30 Seemingly Innocent Movies That Are Much Darker Than You Realize 

1. Lilo & Stitch. Nani is like 19, taking care of her little sister who has behavioral problems, while being investigated by CPS, on top of working and trying to pay for a whole house! Man.

2. The Incredibles. Attempted suicide, lots of unseen collateral damage and possible civilian deaths, the systematic assassination of super heroes.

3. Wall-E. Didn’t a scene from the movie show that when the Earth was evacuated, the whole planet was controlled by Buy-N-Large? A huge mega-corporation literally bought the planet and then destroyed it in their mission to make as much money as possible.

4. Kingsmen – so many babies murdered offscreen by their parents. Sure, Eggsy’s mom and his little sister are ok, but not everyone got a phone call telling them to lock their kid in the bathroom.

5. Monsters Inc. They use screams of innocent children and might even scar them for life to have electricity. Let’s not about how Randall planned to kidnap children to suck their voice or something.

6. Shrek. It shows how people have hatred for other people just because of the way they are. Religion, looks, race, culture, poverty. It has a good lesson that we should love everybody regardless of all the stupid goofy stuff.

“I don’t have a problem with the world donkey, it seems as if the world has a problem with me.” -Shrek

7. Snow White. Stepmother wants to murder 14y old girl because she is prettier than her. 14y old finds a random house in the woods, decides to clean it. Lives as a servant of 7 men in exchange for a place to stay. A random prince finds a corpse in the woods, decides to kiss it.

8. Finding Nemo. Who wouldn’t love a movie about someone’s kid being kidnapped after his wife and 999 other kids were brutally murdered?

9. Truman Show. Truman’s whole life was a fraud that was portrayed to the world for their amusement and benefit. I think I wouldn’t be able to deal with finding out that my entire life was manipulated by actors and directors.

10. The Wizard of Oz. Glinda the Good Witch pretty much used Dorothy and her friends to kill the Wicked Witch of the West so she could gain power. She may be a good witch but still. Wow.

11. The first Karate Kid movie is quite dark for being a “kids” movie.

First, Sensei John Kreese the Cobra Kai dojo is clearly dealing with some psychological spillover from his time in Special Forces during the Vietnam War, and using his aggression from this grief over to his students. Then we find out that Mr. Miyagi’s wife died during childbirth in an internment camp as Miyagi served in the U.S. Army during World War II.

It’s no wonder those two men sought serenity through combat training and offered it up as a violent therapeutic technique to the next generation.

12. I think Hook is deeply depressing. Peter pan grew up and became a deadbeat dad. Hook is suicidal. Rufio dies. He leaves the lost Boys twice. Tootles is insane and old. Tinkerbell is deeply in love with Peter who won’t love her back. Wendy grows old and Peter fucks her granddaughter. Miserable.

13. Home Alone is about two adults trying to murder a child.

14. Stand By Me. Three out of four of the main cast are experiencing or have experienced some form of child abuse.

A 17 year old has nothing better to do than threaten the safety of said children, and the rest of his gang don’t do shit about it.

And they literally travel to go and see a dead body. And nobody wonders where they fuck they are.

Brilliant movie. But Jesus Fuck.

15. Gremlins. The promos focused on how cute n’ cuddly Gizmo was, plus there was the Spielberg/E.T. connection, which gave a lot of parents the idea that it was a kids’ movie.

…so of course when the evil Gremlins start popping out and doing terrible things their kids were like AHHHHH MOM WTF IS THIS I WANNA GO HOME!

…and Phoebe Cates’ speech about why she hates Christmas is the cherry on top!

16. The fact that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a children’s movie still is baffling to me. There is a scene with a creepy older man who went around the town kidnapping children because kids were suddenly illegal. He lured them with candy. I suppose that’s a good lesson because I was terrified of getting kidnapped and became much more weary of strangers, but I still wonder if the nightmares were worth it.

17. Big with Tom Hanks. Little boy ends up in a grown body. Has a romantic interlude with his grown boss. Tells boss he’s a kid and goes back to his life.

18. Mrs. Doubtfire. Ex husband infiltrates his wife and children’s home dressed as a woman. Just imagine if it wasn’t Robin Williams and was played by Christopher Walken. Completely different film.

19. Can’t believe no one has said anything about the Disney/Pixar movie Up! Elderly man who has lost his wife to Cancer being harassed by a big company who wants to tear down his home for a new development, young boy with divorced parents and an absentee father running around the streets of a city. Not to mention the deranged adventurer – serial killer who has murdered anyone who may have come close to messing up his life’s work.

20. Pocahontas, it was based on real life and Pocahontas was actually a young child and John Smith was a lot older than her, she was 9 or 10 and he was 27.

21. Watership Down. A kids cartoon film about rabbits… some of whom suffocate to death, get buried alive, others get poisoned, trapped, drowned. We watched it school and there was a lot of crying.

22. Shark Boy and Lava Girl. If you really look at it it’s about a boy who’s parents are getting a divorce and kids in school bully him while the teacher allows it. So the boy kills himself and goes to whatever thy world was and see that Shark Boy and Lava Girl are actually real. They go on a large adventure and then everyone stops bullying him, his parents aren’t getting a divorce anymore and he gets the girl. You go to your happy place after death.

23. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Esmeralda was nearly burned alive.

24. Zootopia, if you think about it the carnivore animals have to be eating something, which means there are probably subservient animals hidden somewhere that are bred primarily for the carnivores to eat off of. Even ignoring that, the plot of the movie was surprisingly dark for a Disney movie, with that angry lamb.

25. Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. It’s pretty dark. I read somewhere that he possibly suffers from narcissistic personality disorder. For example, he wear clothes that stand out so he is always the centre of attention. He dismisses questions when they are asked because he can’t stand criticism. He placed all those kids in danger with not a care in the world. There’s a lot more examples. It’s weird when you look back on these children stories because you realize it goes a lot deeper.

26. Peter Pan, one interpretation of it is that Peter Pan is dead and that’s why he can fly and he never ages. Not sure if that’s 100 percent correct, but if it is that makes Peter Pan much darker than people think it is at first.

27. Frozen. A child who was forced to suppress her emotions just so that the adults in the family felt like the situation was under control.

The purest of pure and the kindest of kind people are the loneliest ones.

How Elsa is taught that being emotionally vulnerable is weak.

28. Office Space. A deleted scene implies that Lumbergh died in the fire.

29. Thor: Ragnarok. Without the comedy, it’s a very depressing (but still good) movie. Everything goes wrong and culminates with the destruction of his home.

30. The Rugrats Movie. Tommy almost murders his infant brother by covering him with mashed bananas and feeding him to hungry monkeys because he’s crying. Shits dark as fuck.