Copyright © 2026 OyList. All Rights Reserved.
Share
Items19
1
Terms of Endearment (1983)
7.4/10on IMDb
Released
The template for the mother-daughter weepie, and still the sharpest. Aurora is fussy, vain and impossible, her daughter Emma is warm and messy, and the film follows them over years of phone calls, fights and making up. Shirley MacLaine won the Oscar for Best Actress, the film took Best Picture, and Jack Nicholson, who also won for his supporting role, keeps the first half very funny.
Go in knowing that the last stretch turns on a cancer diagnosis. It ends in grief but also in the clearest expression of love between the two women, which is exactly why it suits a night together. If either of you is close to a loss, save it for another time.
More about Terms of Endearment2
Steel Magnolias (1989)
7.3/10on IMDb
Released
Sally Field and Julia Roberts play M'Lynn and Shelby, a mother who worries and a daughter who refuses to be worried over, and their arguments about Shelby's health and her wish for a baby are the spine of the film. Robert Harling wrote the original play months after his own sister died of complications from diabetes, and it was shot in the Louisiana town where that story happened, which may explain why the grief feels lived in rather than staged.
The salon friends supply the jokes, and there are plenty. Be warned that Shelby's illness does not end well. What lingers is Field's raw outpouring of grief and the laughter that breaks right through it.
More about Steel Magnolias3
Postcards from the Edge (1990)
6.7/10on IMDb
Released
Carrie Fisher adapted her own novel, loosely drawn from life with her mother Debbie Reynolds, and the result is the funniest film here about a grown daughter forced back under her mother's roof. Meryl Streep's actress is fresh out of rehab; Shirley MacLaine's mother is a showbiz star who competes with her without quite meaning to.
Mike Nichols directs it as a comedy with real bruises: the drinking and the old jealousies are named, not smoothed over. It is a good pick for a pair who can laugh at their own patterns, and for anyone who knows what it is to love a parent who takes up the whole room.
More about Postcards from the Edge4
Mermaids (1990)
6.7/10on IMDb
Released
Cher's Mrs. Flax is a free spirit whose answer to every problem with a man is to pack up and move, and Winona Ryder's Charlotte responds by deciding to become a nun, despite being Jewish. It is set in 1963, and the comedy comes from a daughter trying to be the grown-up in a house where her mother refuses the job.
Critics at the time were split, and Ryder's voice-over can feel heavy. It earns its place for the moment the two finally say what they resent, and for an ending that settles into affection. A young Christina Ricci, as the younger sister, steals her scenes.
More about Mermaids5
The Joy Luck Club (1993)
7.7/10on IMDb
Released
Four mothers who emigrated from China, four daughters raised in America, and a run of flashbacks that finally lets each side hear what the other never said. Wayne Wang directs from Amy Tan's novel, with a screenplay by Tan and Ronald Bass, and the structure works like a family gathering where every relative gets one story.
Some of the mothers' pasts are genuinely harrowing, so it is heavier than its warm reputation suggests. It is also the best film here for a mother and daughter who come from different worlds, because so many of its arguments are really about translation. Allow well over two hours.
More about The Joy Luck Club6
Secrets & Lies (1996)
8.0/10on IMDb
Released
A 27-year-old optometrist who was adopted goes looking for her birth mother and finds Cynthia, a lonely, jittery woman in a gloomy rowhouse who never expected to be found. Mike Leigh lets scenes run long, and the first meeting between Marianne Jean-Baptiste's Hortense and Brenda Blethyn's Cynthia is one of the great two-hander scenes in British film.
It won the Palme d'Or, and Blethyn took Best Actress at Cannes. This is the pick for families shaped by adoption, or by any secret kept too long; it is frank about the hurt, but it ends with people choosing each other.
More about Secrets & Lies7
Real Women Have Curves (2002)
6.9/10on IMDb
Released
America Ferrera, in her first film, plays a first-generation Mexican American graduate in East Los Angeles who wants college and a writing life, while her mother, played by Lupe Ontiveros, wants her in the family's small textile factory and married off. The two shared a Special Jury Prize for Acting at Sundance, where the film also won the dramatic Audience Award.
Their fights about bodies, weight and what a daughter owes are blunt and often funny, and the film sides with the daughter without ever turning the mother into a villain. Ideal for a mother and daughter who have argued about the same things.
More about Real Women Have Curves8
Freaky Friday (2003)
6.4/10on IMDb
Released
The easiest yes on the list. Jamie Lee Curtis's mother Tess and Lindsay Lohan's teenage Anna bicker over clothes, boys and Tess's fiancé until a magical fortune cookie swaps them, and each has to live the other's life. Curtis playing a sulky teenager in a grown woman's body is the comic engine, and she commits completely.
Under the gags it is a film about seeing your mother, or your daughter, as a person with her own pressures. Light enough for a family evening, and an obvious warm-up for the sequel.
More about Freaky Friday9
Saving Face (2004)
7.4/10on IMDb
Released
Wil is a young surgeon in Flushing, Queens, keeping her girlfriend hidden from a Chinese American community that gossips about everything. Then her widowed mother, played by Joan Chen, turns up on the doorstep at 48, unwed, pregnant and with nowhere else to go, and now both of them have a secret.
Alice Wu has said she wrote it as a love letter to her own mother, and it shows: the mother is stubborn and proud but never a punchline, and the role reversal is played for warm, gentle comedy. A good choice for a pair where the daughter has had to explain herself, and the mother has more going on than anyone guessed.
More about Saving Face10
Volver (2006)
7.6/10on IMDb
Released
Pedro Almodóvar's film about three generations of women, a run of family secrets and a mother who seems to have come back from the dead to put things right with her daughter. Penélope Cruz and Carmen Maura lead an ensemble whose six actresses shared Best Actress at Cannes, and the script won there too.
It swings from farce to melodrama to ghost story without losing its warmth, and the cooking, gossip and village funerals give it a lived-in, sunny texture. Be aware that some of the secrets are very dark ones, so it suits a mother and daughter who like their comfort viewing with a sting. In Spanish with subtitles.
More about Volver11
Mamma Mia! (2008)
6.5/10on IMDb
Released
A bride-to-be on a small Greek island secretly invites three of her single mother's old flames to her wedding, hoping one of them is her father. It is goofy, sunny and wall-to-wall ABBA, and that is the point: this is the film to put on when you both want to sing.
What lifts it onto this list is Meryl Streep's Donna and the quiet wedding-morning scene where she helps her daughter get ready and the two sing "Slipping Through My Fingers," a song about watching a child grow up too fast. It is the moment to pass the tissues. The 2018 sequel, Here We Go Again, doubles down on the mother-daughter story if you want a second night.
More about Mamma Mia!12
Brave (2012)
7.1/10on IMDb
Released
Pixar's princess story is, underneath the archery and the kilts, a straight fight between a headstrong daughter and a queen who has her whole future planned. Merida's attempt to change her mother's mind goes wrong in a very literal, very funny way, and the two have to spend the rest of the film learning to listen to each other.
It is short and brisk, and it works on two levels: daughters will recognize the slammed doors, and mothers will recognize Elinor's fear of letting go. A good choice when younger relatives are in the room too.
More about Brave13
Lady Bird (2017)
7.4/10on IMDb
Released
If you watch one film from this list together, make it this one. Saoirse Ronan's 17-year-old and Laurie Metcalf's overstretched nurse mother argue about college, money and who she is allowed to be, and an early fight in the car that ends with a daughter throwing herself out of it tells you how well the film knows this relationship.
Greta Gerwig's script, set in her hometown of Sacramento, never takes sides. Marion's criticism comes from fear and love at once, and Lady Bird's rebellion is half a plea to be noticed. It is very funny, short, and its last minutes tend to leave both generations reaching for each other.
More about Lady Bird14
Dumplin' (2018)
6.5/10on IMDb
Released
Danielle Macdonald's plus-size Willowdean enters the local pageant her mother has run for years, partly to make a point and partly to needle her. Jennifer Aniston plays the former beauty queen mom, a woman who means well and keeps saying the wrong thing about her daughter's body.
The soundtrack is Dolly Parton, the supporting cast includes a troupe of drag queens, and the tone is a warm Netflix crowd-pleaser rather than anything edgy. Some critics found it sentimental. It earns its place as a gentle way into a conversation many mothers and daughters have never quite managed about weight and looks.
More about Dumplin'15
Hi, Mom (2021)
6.9/10on IMDb
Released
After her mother is badly hurt in an accident, a daughter who feels she has only ever disappointed her is thrown back to 1981 and meets her mother as a young woman, before she was anyone's mom. Jia Ling made it as her first film as director, growing it from a sketch she first wrote to remember her own mother, who died in 2001.
For most of its length it is broad, slapstick comedy, and then the last act rearranges everything you have watched. It became China's highest-grossing film by a female director. Bring tissues, and know that it deals directly with losing a parent, which is the reason it lands so hard. In Mandarin with subtitles.
More about Hi, Mom16
Petite Maman (2021)
7.3/10on IMDb
Released
Eight-year-old Nelly's grandmother has just died, and while her parents clear the house she meets a girl in the woods called Marion, her mother's name, who lives in a house identical to her grandmother's. Céline Sciamma plays it with no fuss and no explanations, and real twin sisters, Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, carry it.
It runs barely 72 minutes and works like a quiet question: what would you say to your mother if you could meet her at your age? Ideal for a calm evening when you want to talk more than cry, and gentle enough even after a recent loss. In French with subtitles.
More about Petite Maman17
Turning Red (2022)
6.9/10on IMDb
Released
Thirteen-year-old Mei, growing up in Toronto in 2002, turns into a giant red panda whenever her feelings run high, thanks to a trait inherited from her ancestors. Sandra Oh voices Ming, a devoted, hovering mother whose love comes with a schedule, and Domee Shi, who grew up in Toronto, drew on her own upbringing.
It looks like a kids' film about puberty, and it is, but its sharpest scenes are about what mothers inherit from their own mothers and pass on without meaning to. That makes it unexpectedly good viewing for adult daughters with their moms, and even better if a grandmother joins in.
More about Turning Red18
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
7.7/10on IMDb
Released
Strip away the multiverse and the kung fu, and this is a film about a worn-out immigrant mother who cannot find the words to tell her grown daughter she loves her. Michelle Yeoh won Best Actress, the film won Best Picture, and Stephanie Hsu was nominated for playing the daughter whose despair drives the whole plot.
It is loud, long and deliberately chaotic, so it suits a pair who enjoy a big swing. The payoff is a final stretch about choosing kindness and staying with someone even when you cannot fix them, and it gives you plenty to talk about on the way home.
More about Everything Everywhere All at Once19
Freakier Friday (2025)
6.2/10on IMDb
Released
Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan return as Tess and Anna, and this time Anna has a daughter of her own, Harper, plus a soon-to-be stepdaughter, Lily. Harper swaps with Anna, Lily swaps with Tess, and the four-way mix-up turns the original's two-hander into a three-generation comedy about blending families.
It is busier and sillier than the 2003 film and leans on nostalgia, but it lets the original's teenage daughter be the worried mother now, which is a lovely joke for anyone who watched the first film with their own mom. Watch the two back to back for a full evening.
More about Freakier Friday
