The Indian in the Cupboard(1995)

Short pooper:
Omri (Hal Scardino) and Patrick (Rishi Bhat) help Little Bear (Litefoot) and Boone (David Keith) return to the cupboard and, thus, back to their historic timeline. Omri writes about his experiences in a well-received school assignment.

Longer version:
After Omri reveals the cupboard secret to his friend Patrick and he convinces Omri to use it to bring to life a figurine of a historic cowboy from Little Bear’s same timeline, called “Boone”, it creates some complications, since both characters, as per the circumstances they come from, are very hostile towards each other, even though they agree to behave when Omri brings them both along to school as part of a project.

All four of them are seeing watching together the movie “The Last Of His Tribe”, which depicts historic events in which members of the Yahi First Nations are mercilessly massacred by white settlers. This seems to delight Boone while it deeply distraughts Little Bear and, when Boone fires his gun, riled up by what is being shown onscreen, Little Bear, triggered by what was basically a PTSD instance of his own life, shoots an arrow that hits and wounds Boone. Shocked, he relents and agrees to help Boone, but the cabinet key has fallen out of place and he must dangerously venture under the floor to recover it, which almost gets him killed at the hands of Omri’s pet rat, which escaped from its shed.

Omri uses the key and lets Little Bear go through the cabinet to return to his world and bring back an Army medic that could properly treat Boone’s wounds. Seeing all this and not wanting to have a potential tragedy in his conscience -as this could all escalate into cowboys and Natives somehow finding their way through the cupboard and battling each other in Omri’s world-, Omri realizes it is best to send both characters back to their world; however, before doing so, he almost brings a female fellow Native figurine to life, but Little Bear deters him from it, reassuring Omri that he would never be alone and the female probably has a family of her own she should not leave behind.

The next day, Omri and Patrick tearfully send off a recovered Boone and Little Bear -who reassures both boys for their integrity and courage- through the cupboard, so they can be back in their original world. As this happens, Omri experiences a vision where a life-sized adult Little Bear embraces him as an uncle. Towards the end of the film, Omri is seen finishing a school report based on his experiences with Little Bear, asserting his happiness for his Native friend having been able to return to his world and peers, and how this could inspire him one day to have a family of his own.