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Once, family road-trips were grueling, back seat complain-a-thons:

"Maw-um, Billy keeps looking at me." "I'm thirsty." "I have to go to the bathroom rightawayreallybad!"

Thoughtful parents devised road games (counting cows), packed juice boxes and colouring books. All of which worked … for a while. Because riding in the backseat all day, crammed beside a kid brother, was never a holiday.

Not like today. Now cars come with DVD players in the back. Or you can hook up a computer laptop in the backseat from the dashboard. Children watch movies and get lost in DVD special features for hours. All of which leaves you and your partner to count cows in untroubled calm.

Two problems: Kids have to like the DVDs you pick, and you don't want them watching the wrong movies. (Good luck sleeping in a wooded campsite with a couple of tweenagers after they've seen Pan's Labyrinth.) To help you negotiate the miles of DVD aisles at your favourite movie store, here is an age-sensitive parents' guide to road-worthy DVDs for discriminating backseat drivers:

Pre-School

The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: Disney acquired rights to A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh in the '60s, whereupon Uncle Walt ordered a makeover for the character named after Winnipeg Bear, mascot for the Royal Winnipeg Rifles in World War I. (The bear was later donated to the London Zoo.) Pooh immediately put on weight and a bright red T-shirt, rendering him more huggable and animated. Disney's first TV episodes, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), the Academy Award-winning Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974) are included in the DVD collection. All are animated with great warmth and charm. And the characters remain a delight. As Benjamin Hoff observed in The Tao of Pooh, "While Eeyore frets and Piglet hesitates and Rabbit calculates, Pooh just is."

Parental warning: There were later series and Pooh movies. The original, however, is where the honey is.

Curious George — Zoo Night & Other Animal Stories: Recent Emmy-nominated TV series about George, the ever-curious monkey from PBS. Like the beloved stories from H.A. and Margaret Rey, a beguiling combination of marzipan and mischief. Narrated by William Macy.

Dumbo: The 1941 film that saved Disney (after the box office bomb, Fantasia) was going on the cover of Time until Pearl Harbor. Dumbo is a baby elephant with saddlebag ears that only a mother can love. Then he's separated from mom. Great water colour animation and wonderful songs: "I've seen a peanut stand, heard a rubber band. I've seen a needle that winked its eye. But I be done seen about everything, when I see an elephant fly."

Honourable mention: Harold and the Purple Crayon; Lots To Learn: In My House; Lots To Learn: In Nature; Sesame Street 123 Count With Me

Ages 5-9

The SpongeBob Square Pants Movie or any of the Nickelodeon SpongeBob TV collections: The most absorbent character on kids TV today, SpongeBob SquarePants is fry cook at the Krusty Krab restaurant, where the funny-talking sponge (imagine a porpoise on helium) has been employee of the month going on three years. Rich in character and humour, The Nickelodeon series is a giddy, rollicking take on the uncontained optimism of youth.

Iron Giant: Adapted from poet Ted Hughes' Cold War sermon, the animated, set-in-1957 story of a young boy who tries to save an extra-terrestrial (the title character) from military madmen and a very nervous small town. An inspiring fable with enough action scenes to keep a seven-year-old from realizing his bladder is filling up.

George of the Jungle: The unique case of a kids' TV cartoon being turned into a superior kids action movie. George (Brendan Fraser) is a beautiful, cheerfully clumsy man ape transported from Africa to the big city by a smitten society girl (Leslie Mann). Fraser is a great deal of fun. Gleeful, knockabout Tarzan spoof.

Honourable mention: The Arthur TV series collections (how does he keep those glasses on under his ears?); Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; Jimmy Neutron; Muppet Treasure Island; Pee Wee's Big Adventure; The Sandlot

Ages 10-13

The Outsiders: The Complete Novel: Few authors captured the bruised melancholy and aching hopefulness of teenage-dom as well as S.E. Hinton. (Susan Eloise Hinton began writing The Outsiders in 1963, at age 15, finishing three years later.) Francis Ford Coppola made a flawed film version in 1983, which he later restored with several crucial scenes. Great cast includes C Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Diane Ladd and Tom Waits.

The Fly: You thoroughly enjoyed this 1958 B-movie, the story of a driven scientist who accidentally turns himself into a fly, while flaked out on a rec room couch on an empty summer afternoon. Do your kids a solid and introduce them to the sci-fi classic. Guarantee: You and yours will spend the rest of your holiday squealing out the lead character's trapped-in-a-cobweb squeak, "help me, please help me."

The Secret of Roan Inish: A richly satisfying Irish fable from American director John Sayles, the story of a little girl who visits her grandparents in a remote Irish fishing village and soon stumbles upon a fantastic family mystery. The perfect entertainment for mature, 12 to 13 year-old girls.

Honourable mention: E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial; The Incredibles; To Kill a Mockingbird; The Miracle Worker; The Wizard of Oz

Teenagers

Say Anything: Smart, unsettling high-school romance: the story of a prim valedictorian (Ione Skye) who rebels against her striving, overprotective father (John Mahoney) by falling for a dreamy, working class kickboxer (John Cusack). The 1989 film is very good at capturing the disarray of a high-blooded youthful romance.

Arrested Development Season One or Two: From the subversive programmers at Fox TV, the story of the George Bluth clan, an American family with a year full of National Enquirer's worth of sex, mental health, and legal issues (father George is wanted by the law for "some light treason"). Teenagers responded to the corrosive cynicism of the now cancelled show (2003-2006) with unalloyed glee. Other demographics didn't get it, perhaps because there was no laugh or snicker track.

Almost Famous: It's 1973 and a teenage journalist (Patrick Fugit) with an overprotective mom (Frances McDormand) sets off on an assignment for Rolling Stone to interview a hedonistic rock group. The story becomes complicated when he falls in love with one of the band's groupies (Kate Hudson) instead of the band. Great cameo by Philip Seymour Hoffman as legendary rock gonzo purist Lester Bangs.

Honourable mention: Donnie Darko; East of Eden; Escape From New York; Ferris Bueller's Day Off; Finding Forrester; Lost in Translation; Pride and Prejudice; The Sure Thing