Terms of Endearment (1983)

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.