Movies About Moms To Watch for Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day, DYLA readers!

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May 12, 2023

With Mother’s Day this weekend, it’s time we devote a newsletter to all the moms. The best movies about motherhood capture the complexity of what it means to be a mom or to have a relationship with one. Watch one of these this weekend and let your appreciation and understanding grow for mothers everywhere. Happy Mother’s Day!

Billy recommends…

Growing up I was blessed to have and been smothered by three women. Of course, my actual mother Kathleen Rock, and then my two aunts, Margaret and Sarah. As a tribute to these wonderful ladies I want to recommend a few movies and give a comp for a character in said movies. Love you three!

Mom: Dorothy Boyd from Jerry Maguire

My mom is fiercely loyal and an eternal optimist. The former being my absolute favorite quality about her and the latter is my 2nd favorite quality 99% of the time. The times it annoys me is when we watch sports together and she can’t stop saying, “there is still a chance” while I am falling apart.

Dorothy Boyd played by Renee Zellweger exemplifies my mom mostly in the first scene of Renee and Tom Cruise at the baggage claim at the airport. Dorothy loses her son at the baggage claim and after finding him compliments Jerry about his “memo.” She says, “I think in this age optimism like that is a revolutionary act.” No other line in movie history has been more my mom.

Aunt Margaret: Aunt Meg from Twister

Margaret is the best host I’ve ever known. Her house is always open, snacks galore, and love all around. There is a scene in Twister where the whole tornado-chasing crew plead at Jo to pit stop at Aunt Meg’s for…

You can never put out Aunt Meg! Or at least she won’t tell you that you are when 10 of your friends show up on Memorial Day weekend.

Aunt Sarah: Joanna from Office Space

It’s a little bit of the 90s hair and a lot of being a lovable dork. Supremely sweet, passionate, and gentle but assertive when she needs to be. During the first lunch scene between Jennifer Aniston (Joanna) and Ron Livingston (Peter) they both find a mutual obsession with Kung-Fu movies. Now I don’t think Sarah has an affinity for Kung-Fu movies, but when she loves something she talks about it and is easily moved by those things. This is a quality I have as well to the detriment of others.

Drew recommends…

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

It’s rare today to see a movie chronicle the journey of a single mom struggling to figure out her life, but it was even more rare back in 1974. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore stars Ellen Burstyn as Alice Hyatt, a recently widowed woman who traverses the Southwest with her young son in search of a better life in California. In this sensitive and intimate slice-of-life film, Alice chases her dream of becoming a singer, forms both good and bad new relationships, and never stops trying to be the best mother she can be under the circumstances.

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore was made because Warner Bros. wanted to do another movie with Burstyn after the massive success of The Exorcist. She went looking for an up-and-coming director and came across a young guy that had just made a film called Mean Streets. Burstyn liked the idea of adding a gritty feel to her movie, and that’s how Martin Scorsese landed his first studio directing job. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is an atypical but wonderful entry in the legend’s filmography. What could’ve been an overlooked paycheck gig for Scorsese clearly meant more to him when you see the energy and life that he and Burstyn bring to the film. She ended up winning the Best Actress Academy Award for the role, and Scorsese accepted on stage for her, capping a memorable collaboration between director and star.

Beyond the lead performance, this movie also features excellent supporting parts for Diane Ladd, Oscar-nominated as Alice’s strong-willed fellow waitress, Harvey Keitel as a violent married man Alice has an affair with, and Kris Kristofferson as Alice’s empathetic potential love interest. You’ll also notice a very young Jodie Foster before Scorsese cast her in Taxi Driver a couple years later.

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is a complex and nuanced portrait of a widow and mother striving to create the best life possible for her and her preteen boy. However, this is a character study that contains the messiness of life with all its joys, hardships, and compromises. It’s a story about choices; Alice makes her share of bad ones but her heart is in the right place, and she holds out hope that better and more stable days are ahead.

Available to rent on digital platforms