Where would movies be without mothers? Sacrificial, absent, destructive, saintly and sometimes all these things at once, motherhood is one of cinema’s most enduring and complicated subjects.
From the silent era to last year’s “Little Women,” there’s no shortage of mother-themed movies to watch this Mother’s Day. Here are some suggestions, all available for rental or streaming on Amazon, iTunes and other platforms.
The mother of all sacrificial mother movies, “Stella Dallas,’’ should have earned an Oscar for Barbara Stanwyck in 1937 for what is arguably her finest performance. Stella Dallas, a millworker from Massachusetts, marries an aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter and, when the marriage ends and the husband takes up with a blue-blood new wife, makes the wrenching decision to deliberately turn her daughter against her so that the child will live with her father and stepmother in social privilege. Also a 1925 silent, it was remade in 1990 as “Stella’’ with Bette Midler in full post-“Beaches’’ tear-jerking mode.
Sacrificial motherhood meets film noir to result in one of the most memorable screen mothers in “Mildred Pierce’’ (1945), with Joan Crawford in her Oscar-winning role as a deserted wife and mother who rises from pie baker to restaurant tycoon. But for all her business success, Mildred fails as a mom. By giving her daughter everything she wants, she creates a spoiled, selfish brat in Veda (Ann Blyth). Still, mother is willing to protect Veda at all costs — even when Veda murders Mildred’s new husband (Zachary Scott).
South Korean director Bong Joon Ho became a household name last year with his smash “Parasite.” His 2010 “Mother” is a dark and engrossing gem about a mother (Kim Hye-ja) who lives quietly with her 28-year-old son (Wan Bin) as she provides herbs and acupuncture to neighbors. When the son is charged with the murder of a young girl, the mother turns into a sleuth and attempts to prove his innocence.
One of the best mother-daughter movies, 1990’s “Postcards From the Edge’’ is based on the autobiographical novel by Carrie Fisher. It features a deliciously comic Meryl Streep and her prickly relationship with her narcissistic actress-singer mother (Shirley MacLaine), modeled, of course, on Fisher’s own mother, Debbie Reynolds. MacLaine’s nuanced portrayal of an alcoholic spotlight-stealer out-mothered even her beloved, difficult Aurora in “Terms of Endearment.’’ Six years later, in a delightful fusion of life and art, Reynolds turned up as the title character in Albert Brooks’s terrific “Mother,’’ a sharp comedy about a middle-aged man who moves back into his controlling mother’s house.
Mother/daughter relationships don’t get more complicated than the real life one brilliantly captured by the Maysles brothers in their landmark 1975 documentary, “Grey Gardens.’’ This portrait of Edith Beale and her daughter Edie, the eccentric relatives of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, is a pas de deux of camaraderie, competition and codependence worthy of Tennessee Williams. It was turned into a solid HBO feature in 2009 by director-writer Michael Sucsy with memorable performances by Drew Barrymore as Edie and Jessica Lange as her mother.
Universal stories of mothers endure in films made outside of Hollywood, too. In one of the great Italian neo-realist films, Sophia Loren nabbed the best actress Oscar in 1961 for “Two Women’’ for her heart wrenching portrait of a young widow fleeing wartime Rome with her 13-year-old daughter.
The monster mother is also a movie trope. Few were as monstrous as Oscar winner Shelley Winters in “A Patch of Blue” (1965), berating and beating her blind daughter Selina (Elizabeth Hartman) when she discovers that Selina has befriended a black man (Sidney Poitier).
One of the nastiest bad mothers in recent cinema has to be Allison Janney’s scene stealing and Oscar winning turn as the trashy mother of disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding in “I, Tonya” (2017). It doesn’t get much worse than a mother who pays spectators to boo from the bleachers while her insecure daughter is competing on the ice.
Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar is in a class by himself when it comes to making films about mother/child relationships. His “All About My Mother’’ (1999) features Cecilia Roth as a woman who returns to Barcelona after her son is killed. There, she forges familial relationships with a transvestite (Antonia San Juan), a pregnant nun (Penélope Cruz), and an actress (Marisa Paredes). In 2006’s “Volver,’’ Almodóvar revisits the all-female ensemble with Cruz’s Raimunda, in Mildred Pierce fashion, trying to protect her daughter when the daughter’s husband is murdered. A fantasia about second chances and rebirth, “Volver’’ is the ultimate mother movie in any language, in any era.
Almodóvar showed he’s still in top form with last year’s autobiographical “Pain and Glory,” with a tender portrait of a young mother and her son. His frequent star Penelope Cruz played Jacinta, a stand-in for Almodóvar’s mother. Cruz brought sensuality and intelligence to Jacinta as she fights for her creative young son to get an education even though it will take him far from their provincial village.