The Magic Faraway Tree

A modern family trades the city for the countryside, and the children find something far stranger than fresh air waiting in the woods: a tree with eccentric residents and branches that open onto whole other worlds. The film runs on the old, reliable pleasure of a doorway to somewhere else, sending its young explorers into fantastical lands and letting the wonder quietly do the repair work on a family bond that had gone slack.

Family fantasy in the warm, sincere mode, pitched at children who like their magic bright and their peril gentle, with enough charm in the world-building to keep the adults in the room engaged. The pacing has the episodic rhythm of a bedtime story, moving from one land to the next rather than driving toward a single crisis. Expect colour, whimsy and a soft emotional throughline about people rediscovering each other. An easy pick for a weekend afternoon with kids in the house.