My Ten Favorite Kid-Friendly Westerns

I've been watching westerns for longer than I can remember.  Naturally, I've shared many westerns with my own kids (who are teens now!).  If you've got some youngsters in your life that you'd like to introduce to this genre, but aren't sure where to start, here are some ideas for you!  I've limited this list to western/frontier stories that are aimed at children or families.  Obviously, there are many, many other westerns that are wonderful for kids to watch!  But these are specifically excellent for kids.

(Please remember, this is listed in order of my favorites, not necessarily the best kid-friendly westerns!)

1. The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975)  When three little swindlers kids show up in a slowly-declining California gold rush town, a gambler (Bill Bixby) just passing through winds up taking care of them. One gold strike, one marriage of convenience involving the local stagecoach driver (Susan Clark), one bank robbery by the bumblingest outlaws in the west (Don Knotts and Tim Conway), and one capture of a notorious outlaw (Slim Pickens) later, and they can finally live happily ever after!

2. The Sign of Zorro (1958)  Wealthy, sophisticated Diego de la Vega (Guy Williams) returns home to California from the university in Madrid to discover that his hometown has been taken over by the ruthless and greedy Captain Monastario (Britt Lomond).  Diego pretends to be a wimp while secretly fighting against tyranny disguised as Zorro.  This is the first 8 episodes of the Disney TV show cobbled together to make one adventure, and it's so delightful!

3. Across the Great Divide (1976)  Two orphans (Heather Rattray, Mark Edward Hall) team up with a gambler (Robert Logan) to cross the Rocky Mountains and claim the land their family owns in Oregon.  Nothing can stop them, not Native Americans, thieves, mountain men, or a grizzly bear.

4. Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955)  Davy Crockett (Fess Parker) fights in the Creek Indian War, gets elected to the U. S. Congress, and helps Texas win its freedom by defending the Alamo, all with his friend George Russell (Buddy Ebsen) at his side.  Some of the incidents are based in fact, and some are simply legends and tall tales.  This was originally a trio of episodes on the TV program Disneyland, and then it was put together and released as a movie.

5. Little House on the Prairie (1974)  Laura (Melissa Gilbert), Mary (Melissa Sue Anderson), Carrie (Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush) Ingalls move from Wisconsin to the prairie with their Pa (Michael Landon) and Ma (Karen Grassle).  This is a 90-minute TV movie that served as the pilot for the classic TV show by the same name, and it sticks a lot closer to things that happen in the original books by Laura Ingalls Wilder than the bulk of the show did.  I don't know that it was ever released to theaters, but it was released to VHS when I was a kid, and we watched it over and over and over.

6. Savage Sam (1963)  When two brothers (Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran) and their neighbor (Marta Kristen) are kidnapped by Native Americans, their dog Sam and their uncle (Brian Keith) track them to try to rescue them.  This is a sequel to Old Yeller (1957) and a much happier movie.

7. Rango (2011)  A chameleon (Johnny Depp) accidentally winds up in a middle-of-nowhere town that's in desperate need of some law and order. It's an animated spoof/homage to all the classic westerns, with tropes and archetypes at every turn, and such a loving homage that I can't help but find it both funny and charming.

8. The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968)  A mild-mannered, hapless dentist (Don Knotts) gets involved in trying to stop gun-runners from using a wagon train as cover to transport their guns west.  It's basically a remake of The Paleface (1948), and I used to laugh so much while watching this that I cried.

9. An American Tail: Fievel goes West (1991)  A Russian-Jewish immigrant family moves to America's wild west, where their son Fievel (Phillip Glasser) gets separated from the rest of the family and is protected and mentored by an aging lawman (James Stewart).  The family just happen to be mice, and the lawman is a dog, and the bad guys are cats.

10. Old Yeller (1957)  Boy's little brother adopts dog.  Boy hates dog.  Dog saves boy's life.  Boy loves dog.  I don't even like to think about the ending.  But it's still a really good movie.

This has been another contribution to the 2026 Legends of Western Cinema Week party!