So you’ve got your cards and flowers, you’ve booked your brunch reservation and only one thing remains for this Mother’s Day: choosing a movie to stream. 

Whether you’re spending the day with a mother, a child, a grandmother, a stepmother, an aunt, a friend, a mentor, or any other kind of mother figure — or by yourself — and wanting to mark the occasion, there’s a perfect flick to queue up. And because motherhood can look an infinite number of ways and apply to people with all different tastes and outlooks, we’ve gathered a list of films that capture different angles on the kaleidoscopic maternal experience. You can turn to bright and sunny family comedies, affecting and thought-provoking art house dramas, witty and exciting adventure films… and even a horror movie, if that’s your taste. 

So sit down with your honored guest and stream one of these picks on that lovely spring Sunday. Happy Mother’s Day! 

Bird Box

To please the mother (figure) whose tastes skew more scary than sentimental, try queuing up Susanne Bier’s horror thriller. Sandra Bullock stars as Malorie, a woman living through a nightmarish postapocalyptic crisis wherein a supernatural entity compels people to take their own lives on sight. With two young children in her care, she fights to escape the reach of the terrible phenomenon — while blindfolded — and reach safety for the three of them. It’s worth a look! (Or, um, a listen? Anything but a look!) 

Bird Box

2h 4m   R   2018

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Damsel

Speaking of drama on your wedding day, Elodie never got her fairy-tale happily ever after. Millie Bobby Brown stars as the courageous and determined princess whose wedding day is interrupted when her new husband, a handsome prince, sacrifices her to a dragon. Elodie is sent into the dragon’s lair where she must fight for her life — or end up like those who came before her. As she fights her way out of the cave’s depths, relying on her intuition and humility, Elodie might just find an unlikely ally along the way. 

Damsel

1h 49m   PG-13   2024

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Dumplin'

A teen beauty pageant sets the stage for a variety of maternal relationships in Anne Fletcher’s Dumplin’, a coming-of-age comedy (which itself is blessed by fairy godmother Dolly Parton, who provided the film’s soundtrack). Danielle Macdonald stars as Willowdean Dickson, an overweight teenager who has a fraught relationship with her mother (Jennifer Aniston), a former beauty queen, and was raised mostly by her aunt Lucy (Hilliary Begley). In an act of rebellion following the death of her aunt, Willowdean enters the local pageant over which her mother presides. In navigating the competition, she finds guidance from unlikely sources, and confidence from the unlikeliest place of all — within herself. 

Dumplin'

1h 50m   PG-13   2018

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Enola Holmes

Millie Bobby Brown and Helena Bonham Carter make for a formidable mother-daughter duo in Harry Bradbeer’s pair of films, based on Nancy Springer’s YA series. Brown stars as Sherlock Holmes’ little sister, Enola (an invention of Springer’s), whose unconventional education courtesy of her mother, Eudoria (Bonham Carter), fostered an independent spirit and curious mind. Rejecting the social expectations for young women of the era, Enola escapes to London, where she finds plenty of mysteries — as well as a talent for solving them to rival her famous brother Sherlock’s (Henry Cavill). The 2020 film’s 2022 sequel sees Enola continue her detective career and take on a new case. 

Enola Holmes

2h 4m   PG-13   2020

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I Am Mother

For a story of motherhood — or something like it — with a sci-fi twist, Grant Sputore’s 2019 thriller throws the concept into the future, and throws in a robot, too. Danish actress Clara Rugaard plays a teenage girl known only as Daughter, living in a bunker in the aftermath of an extinction event that nearly wiped humankind from the face of the Earth. In this post-apocalyptic world, Daughter was raised from an embryo by a robot named Mother (voiced by Rose Byrne), tasked with repopulating the planet. Daughter’s reality is upended, however, when she comes into contact with Woman (Hilary Swank) — an unexpected fellow human. 

I Am Mother

1h 53m   TV-PG   2019

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The Life List

A mother’s final lesson inspires the experience of a lifetime in this bittersweet romantic dramedy from writer-director Adam Brooks, released in 2025. Alex (Sofia Carson) is a young woman whose mother (Connie Britton) writes a curious clause into her will: that Alex will only receive her share of inheritance upon completing the “life list” she wrote when she was 13 (which, naturally, includes the item “find true love”). While chasing the wholesome and whimsical dreams of her childhood, Alex grapples with her grief, honors her mother’s wish that she live her life without fear, and rediscovers her joy — and herself. 

The Life List

2h 5m   PG-13   2025

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Lion

An astonishing true story got the big-screen treatment (and picked up six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture) in 2016 with Garth Davis’ life-affirming drama, based on Saroo Brierley’s autobiographical book A Long Way Home. As a 5-year-old in India, Saroo (Sunny Pawar) becomes separated from his mother, then is adopted by an Australian family and taken away from his home country. As an adult, Saroo (an Oscar-nominated Dev Patel) finds his hometown using Google Earth, and begins to search for his birth family. Nicole Kidman earned a nod for her performance as his adoptive mother, whose unconditional love and support for Saroo helps to carry him along on his quest.  

Lion

1h 58m   PG-13   2016

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Marriage Story

In Noah Baumbach’s raw account of a marriage falling apart, both partners’ devotion to their young son adds an extra layer of complexity to the drama. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson play Charlie and Nicole, a pair of New York theater artists whose divorce — and custody dispute — goes bicoastal when Nicole gets cast in a TV show and relocates to California. Even as their breakup becomes increasingly contentious, Baumbach’s film remains deeply empathetic to both parents (portrayed in Oscar-nominated turns from Driver and Johansson), honoring the love that always will exist between all three members of their changing family. 

Marriage Story

2h 16m   R   2019

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Miss Juneteenth

The annual Juneteenth celebrations in Fort Worth, Texas provide the backdrop for Channing Godfrey Peoples’ heartfelt drama, about a mother’s dream deferred and a daughter wanting to forge her own path. Nicole Beharie stars in the acclaimed indie, which premiered at Sundance in 2020, as Turquoise, a single mom and onetime winner of the Miss Juneteenth pageant, which awards a full scholarship to an HBCU. As the summer approaches, Turquoise encourages her reluctant teenage daughter Kai (Alexis Chikaeze) to enter the pageant as well, hoping that winning the crown could propel Kai further than it enabled Turquoise herself to go. 

Miss Juneteenth

1h 39m   TV-MA   2020

Remind Me

The Mother

Doesn’t the title say it all? Jennifer Lopez stars in Niki Caro’s action drama as a skilled assassin who comes out of hiding –– she’s learned that the daughter she’d given up years prior has been kidnapped by dangerous villains (Gael García Bernal and Joseph Fiennes) seeking revenge. Hell-bent on protecting her 12-year-old child, Lopez’s character goes on a thrilling chase in the relentless action flick. “I’m a killer,” she intones in the trailer. “But I’m also a mother. And I will die protecting her.”

The Mother

1h 57m   R   2023

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Mother of the Bride

There’s nothing like planning a wedding with your mother… and her ex? This comedy stars Brooke Shields and Miranda Cosgrove as a mother-daughter duo who are getting ready for the big day. There are just a few snags. For one, Emma’s (Cosgrove) wedding came as a complete surprise after she returns from a trip abroad. And to make the whole event even more stressful, the wedding is in Thailand. In a month! Things only get worse when Lana (Shields) learns that the man who captured Emma’s heart is the son of the man who broke hers years ago. What could possibly go wrong? Come for the wedding day drama, stay for the star-studded guest list. 

Mother of the Bride

1h 30m   TV-PG   2024

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Moxie

Bone structure and family heirlooms aren’t the only things parents pass along to their kids! In Amy Poehler’s coming-of-age comedy-drama, a teenage girl inherits her moxie from her mom. Frustrated by the myriad injustices she witnesses against girls at school and inspired by an old stash of feminist zines of her mother’s (Poehler), Vivian (Hadley Robinson) launches her own with some help from her friends. The anonymous publication, Moxie, makes a splash among her classmates, but Vivian isn’t prepared for all the ways the project will change her life. 

Moxie

1h 51m   PG-13   2021

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Nonnas

If you’re looking for the cinematic equivalent of a home-cooked meal, these nonnas have got you covered. Stephen Chbosky’s 2025 comedy is based on the true story of a Staten Island restaurant powered by (grand)motherly love: Vince Vaughn stars as Joe Scaravella, a man who loses his mother and, in his grief, finds an unconventional method of honoring her memory — he opens a restaurant where all the chefs are local grandmas making their Italian specialties. Lorraine Bracco, Susan Sarandon, Talia Shire, and Brenda Vaccaro star as the nonnas, with Linda Cardellini, Drea de Matteo and Joe Manganiello round out the all-star cast. 

Nonnas

1h 54m   PG   2025

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ROMA

Nominated for 10 Academy Awards (and winning three, including Best Director), Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma is an art film with a profound appreciation for women who raise children. The story follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio, whose best actress nod made her the first Indigenous Mexican woman nominated for the award), a live-in housekeeper for an upper-middle-class family in Mexico City in the ’70s; Marina de Tavira, who plays the mother of the family Cleo works for, also received a nod for best supporting actress. Complex, poetic and intensely personal, the film is dedicated to Cuarón’s own childhood nanny, who inspired Cleo’s story. 

ROMA

2h 14m   R   2018

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YES DAY

What if parents never said no? That’s the premise of Miguel Arteta’s lively family comedy. Jennifer Garner and Edgar Ramírez star as a couple who strike a bargain with their three children: Should the kids behave, the parents will spend one day saying yes (when physically possible, financially feasible, legal, etc.) to all requests. With the kids calling the shots, Yes Day becomes a chaotic swirl of junk food and theme parks — and has a deeper impact on the family than any of them expected, especially when it comes to the tense relationship between Garner’s character and her teenage daughter (Jenna Ortega). 

YES DAY

1h 29m   PG   2021

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Additional reporting by Erin Corbett