The best family games like Super Mario 64 are Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Galaxy and Banjo-Kazooie. Below are 7, each with the reason it is here — and, at the end, what filtering to family costs you.
Filtering to family means the game has to work for a child and an adult at the same table without either of them being bored. That is a much harder design problem than a difficulty slider.
What you get: Something you can put in front of anyone. The best family games make the skill gap not matter rather than pretending it is not there.
What made Super Mario 64 worth playing in the first place is covered on the full list. This page is the family part of that answer, and only the family part.
The direct descendant, and the moveset is even deeper.
The best-designed 3D Mario, if you can live with less freedom.
Rare's answer, built on the same engine ideas and denser with things to find.
The best modern game built on the Mario 64 template.
The PlayStation take, gentler and with better worlds than it gets credit for.
Hub-and-levels platforming where every level is a different idea.
The current best-feeling 3D platformer, full stop.
Edge. Family games rarely go anywhere uncomfortable, and a few of them are too generous to hold an experienced player for long alone.
Specifically, these are strong answers for Super Mario 64 that are not family games, so they are not on this page:
The full list is on games like Super Mario 64 — 9 picks, no genre filter.
Super Mario Odyssey. The direct descendant, and the moveset is even deeper.
No. Super Mario 64 released on the Nintendo 64, but a recommendation is only useful if you can play it, so the picks above span platforms and eras. What they share is the genre and the reason.
Age ratings cover content but not difficulty or frustration, which is what actually ruins a family session. Five minutes of unedited play footage tells you more than any rating.
With mixed ages, co-operative usually wins. The competitive ones that work are the ones where being in last place is still entertaining.
By hand. Each pick was written for the full Super Mario 64 list first, on what the game actually does, and this page is the part of that list that is family — never a genre tag lookup, which is how "best racing games like Super Mario 64" used to be a page on this site.
Or read the family guide for where to start in the genre generally.