16 Movies & Shows We Watched With Our Grannies

Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher, a mystery writer and amateur detective, in Cabot Cove, Maine, perfectly brings a mixture of coziness and homicide in a way only a grandmother could love. Murder, She Wrote is such a wholesome show, but also feels like a true crime moment? Plus, Jessica wears really incredible sweaters.

You can stream Murder, She Wrote on Tubi, Prime Video, and Apple TV.

Nobody loves The Wizard of Oz more than a grandmother, especially if they wanted to watch it at Christmas (this used to be one of the big movies cable networks showed every year during the holidays). Bonus points if your grandmother made you a Dorothy costume to wear to school on Halloween.

You can stream The Wizard of Oz on HBO Max, Prime Video, and Apple TV.

I think I watched nearly every Shirley Temple movie made with my granny, but Heidi was one of our favorites. The classic story of an orphaned girl living with her grouchy grandfather in the Swiss Alps is the exact kind of story a granny wants to share with you.

You can stream Heidi on Prime Video.

You know what feels extra cozy? A family living in the mountains, and nobody did it quite as well as The Waltons. This TV show was all about the Walton family living on (you guessed it) Walton Mountain and how the world changes and flows around them, but their love for each other remains strong. Peak grandmother-core show.

You can stream The Waltons on Peacock, Prime Video, and Apple TV.

Dick Van Dyke is pretty much a must in a grandmother movie collection, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has to go on the list. This film is unhinged in the best possible way, and if that doesn’t have grandmother energy, I don’t know what else does.

You can stream Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on Pluto TV and Apple TV.

OK, I’ve seen tons of variations on A Christmas Carol, but the 1938 version was my own granny’s favorite. This one is black-and-white and, honestly, fairly spooky, but there’s something about it that feels extremely wholesome and homey.

You can stream A Christmas Carol on HBO Max, Prime Video, and Apple TV.

The fact that you can only find The Three Lives of Thomasina on YouTube is enough to make this a grandma movie. When a young girl’s cat is injured and euthanized by her vet father, an animal healer in town brings the cat back to life — but now struggles to reunite the girl with her best friend. It is equal parts traumatic and heartwarming, and feels deeply grandmother-coded.

You can stream The Three Lives of Thomasina on YouTube.

Before Robin Williams made Flubber, there was Fred MacMurray in The Absent-Minded Professor. He’s bumbling, he’s genius, he’s lovable — he’s all the things you want in a lead character of a Granny-approved movie.

You can stream The Absent-Minded Professor on Prime Video, Apple TV, and Disney+.

Little House on the Prairie is The Waltons-adjacent, I know, but you just can’t beat a cozy afternoon spent with Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura, and Carrie, and the rest of the characters in Walnut Grove.

You can stream Little House on the Prairie on Peacock, Prime Video, and Apple TV.

Another animal-focused movie and one that will make you bawl your eyes out, Old Yeller feels like the kind of movie you need to watch under a heavy quilt and a bowl of popcorn.

You can stream Old Yeller on Disney+, Prime Video, and Apple TV.

Musicals definitely feel Granny-coded, and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers also has the added bonus of being a completely wild concept for a film. When one woman marries a man and discovers he has six unmarried (and apparently feral) brothers who need wives, they set out to make sure everyone settles down. Maybe our grandmothers felt better knowing they weren’t the only ones doing everything for a man.

You can stream Seven Brides for Seven Brothers on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, and Apple TV.

One of my grannies took my mom to see Mary Poppins in theaters when it came out, and now I think about it every time I watch this absolute classic Disney movie. It’s got it all — live-action, cartoons, special effects (even if the old banker at the end is terrifying). A perfect cozy watch.

You can stream Mary Poppins on Disney+, Prime Video, and Apple TV.

If there’s only one show that has immense middle-of-the-day-cable-TV-grandma-watching energy, it’s Touched by an Angel. Three angels roam the earth in this drama series and have to intervene on mere mortals... but also learn a whole lot of life lessons themselves. It’s wholesome, it’s terrible, it’s got some truly wild storylines — a must for your Grandma era.

You can stream Touched by an Angel on Paramount+, Netflix, and Pluto TV.

OK, OK, last animal movie on the list, but my husband remembers renting Benji from the library with his own grandmother. Benji’s a stray pup who jumps into action when two kids are kidnapped, and something about his wholesome little self running all over town makes it clear why the grandmas love it so much.

You can stream Benji on Retro Movie.

Another musical and yes, another Julie Andrews flick, but the grandmothers loved their technicolor masterpieces, OK? Put The Sound of Music on when you need to just escape reality and feel loved and safe and comforted.

You can stream The Sound of Music on Disney+, Hulu, and Prime Video.

And finally, I truly believe our grandmothers were the original true crime girlies. My own granny was obsessed with Unsolved Mysteries, and the fact that some of these episodes still end with “if you have any information” even though the crime happened in 1992? Full-on chills.

You can stream Unsolved Mysteries on Prime Video and Peacock.