30 Most Intelligent Movie Children

Billy Elliot (2000)

The Intelligent Child: The titular hero, aged 11, swaps boxing for ballet, and discovers a natural flair that sets him at odds with his macho family.

Cleverest Moment: Getting accepted at the Royal Ballet School, despite punching a boy at his audition!

Hugo (2011)

The Intelligent Child: Hugo Cabret, an orphan who hides in Montparnasse station, where he puts his mechanical knowhow to work repair the station's clocks.

Cleverest Moment: Painstakingly putting together a automaton invented by George Méliès.

School Of Rock (2003)

The Intelligent Child: Let's face it, every pupil in Horace Green prep school is a brainiac. But none is smarter than class swot Summer Hathaway.

Cleverest Moment: In her new role as School Of Rock's band manager, she convinces a venue to let the band perform by pretending they are all terminally ill.

The 400 Blows (1959)

The Intelligent Child: Antoine Doinel, troubled youth whose only escape from uncaring parents and authorities is to lose himself in cinema.

Cleverest Moment: Antoine is street-smart, so uses his guile to abscond from a youth detention centre so he can fulfil his life's dream of seeing the ocean.

August Rush (2007)

The Intelligent Child: Runaway orphan Evan Taylor elopes to New York to find his parents, where his gift for music helps him live on the streets.

Cleverest Moment: Rebranded as guitar hero August Rush, Evan is enrolled into Juilliard, where he compose and conduct a rhapsody.

E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982)

The Intelligent Child: Elliott, the Californian kid who discovers a lost alien in his garden, keeps it hidden from parents and authorities (for as long as possible, at least) and helps it to get home.

Cleverest Moment: Giving E.T. some fresh air at Halloween by disguising him as a ghost.

Leon (1994)

The Intelligent Child: 12-year-old Mathilde Lando, a tomboy who vows vengeance when her family is slaughtered by corrupt DEA agent Stansfield.

Cleverest Moment: Realising the benefits that having a hitman as a neighbour can bring, and convincing Leon to train her to become a 'cleaner,' too.

The Addams Family Values (1993)

The Intelligent Children: Wednesday and Pugsley Addams aren't about to let being sent to a hellishly upbeat summer camp stand in the way of their creepy cleverness.

Cleverest Moment: Wednesday pretending to be 'cured' of her Gothic tendencies in order to take the leading role in the camp's Thanksgiving play - the best place from which to stage a revolt.

Interview With The Vampire (1994)

The Intelligent Child: We're cheating slightly here. Yes, Claudia is a girl but, technically, she's lived for hundreds of years as a vampire, which is what gives her an edge in the intelligence stakes.

Cleverest Moment: Overcoming fellow vampire Lestat by tricking him into drinking the blood from a corpse.

Ivan's Childhood (1962)

The Intelligent Child: 12-year-old Russian whose family were killed by the Nazis, and who has become an intuitive, intelligent fighter for the cause.

Cleverest Moment: Ivan's size makes him the perfect spy, and he crosses a treacherous swamp while dodging Nazi patrols.