This is one of the most searched questions in tween movies, and most of the lists answering it are disappointing β they assume "for girls" means pink, romantic or small. What parents are usually asking for is a film with a girl at the center who wants something and goes after it. That is the list below. Boys will like all of these too.
Moana (2016, PG)
A wayfinderβs daughter sails past the reef to save her island. No romance subplot at all, which is still unusual enough to be worth saying out loud. Her competence, not her appearance, is what the film is interested in.
Turning Red (2022, PG)
Meilin turns into a giant red panda when she gets overexcited. The most honest film on this list about what being a thirteen-year-old girl is actually like β the friendships, the embarrassment, the mother who means well and is suffocating her.
Where to stream Turning Red β
Brave (2012, PG)
Merida would rather shoot than be married off. The marketing sold it as a princess film and it is not really β it is a story about a mother and daughter who cannot hear each other, and the archery is incidental.
Kikiβs Delivery Service (1989, G)
A thirteen-year-old witch moves to a new city and starts a delivery business. Almost nothing bad happens; the drama is that she loses confidence and has to find it again. Quietly one of the best films ever made about starting out on your own.
Where to stream Kikiβs Delivery Service β
Akeelah and the Bee (2006, PG)
A girl from South Los Angeles makes the national spelling bee. Conventional shape, executed with real care, and unusually good on what it costs to be the kid who is good at something in a place that does not reward it.
Where to stream Akeelah and the Bee β
Encanto (2021, PG)
Mirabel has no gift in a family of gifted people. She spends the film trying to hold everyone together anyway, and the resolution turns on her being right about something the adults would not hear.
Matilda (1996, PG)
Roald Dahlβs bookish girl with terrible parents and telekinesis. Broader and stranger than the newer musical version, and it takes real pleasure in a child outwitting cruel adults β which is the whole appeal of Dahl.
Queen of Katwe (2016, PG)
A girl from a Kampala slum becomes a chess champion. Based on a true story and refreshingly unwilling to pretend the ending solves everything about her familyβs circumstances.
Where to stream Queen of Katwe β
Whale Rider (2003, PG-13)
A MΔori girl is the rightful heir to a chieftainship reserved for boys. The oldest-skewing film here and the one most likely to stay with a twelve or thirteen-year-old afterward.
Where to stream Whale Rider β
Inside Out (2015, G)
Riley is eleven, and the film takes place mostly inside her head. Worth having on the list because it gives a girl this age a vocabulary for her own moods that is genuinely useful outside the film.
Where to stream Inside Out β
What we left off
Deliberately: films where the girlβs arc is being chosen by someone, and makeover stories. They are well represented on other lists. If your reader wants those, they are easy to find β but they are not what most people typing this search are looking for.
Keep browsing
Every title above has a page in our movie catalog with current streaming links, and there is a matching list of tween TV shows if you want something with more episodes in it. On the reading side, our guides cover mystery, fantasy, graphic novels and reluctant readers.