If you loved Small Soldiers, try Explorers

A bridge between a film you've already seen and one most people haven't. Explorers has roughly 4.6× fewer votes than Small Soldiers — it's a deeper cut, not a mainstream recommendation. Here's what they share, and what the second one does that the first one doesn't.

You already loved

Small Soldiers

1998 · dir. Joe Dante

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Explorers

1985 · dir. Joe Dante

What they share

Both films are directed by Joe Dante, and they both carry the playful mood tag, and they sit in Adventure / Science Fiction territory. If that's the register that drew you to Small Soldiers, the second film will land in a comparable space — through a different lens.

playful

What Explorers is

Here's a film that asks: what if a kid's dream literally built a spaceship? A trio of precocious adolescents blasts into space after one reverse-engineers his own subconscious visions. What they find out there is probably not what they expected, or what the studio hoped for.

If you loved Small Soldiers, try Explorers

Small Soldiers

Explorers

What they share

What Explorers is

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