Good mothers, bad mothers, mothers trying their best, mothers too tired to try at all. Just in the past year, cinema has had a great many mothers to celebrate or examine, and more than one of these actresses will be gearing up for their potential Oscar victories tonight. In the running: motherhood as an exhausting nightmare in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, a grieving, devastating mother in Hamnet, and a woman who rejected motherhood all together in One Battle After Another.
We’ll never exhaust of telling the stories of mothers, and how could we? If this Mother’s Day you’re looking to dive into the many intricacies of these figures (either in celebration or avoidance of your own – we don’t judge), here’s a list to dip your toe into their cinematic world. Viva!
- Volver (2006), Pedro AlmodĂłvar
Almodóvar, the realest Mother appreciator out there right now, is an obvious pick for this list. And whilst there’s many a film in his oeuvre that would fit smugly within my recommendations (All About my Mother (1999), duh) I’m going for my personal favourite, Volver. It’s a real jewel box of a film, vivid with Almodovar’s signature colours, a stunning Penelope Cruz playing a fierce mother, and a surprising, heartwarming plot. A good watch for all occasions and all company!
- A Woman Under the Influence (1974), John Cassavetes
Hard pivot to one of the most difficult films I’ve ever seen: Cassavette’s masterpiece, A Woman Under the Influence.
Gena Rowlands is at the helm with a truly heartbreaking performance as a housewife in a blue-collar family. She struggles with alcoholism and some unspecified mental health issues that, in her home, can only really be understood as madness. A must-watch, but a really tough time. Don’t put this on for an easy afternoon with the family.
- Mommy (2014), Xavier Dolan
Xavier Dolan is another filmmaker who often returns to the figures of mothers in his work. Mommy, which he wrote, edited and directed, follows the relationship between Die, a widowed mother played by Dolan’s longtime collaborator Anne Doval, and her troubled teenage son Steve.
It’s a complex relationship – Die loves her son, and does all she can to help him, but resources are limited. A truly incredible film, Mommy will take your breath away and hopefully invite you into the rest of Dolan’s incredible cinematic world.
- Shoplifters (2018), Hirokazu Kore-eda
Hirokazu Kore-eda has built much of his career around unconventional families and the inner worlds of struggling children. In Shoplifters, a small group of people living together on the margins of Tokyo – surviving largely through petty theft – take in Yuri, a young girl from the neighbourhood they find alone on a cold night. The intention was to feed her dinner, but when they notice signs of abuse, they decide not to return her home.
At the centre of the care they offer is Nobuyo, played by Sakura Ando, who connects with Yuri through the warmth and kindness she shows her. It’s a touching, melancholic film that questions the limits of biological bonds and explores the kinds of families we deserve. Put it on for a bit of a cry.
- Real Women have Curves (2002), Patricia Cardoso
This coming-of-age film often gets compared to Lady Bird (2017), and it’s true that more than one plot point resonates: a difficult mother-daughter relationship, and a great escape to university in New York City. Really, though, the similarities end there.
In Real Women Have Curves, America Ferrera stars as Ana, the youngest daughter in a traditional Mexican-American family – one which prioritises work over the possibility of continuing her studies. She doesn’t feel understood, but she herself doesn’t fully understand. At the heart of this miscommunication is Ana’s mother, who showers her with truly vicious comments about her body at every turn. It’s a lovely coming-of-age film, but it can be quite brutal in depicting the damage that normalised abuse can do, particularly when it comes to the relationship women have to their bodies.
- Petit Maman (2021), CĂ©line Sciamma
On the internet, I’ve noticed a push to think of your mother as she would have been as a girl – what kind of life did she want, what were her hopes and dreams and aspirations? But when this is asked, I think we are envisioning a teenager. With Petit Maman, Céline Sciamma dreams up a child.
In the film, 8-year-old Nelly visits her mother Marion’s childhood home in the wake of her grandmother’s death. The overwhelmed and grieving Marion leaves Nelly to play in the surrounding woods, her own playground in childhood. And there, like in a fairytale, Nelly meets her own mother at her age, a new companion for playing and talking and processing. A real treat, watch to get your heart warmed and tugged.
- There’s Still Tomorrow (2023), Paola Cortellesi
Written and directed by Paola Cortellesi, There’s Still Tomorrow follows the immediate post-Second World War period in Rome. Delia, a working housewife with three children, tries to survive daily life with an abusive husband and a daughter who has just gotten engaged.
When the film was released, Italy was reeling from the murder of Giulia Cecchettin, killed by her ex-boyfriend days before her final university exam. Her death sparked protests against femicide across the country, and this film highlighted how little progress has been made in dismantling a violent patriarchal order.
Still, the film is not purely a drama. It’s hilarious (I mourn for non-Italians who can’t properly appreciate the Roman accent), and deeply touching. At the heart of the film is Delia’s relationship with her daughter – one of the most honest explorations of how children internalise the abuse they witness that I’ve seen in recent cinema. Watch it on any occasion, at any time.
- Mother (2009), Bong Joon Ho
Mother is a Bong Joon Ho thriller, so you should already know it’s good. In it, Kim Hye-ja plays the unnamed mother of Do-joon, a young man with learning difficulties. When he is accused of murder, she must go to impossible lengths to save her son and find the real culprit.
If you’ve seen Memories of Murder (2003), another of Bong Joon Ho’s more popular films, you’ll know how compellingly he can twist at the conventions of procedural stories, peering into our fascination with crime. With Mother, these themes are certainly present, but they intersect with the age-old question: how far will a mother go for her child?
- We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), Lynne Ramsey
This past year, you may have watched another of Lynne Ramsay’s motherhood-centric films, Die, My Love (too quickly forgotten this awards season, but I digress). In We Need to Talk About Kevin, Tilda Swinton stars as Eva, a once-successful writer whose new role as a mother doesn’t quite suit her. Or maybe it’s less about her, and more about her son, Kevin.
She cannot seem to connect with him, and harbours a suspicion that he is deliberately antagonising her – from childhood into his teenage years. In 2011, violent young men were certainly being discussed, but I think this film feels more relevant than ever, as young women communicate anxieties about having sons and failing to prevent them from being sucked into the manosphere. If I were to categorise this one, I’d call it an unsettling watch.
- 20th Century Women (2016), Mike Mills
Finally, for a more hopeful vision of women raising sons, I leave you with 20th Century Women. Set in late-1970s California, the film follows Dorothea Fields, played by the impossibly charming Annette Bening, a single mother who worries she doesn’t quite understand the world her teenage son Jamie is growing up in. Her solution is to enlist the help of two younger women to raise him as a community effort.
Dorothea is older than a conventional mother-ing age, and finds herself caught in a historical moment where things are changing very rapidly, not only for herself, but for the young women she’s involved in her life. It’s a semi-autobiographic film, a tender, reflective ode from Mills to his own mother. Watching this one you’ll think, maybe there’s hope just yet.