10 movies about mothers to laugh, cry, and survive Mother’s Day

Mothers in cinema are rarely simple. Hollywood spent decades transforming motherhood into absolute sacrifice, while other productions preferred to portray mothers as controlling, exaggerated, or emotionally impossible to escape. Between melodrama and comedy, cinema ultimately created portraits far more complex than they initially seem. Some mothers suffocate, mothers who disappear, mothers who try their best and fail miserably, exhausted mothers, competitive mothers, funny mothers, resentful mothers, and deeply loving mothers. Maybe that is why the most memorable films about motherhood are precisely the ones capable of making audiences laugh and cry almost simultaneously.

The selection below mixes classics, contemporary dramas, satires, and films that understand motherhood not as idealization, but as a human relationship. And yes, that even includes a suburban serial killer created by John Waters. But this is supposed to be fun, okay? Happy Mother’s Day!

5 fun movies about mothers (or about trying to survive them)

Freakier Friday (2025)

The remake of the classic gained new energy when Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan transformed a body-swap premise into one of the best comedies about generational conflict of the 2000s. The film understands that mothers and daughters often speak completely different emotional languages. In 2025, the two return as Tess and Anna Coleman. The story takes place years after Tess (Curtis) and Anna (Lohan) experienced their identity crisis. Now, Anna has a daughter and a future stepdaughter. As they face the challenges that emerge when two families blend together, Tess and Anna discover that lightning really can strike twice in the same place.

Where to watch in Brazil: Disney+

Bad Moms (2016)

Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn dismantle the fantasy of the perfect modern mother in a comedy about exhaustion, guilt, and social pressure. It works precisely because it recognizes the absurdity of the expectations imposed on women. And there is also A Bad Moms Christmas. Perfect for distraction.

Where to watch in Brazil: Prime Video and digital rental

Because I Said So (2007)

I will admit it: this small and unpretentious comedy is one of my favorites, especially during Diane Keaton’s “motherhood era.” Here, she plays a mother incapable of stopping herself from interfering in her daughter’s love life. The comedy works because it transforms emotional dependence and family guilt into something simultaneously irritating and recognizable.

Where to watch in Brazil: digital rental on Apple TV and Prime Video

Monster-in-Law (2005)

Jane Fonda returned to the cinema by transforming maternal possessiveness into comedic psychological warfare. Beneath the exaggeration, the film talks about mothers incapable of accepting that they are losing space in their children’s lives.

Where to watch in Brazil: Netflix and digital rental

Lady Bird (2017)

Greta Gerwig builds one of the most precise mother-daughter relationships in recent cinema. Laurie Metcalf turns the character into a woman who is difficult, loving, critical, and deeply human all at once.

Where to watch in Brazil: digital rental and rotating Netflix catalog

5 dramas about motherhood to emotionally destroy you

Terms of Endearment (1983)

Shirley MacLaine won the Oscar — deservedly — and even made the sequel years later to what remains one of the most devastating films ever made about maternal love, aging, and loss. Seriously, keep tissues nearby.

Where to watch in Brazil: Apple TV and digital rental

Mildred Pierce (2011)

There is the classic film starring Joan Crawford — which also won the Oscar — but HBO’s miniseries brings the spectacular Kate Winslet to the title role in a story that transforms motherhood into emotional obsession. The relationship between Mildred and her daughter mixes love, resentment, and self-destruction in an almost suffocating way.

Where to watch in Brazil: HBO Max

Steel Magnolias (1989) and (2012)

The definitive Southern melodrama about female friendship, motherhood, and grief has two versions: the original 1989 film, featuring a young Julia Roberts — Oscar nominated — and Sally Field delivering one of the most emotional scenes in American cinema of the 1980s. There is also the 2012 remake, with a more inclusive cast and the same emotional intensity.

Where to watch in Brazil: MGM+ through Prime Video Channels and digital rental

Room (2015)

Brie Larson won the Oscar for playing a mother trying to preserve her son’s childhood under extreme circumstances. The film transforms motherhood into a mechanism of psychological survival.

Where to watch in Brazil: Prime Video and rotating Telecine catalog

All About My Mother (1999)

Pedro Almodóvar transforms motherhood into memory, identity, loss, and reconstruction. It remains one of the most emotional films of the director’s career.

Where to watch in Brazil: MUBI and digital rental

Chaotic bonus

People may find this choice strange, but there is a radical 1990s classic directed by master filmmaker John Waters: Serial Mom (1994). Here, the director decided to take decades of idealization surrounding the “perfect suburban mother” and transform everything into murderous satire. Kathleen Turner is absolutely perfect as a housewife who kills people while protecting her family.