What To Watch If You Love 'The Goonies'

Like The Goonies, The Sandlot is a beloved, coming-of-age film featuring a rag-tag team of young boys. It's set in the nineties rather than the eighties, and their “big bad” is a frightening dog of legend, rather than the murderous Fratelli brothers. The Sandlot is full of memorable quotes like, “You're killing me smalls!” and is a film the whole family will love.

Stand By Me also stars a young Corey Feldman, but in this coming-of-age adventure the boys are looking for something a lot more morbid than some treasure. The hilarious camaraderie between the four main characters - played by Feldman, Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, and Jerry O'Connell - mixed with their genuine care for each other is both heartwarming and entertaining. It makes a great double feature with The Goonies.

The Brand (Josh Brolin) of Adventures in Babysitting is Chris (Elisabeth Shue), who was meant to have a boring night babysitting arranged by her mother. However, Chris, and the kids - Sarah (Maia Brewton), Brad (Keith Coogan), and Daryl (Anthony Rapp) - find themselves on one crazy adventure after another, desperately trying to get back home before the kids' parents return. 

The 1995 film Jumanji is another great adventure film in which you can cheer on the underdog. Some of the special effects may have aged, but the beloved classic still holds up. It follows bullied tween Alan Parrish (Adam Hann-Byrd), who gets sucked into a mysterious board game until the game is found by Judy (Kirsten Dunst) and Peter Shepherd (Bradley Pierce), whose parents recently passed away. Adult Alan is played memorably by Robin Williams.

Holes is another great example of a pack of lovable misfits setting off on a dangerous adventure. It follows the very down-on-his-luck Stanley Yelnats (Shia LaBeouf), who is sentenced to 18 months at a juvenile detention camp due to being wrongfully convicted. It's a beloved Disney film, with a memorable soundtrack, and great performances by everyone, including (but not limited to) Sigourney Weaver, Tim Blake Nelson, Henry Winkler, Eartha Kitt, and Khleo Thomas.

The NeverEnding Story, based on the novel of the same name by Michael Ende, is another film that follows someone known to be an outsider going on an adventure that leads to self-discovery. In this case, Bastian (Barret Oliver) is a shy child who escapes his bullies and hardships with books. One day he chooses a book that introduces him to another world, called Fantasia, and a host of other interesting characters. 

The Goonies is an adventure film, so it only makes sense to follow it up with another coming-of-age epic. Hook acts as a sequel to the novel Peter and Wendy, and follows adult Peter Pan, who now goes by Peter Banning (Robin Williams). He's a workaholic who misses his children's baseball games, and it takes his old nemesis, Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman), kidnapping his children to remind Peter who he really is. It also stars Julia Roberts, Maggie Smith, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Caroline Goodall.

Inventor Wayne Szalinski (Rick Moranis) has designed a ray gun machine capable of shrinking and growing objects, but it isn't working quite properly. That is a recipe for trouble for the Szalinski children (Amy O'Neill, Robert Oliveri) - as well as their neighbor's kids, played by Thomas Wilson Brown and Jared Rushton - who find themselves shrunken and forced to traverse their backyard, which now seems like quite the treacherous journey. It's a great, light-hearted family take on the coming-of-age adventure.

If you're looking for a coming-of-age adventure film that's more of a drama than comedy, then Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain is a great double feature option. It also features kids getting themselves into dangerous situations while on the hunt for treasure. Gold Diggers stars Christina Ricci and Anna Chlumsky, from the movie My Girl. 

Anyone who grew up in the nineties has likely seen, or at least heard of, Wild America, which brought together two Tiger Beat heartthrobs, Devon Sawa and Jonathan Taylor Thomas. They play brothers, Mark and Marshall, respectively, who travel the country, along with their brother Marty (Scott Bairstow), taking photos of wildlife.

The Hulu movie 8-Bit Christmas is a great follow-up if you are looking for a movie like The Goonies that also happens to be a Christmas movie. Neil Patrick Harris stars as Jake Doyle, who is telling his daughter Annie (Sophia Reid-Gantzert) the story of how he acquired his first Nintendo Entertainment System. Winslow Fegley plays the young version of Jake, who is on the quest along with his friends, played by Che Tafari, Santino Barnard, Brielle Rankins, Braelyn Rankins, and Max Malas.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is led by a character named Ricky (Julian Dennison), who I think could have gotten along well with the characters of The Goonies. He takes off into the New Zealand bush with his dog, when he finds out child services will take him back. His foster, Hec (Sam Neill) sets out to find him, leading to a wild adventure directed by Taika Waititi. 

Abominable, from DreamWorks Animation, follows a protagonist with a much more altruistic reason for adventure. Yi (voiced by Chloe Bennet) finds a young Yeti (voiced by Joseph Izzo), and is determined to return him to his family on Mount Everest. She is joined on her quest by her friend Peng (voiced by Albert Tsai), and cousin, Jin (voiced by Tenzing Norgay Trainor).

The kids in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle may be older than the ones in The Goonies, but both of their comical adventures are a delight to watch. In this iteration of Jumanji, the crew get sucked into a video game. Very different personalities have to work together to beat the game, so that Spencer (Alex Wolff), Fridge (Ser'Darius Blain), Bethany (Madison Iseman), and Martha (Morgan Turner) can return home, leaving behind their respective Avatars, Dr. Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), Franklin “Mouse” Finbar (Kevin Hart), Professor “Shelly” Oberon (Jack Black), and Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan).

Labyrinth, like The Goonies, has a bit of sibling drama, as the entire adventure is set in motion after Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) wishes her baby stepbrother Toby (Toby Froud) would be taken away by the Goblin King (David Bowie), since she is sick of being made to babysit him. What follows is a wild, whimsical adventure through the labyrinth - brought to you by the brilliant minds of Jim Henson and George Lucas, with music written and performed by Bowie.

The two main characters in Moonrise Kingdom, Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward), are just as full of personality and wanderlust as the kids from The Goonies. The pen pals decide to reunite and run away together, from Suzy's parents, and the scouts looking for Sam. Moonrise Kingdom, from Wes Anderson, has a star-studded cast, including (but not limited to) Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, and Frances McDormand.

The Book of Life may be an animated film about adults, rather than children, but the life or death adventure brings a similar energy. The story follows La Muerte (voiced by Kate del Castillo), ruler of the Land of the Remembered, and her husband, Xibalba (voiced by Ron Perlman), ruler of the Land of the Forgotten, who make a bet about whether a woman named María (voiced by Zoe Saldana) will marry the creative musician Manolo (voiced by Diego Luna), or strong soldier Joaquín (voiced by Channing Tatum).

Another beloved eighties classic, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, would make a great double feature with The Goonies. It follows the titular character (Matthew Broderick), as he skips school with his girlfriend, Sloane (Mia Sara), and his best friend, Cameron (Alan Ruck), to party around Chicago. Meanwhile, the infuriated Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), Dean of Students, is trying to catch him in his lie, and get him in trouble for truancy. 

While The Goonies is about a group of kids, and Home Alone 2: Lost In New York is more of a solo adventure, they do both have a pair of grown men chasing after them, terrorizing them. Where The Goonies have the Fratelli brothers, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) has to watch out for the Wet Bandits (played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), who tried to rob his home in the first Home Alone (1990), and now are looking for some serious revenge.

The Little Rascals is a great follow-up to The Goonies because it highlights another adorable band of misfits, though in this case, they are much younger. It follows Spanky (Travis Tedford), president of the “He-Man Womun Haters Club,” and his best friend Alfalfa (Bug Hall), as they try to win the go-kart derby without being distracted by girls, like Darla (Brittany Ashton Holmes), and her friends.