They don’t make live-action kids’ movies like they used to. If you’re feeling nostalgic for the cream of the crop, you can’t do much better than 2001’s Spy Kids, which, depending on who you ask, is Robert Rodriguez’s magnum opus. (Some people would say Sin City, and they’d be wrong.)
It’s a “live long enough to see yourself become the villain” situation — don’t look too closely at Spy Kids: 3-D, camp classic it may be, or the franchise’s two reboots in the last 13 years. The OG was a certified classic, making $147.9 million at the global box office when it was released and scoring a 93% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
The film stars Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara as brother-sister pair Carmen and Junie, two kids who learn that their parents are spies when they’re kidnapped. The cast is rounded out by Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino as their impossibly photogenic parents, Danny Trejo, Alan Cumming, Teri Hatcher, Cheech Marin, Robert Patrick, and Tony Shalhoub.
Where to Watch Spy Kids Online
Luckily, the movie’s easy to find for a throwback movie night. It’s free to stream with a subscription to Showtime or Paramount+, and $3.99 to rent on Apple TV, Vudu, Google Play, and Amazon. The movie’s also available to purchase for $14.99 on all of those platforms.
“As a piece of almost dadaist filmmaking, Spy Kids is great fun with its continual spirit of invention,” Stephen Hunter wrote for the Washington Post in 2001. “Rodriguez hopes to reach children with his myth of childhood empowerment, and adults with his hip movie stylings, sending up old favorites as he goes along.”
