Hook

Hook flew into theaters December 11, 1991, Steven Spielberg directing a starry take on what happens after Peter Pan grows up: Robin Williams plays Peter Banning, a workaholic lawyer who's forgotten he was ever Peter Pan, until Captain James Hook (Dustin Hoffman) abducts his children and forces him back to Neverland. Julia Roberts played Tinker Bell, Bob Hoskins was Smee, Dante Basco led the Lost Boys as Rufio, and John Williams wrote the score. It was a big-budget event, made for around $70 million.

Critics shrugged — reviews were middling, and Spielberg himself later admitted he was "a little less proud" of the film's stylized Neverland sequences. Kids did not care in the slightest. Rufio's war cry, the Lost Boys' insults, and the great imaginary-food feast — where the empty platters erupt into color once Peter finally believes — turned Hook into a critic-proof childhood favorite, the rare movie audiences graded far higher than reviewers did. It went on to gross about $300 million worldwide.