

When young Buddy falls into Santa's gift sack on Christmas Eve, he's transported back to the North Pole and raised as a toy-making elf by Santa's helpers. But as he grows into adulthood, he can't shake the nagging feeling that he doesn't belong. Buddy vows to visit Manhattan and find his real dad, a workaholic publisher.

A veterinarian who can communicate with animals travels abroad to search for a giant sea snail.

Mario and Luigi, plumbers from Brooklyn, find themselves in an alternate universe where evolved dinosaurs live in hi-tech squalor. They're the only hope to save our universe from invasion by the dino dictator, Koopa.

A man-cub named Mowgli fostered by wolves. After a threat from the tiger Shere Khan, Mowgli is forced to flee the jungle, by which he embarks on a journey of self discovery with the help of the panther, Bagheera and the free-spirited bear, Baloo.

In a fantasy world of opposing kingdoms, a 15-year old girl must find the fabled MirrorMask in order to save the kingdom and get home

After an extramarital indiscretion, a fairy-tale prince and his sidekick are turned into frogs for all eternity or until the prince can convince a maiden to kiss and then marry him.

A hapless inventor finally finds success with a flying car, which a dictator from a foreign government sets out to take for himself.

When Prince Ahmad is blinded and cast out of Bagdad by the nefarious Jaffar, he joins forces with the scrappy thief Abu to win back his royal place, as well as the heart of a beautiful princess.

A lab accident gives a hound named Shoeshine some serious superpowers -- a secret that the dog eventually shares with the young boy who becomes his owner and friend.

A Psammead is 'It', an ancient, irritable, ugly sand fairy, which five children find one day in a gravel pit. As a reward for finding him, It grants the children one wish a day, the results of which will last until sunset.

Fourteen year old Nim, more determined than ever to protect her island and all the wildlife that call it home, faces off against resort developers and animal poachers. Soon she realizes she can’t depend on her animal cohorts alone and must make her first human friend – Edmund, who’s run away to the island from the mainland – to save her home.

Family adventure based on Mary Norton's classic children's books about a race of tiny people who live under the floorboards, resourcefully surviving by borrowing bits and pieces from the large residents who dwell above. After being discovered by 'human beans', borrower Arrietty and her parents are forced to leave their home while attempting to evade the clutches of obsessive scientist Professor Mildeye.

A successful businesswoman, Mackenzie, inherits her beloved aunt's inn, and chooses to restore the hotel to its original grandeur only to sell it right before Christmas. Unbeknownst to Mackenzie, she receives some unexpected help from a team of elves headed by the cheerful Clementine, who helps Mackenzie rediscover the true meaning of Christmas.

Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the station's clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father. Accompanied by the goddaughter of an embittered toy merchant, Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.

In their quest to confront the ultimate evil, Percy and his friends battle swarms of mythical creatures to find the mythical Golden Fleece and to stop an ancient evil from rising.

Living a bleak existence at a London orphanage, 12-year-old Peter finds himself whisked away to the fantastical world of Neverland. Adventure awaits as he meets new friend James Hook and the warrior Tiger Lily. They must band together to save Neverland from the ruthless pirate Blackbeard. Along the way, the rebellious and mischievous boy discovers his true destiny, becoming the hero forever known as Peter Pan.

This time around Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their pesky cousin Eustace Scrubb find themselves swallowed into a painting and on to a fantastic Narnian ship headed for the very edges of the world.

A boy's life is turned upside down when he learns that he is the last of a group of immortal warriors who have dedicated their lives to fighting the forces of the dark.

The adventures of a father and his young daughter, in their search for a long lost book that will help reunite a missing, close relative.

Balthazar Blake is a master sorcerer in modern-day Manhattan trying to defend the city from his arch-nemesis, Maxim Horvath. Balthazar can't do it alone, so he recruits Dave Stutler, a seemingly average guy who demonstrates hidden potential, as his reluctant protégé. The sorcerer gives his unwilling accomplice a crash course in the art and science of magic, and together, these unlikely partners work to stop the forces of darkness.

When teenagers JOSH (Louis Corbett) and LING (Li Lin Jin) join their respective parents, CHRIS (Sam Neill) and Dr LI (Wang Ji) on an archaeological dig in China they encounter something trapped beneath a temple beyond their wildest imagination. A real live Chinese dragon. Two thousand years earlier, to defend his kingdom, the dragon lent an emperor his all powerful pearl. Instead of being returned, the pearl was buried with the emperor beneath his palace, and helpless without its source of power the dragon has remained entombed ever since.

In his homeland of Alagaesia, a farm boy happens upon a dragon's egg -- a discovery that leads him on a predestined journey where he realized he's the one person who can defend his home against an evil king.

The four-inch-tall Clock family secretly share a house with the normal-sized Lender family, "borrowing" such items as thread, safety pins, batteries and scraps of food. However, their peaceful co-existence is disturbed when evil lawyer Ocious P. Potter steals the will granting title to the house, which he plans to demolish in order to build apartments. The Lenders are forced to move, and the Clocks face the risk of being exposed to the normal-sized world.

Kris Kringle's daughter, Noelle, sets off on a mission to find and bring back her brother, after he gets cold feet when it's his turn to take over as Santa.

In a world where people collect pocket-size monsters (Pokémon) to do battle, a boy comes across an intelligent monster who seeks to be a detective.

When 13 year old Maria Merryweather's father dies, leaving her orphaned and homeless, she is forced to leave her luxurious London life to go and live with Sir Benjamin, an eccentric uncle she didn't know she had, at the mysterious Moonacre Manor.

A young boy wins a tour through the most magnificent chocolate factory in the world, led by the world's most unusual candy maker.

An Edinburgh professor and assorted colleagues follow an explorer's trail down an extinct Icelandic volcano to the earth's center.

Dr. Gulliver has returned from his journey to his family after a long absence - and tells them the story of his travels.

Fred Claus and Santa Claus have been estranged brothers for many years. Now Fred must reconcile his differences with his brother whom he believes overshadows him. When an efficiency expert assesses the workings at the North Pole and threatens to shut Santa down, Fred must help his brother to save Christmas.

As Halloweentown prepares to celebrate its 1,000th anniversary, Marnie Piper and her brother Dylan return to Witch University, where trouble is in session from the Sinister Sisters and from someone who's plotting to use Marnie's powers for evil.

Doctor Gulliver is poor, so nothing - not even his charming fiancée Elisabeth - keeps him in the town he lives. He signs on to a ship to India, but in a storm he's washed off the ship and ends up on an island, which is inhibitated by very tiny people. After he managed to convince them he's harmless and is accepted as one of their citizens, their king wants to use him in war against a people of giants. Compared to them, even Gulliver is a gnome.

The story follows the adventures of Aang, a young successor to a long line of Avatars, who must put his childhood ways aside and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations.

When the magic powers of The Tablet of Ahkmenrah begin to die out, Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) spans the globe, uniting favorite and new characters while embarking on an epic quest to save the magic before it is gone forever.

Three wealthy children's parents are killed in a fire. When they are sent to a distant relative, they find out that he is plotting to kill them and seize their fortune. This movie is extremely alarming, an expression which here means "a thrilling misadventure involving three ingenious orphans and a villainous actor named Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) who wants their enormous fortune." It includes a suspicious fire, delicious pasta, Jim Carrey, poorly behaved looches, Billy Connolly, an incredibly deadly viper, Meryl Streep, and the voice of an imposter named Jude Law.

The terrible and trecherous Pendragon plans to gain the throne of Cornwall by getting the king to abdicate and to marry his lovely daughter. To help him he has his dreadful witches in his castle and his almost unstoppable sorcery. A giant under his control abducts the princess, but on the way home with her the giant meets farming lad Jack who slays him. This is only the beginning.

The Forest Queen grants the wish of Jonathan, the woodcutter, and his wife, Anna.

Yet another variation on Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee At King Arthur's Court." Here, a computer malfunction causes a science researcher to be sent back in time with her laptop, which she uses to amaze the court.

Max imagines running away from his mom and sailing to a far-off land where large talking beasts -- Ira, Carol, Douglas, the Bull, Judith and Alexander -- crown him as their king, play rumpus, build forts and discover secret hideaways.

After their father is called into work, two young boys, Walter and Danny, are left in the care of their teenage sister, Lisa, and told they must stay inside. Walter and Danny, who anticipate a boring day, are shocked when they begin playing Zathura, a space-themed board game, which they realize has mystical powers when their house is shot into space. With the help of an astronaut, the boys attempt to return home.

"Secret Society of Souptown" is an adventurous family movie that takes place in Souptown, a district in the summery city of Tartu. Four children - Mari, Sadu, Olav and Anton form a secret society to play hide-and seek games invented by Mari's grandfather, a professor at the university. When the city is attacked by a mysterious poison which turns adults into children our gang embarks on a quest for the antidote. Their path is paved with challenges bigger than any other they have seen so far. It is an adventure you cannot even imagine... Will the children find the antidote in time to save their loved ones.

A teenager finds himself transported to an island where he must help protect a group of orphans with special powers from creatures intent on destroying them.

Christmas is on its way and with it disaster. The 92,000 responsible for manufacturing children's toys all become sick at the same time! It's a tough moment for Santa, better known as Father Christmas. He's left no choice: he must make an emergency trip to Earth with his reindeer to search for a remedy. When he arrives, he must find some allies to save the magic of Christmas.

Vlad has just moved and joined one of the most famous magical schools in the world, where he meets fairies, witches, trolls and dwarfs. Him and his father are the first vampires in town, but he soon meets other special kids.

A nine-year-old boy gets a plastic Indian and a cupboard for his birthday and finds himself involved in adventure when the Indian comes to life and befriends him.

As a child living in Africa, Jill Young saw her mother killed while protecting wild gorillas from poachers led by Andrei Strasser. Now an adult, Jill cares for an orphaned gorilla named Joe -- who, due to a genetic anomaly, is 15 feet tall. When Gregg O'Hara arrives from California and sees the animal, he convinces Jill that Joe would be safest at his wildlife refuge. But Strasser follows them to the U.S., intent on capturing Joe for himself.

Asterix crosses the channel to help second-cousin Anticlimax face down Julius Caesar and invading Romans.

A man who stops into a foster home to drop off some donations soon tells the kids a story about two teenage friends who uncover a long-lost medallion that transports them back in time.

The boy who wasn't supposed to grow up—Peter Pan—did just that, becoming a soulless corporate lawyer whose workaholism could cost him his wife and kids. But a trip to see Granny Wendy in London, where the vengeful Capt. Hook kidnaps Peter's kids and forces Peter to return to Neverland, could lead to a chance at redemption, in this family-oriented fantasy from director Steven Spielberg.

Ollie Dee and Stanley Dum try to borrow money from their employer, the toymaker, to pay off the mortgage on Mother Peep's shoe and keep it and Little Bo Peep from the clutches of the evil Barnaby. When that fails, they trick Barnaby into marrying Stanley Dum instead of Bo Peep. Enraged, Barnaby unleashes the bogeymen from their caverns to destroy Toyland.