Characters being grounded in Animated and Live-Action Films
Animated Films
- In Ice Age: Continental Drift, Manny grounds Peaches for going to the falls, a place where teenagers hang out, and for hanging out with Ethan, a boy mammoth.
- In The Incredibles, Helen threatens to ground Violet and Dash for a month if they don't stop panicking after surviving their plane being shot down. However, she later apologizes for being too hard on them.
- In The Jungle Book 2, Mowgli is grounded by his adoptive father for trying to lead several of the villager children to the jungle.
- In Lady and the Tramp Lady gets muzzled and chained to her doghouse after Si and Am frame her for hurting them and making a mess in the living room.
- In Maya the Bee Movie, Sting the hornet gets grounded by his father after he discovers him with Maya and Willy, even though Maya saved his life.
- In the third act of My Little Pony: The Movie (2017), Princess Skystar sneaks away from home to help her new-found pony friends, casually telling them she'll get "so grounded" for this. And sure enough, the first thing her mother does upon their reunion at the end of the movie is to ground her. This doesn't stop Skystar from reacting with an Oh, Crap! face.Queen Novo: You are sooo grounded. [laughs]
- The Nightmare Before Christmas: Dr. Finklestein to Sally constantly. This is the source of the friction in their relationship.
- Tangled: Rapunzel has been grounded into the tower her whole life and when she asks to go outside, Mother Gothel snaps and yells "You are not leaving this tower! EVER!"
- In DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, Scrooge McDuck makes plans to do this with the child characters when they decide to stay out after dark. Only the use of a wish from a Genie prevents this from happening.Scrooge McDuck: This time, they'll be grounded for a month! No video games, no television, and no more friends staying the night!
- In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, due to Keeping Secrets Sucks and Skewed Priorities Miles frequently lets down his parents by not being there for them, and when he rudely talks back to them he ends up getting grounded. He then decides Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!, and it becomes a Running Gag with his parents adding a month to his sentence every time they catch him sneaking out.
- It's strongly implied at the end of The Chipmunk Adventure that this will be the fate of both the Chipmunks and Chipettes after they pull off a crazy stunt to race around the world, which unbeknownst to them, was a coverup for a diamond smuggling ring. After they figure out what's going on, and stop the bad guys, nearly getting kidnapped in the process, Alvin and Brittany are still arguing as to who won the race. Dave stops the fight as he angrily tells the both of them that they're going to have a long talk when they get home.
- In The Boss Baby this happens to Tim, midway into the movie. This quickly escalates into a full blown grounded for life, which is later depicted as a death sentence to Tim's imagination.
- Discussed in Turning Red. Mei brushes off concerns about her mother's reaction to Mei running off to the 4*Town concert.Miriam: Your mom must have gone nuclear.
Mei: Who cares? What's she gonna do? Ground me?
Live-Action Films
- An American Girl: McKenna Shoots For The Stars: McKenna Brooks' mom grounds her for cheating on some of her friends' tests.
- Avatar: The Way of Water: Near the beginning, Jake grounds Lo'ak for joining the train raid and convincing Neteyam to come along against Jake's orders, getting the latter injured and nearly killed. A rare case where "grounded" refers to both the more common "parent punishing a child" meaning and the original, literal sense of not being allowed to fly, as Jake specifically forbids him from flying for a month — though Spider's capture and the Sullys' subsequent journey by ikran to the home of the Metkayina means that it doesn't actually last that long.
- In Charlie Bartlett, Charlie and his mother actually negotiate how long his punishment will last, and he is the one who suggests being grounded as punishment.
- In Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), this happens to the kids due to them fighting in school and not keeping up with their chores. They wind up sneaking out to go to their friend's birthday party.
- Cyberbully: Taylor's younger brother, Eric, gets grounded for hacking her Cliquesters account and changing her status to something mean and demeaning after he gets mad at her for not letting him have a Cliquesters account of his own. This, along with Taylor's best friend, Samantha, creating a phony account of a cute boy, contributes to the Cyberbullying campaign against Taylor, to which she almost kills herself by downing a large amount of Tylenol. After Taylor was prevented from doing so by Samantha and their mother, Kris, after they saw the video she posted uttering her threat, Eric felt terrible for this and was upset at the very idea of losing his sister to suicide, showing he genuinely cares about her.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: In the first film, Susan sees Manny reading Rodrick's magazine with a candy bar hidden by Greg. She asks Rodrick the same questions that are from the book version. She also grounded him for two weeks. Rodrick tries to bargain with Susan about cutting his grounding to one week only for Susan to extend it to four weeks and confiscates his van.
- In "Rodrick Rules", Frank was about to show Susan's editors the Civil War reenactment photos, only to find out, along with Susan, about Rodrick's party. The Heffleys get into an argument because of this. Soon afterwards, Greg and Rodrick end up getting grounded. Greg was grounded for two weeks with no video games, while Rodrick is grounded for a month and he is not allowed to play with his band in the talent show. Rodrick was upset by the punishment and tells Greg he is so dead.
- In "The Long Haul", Greg and Rodrick sneak into Player Expo as part of a deal they made, so Greg can get a video of himself with Mac Digby, his favorite streamer. While in the hotel room, Frank and Susan saw them on TV and Susan goes to Player Expo alone. She later eventually shows up and grounds Greg for life for playing games. However, she later contradicts herself by letting Greg play games after an argument shortly after.
- In Dunston Checks In, Robert grounds his two children, Kyle and Brian for using a fountain to spray one of the hotel employees for taking their Frisbee (they hit Lionel Spaulding and some other guests by mistake). Brian notes that it isn't bad to be grounded in a five-star hotel. Later on, while Kyle is walking Neal, Neal encounters Dunston and jumps into a dumpster. The two get "double-grounded," and Robert only manages to assign Brian his punishment before he has to leave to deal with Dunston breaking into a guest's room.Brian: But what about his punishment?
Robert: Think of something you really like. You got it? NO THAT! - In The Hairy Bird (a.k.a. All I Wanna Do), after Odette fakes a note from her mom to go out on the town with her friends, Ms. McVane talks with her mom on the phone, and finds out it was a ruse. So, Odette is sent before the student council for a hearing and punishment. They "ground" her for the rest of the year.
- Kruel: When Jo comes home at the start of the movie, her mother is mad at her for staying out so late and not answering any of her texts (Jo had her phone on silent at the time). She decides to ground Jo for her actions, only allowing her out of the house so she can do her babysitting job.
- Subverted in Mean Girls: Cady gets grounded, but her dad has spent decades in the African wilderness.Cady's Mom: Where's Cady?
Cady's Dad: She went out with her friends.
Cady's Mom: She's grounded.
Cady's Dad: Are they not allowed out when they're grounded? - A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge: Grady can't go to Lisa's party because his parents grounded him for something bad he did (implied to be throwing his grandmother down a flight of stairs). Jesse breaks into his room late at light to get Grady to watch over him because Freddy is trying to take over Jesse's body.
- In No Kidding, after the children steal the Robinsons' car, David orders them to remain inside Chartham Place for two whole days.
- Trading Mom: The catalyst for the actions of the story is in fact a grounding of such terrible and terrifying nature, that it forces the three main protagonists into making the wish to remove their mother.Mrs. Mommy Martin: Who do you think you are? You can't just go around doing what ever you want! And Elizabeth, cigarettes, really. Well, that's it! You're all GROUNDED! PERIOD! Understand? THERE'S NO CAMP! NO ALLOWANCE!! NO TV!!! NO NOTHING!!!! Now up to your room, right now THIS INSTANT!!!! I am furious!
Harry Martin: But mom...
Mrs. Mommy Martin: Don't "But mom" me! Things are going to change around here PERMANENTLY!!! NOW, MARCH!!!!!!! - Thunderbirds Jeff Tracy grounds his son, Alan, until the end of Spring Break, after a blow-out argument between them.
- The Rage: Carrie 2: Rachel is both slapped in the face by her adopted father, and then grounded in a similar fashion to Lloyd Nebulon in the first episode of Lloyd in Space.Rachel's Father: You're grounded, for a week!
Rachel: But I got to get to the big game...
Rachel's Father: YOU WANNA MAKE IT TWO?! (Beat) I want you to stay in your room. IS THAT CLEAR?!
