Maybe you got a card, or flowers, or a thoughtful gift, or a brunch reservation, or a trip to the Bahamas — that’s all well and good, but do you have that final detail? The one that ensures that this Mother’s Day will have true bonding, quality time together, and will also be entertaining? You just need a movie to watch, of course!

If 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 of your choosing, and you want to mark the occasion, there’s a perfect flick to queue up. And because motherhood can look different in an infinite number of ways, we’ve gathered a list of films that capture various angles on the kaleidoscopic maternal experience. Try a bright and sunny family comedy, an affecting and thought-provoking art-house drama, a witty and exciting adventure film … or even a horror flick, if that’s your taste. 

So, get cozy with your honored guest and stream one of these picks, perfect for a lovely spring Sunday. Happy Mother’s Day! 

Back in Action

Cameron Diaz is the badass mom any kid would be lucky to have in this action-packed spy adventure. After years working undercover for the CIA, partners Emily (Diaz) and Matt (Jamie Foxx) find out they’re pregnant. Betrayed during a mission, they manage to escape but decide it’s time to go off the grid. Their espionage skills come in handy 14 years later when their teenage daughter, Alice (McKenna Roberts), lies to them to go to a club. Emily and Matt make a scene retrieving her, landing themselves in a social media video. Their cover blown, the same people who betrayed them years earlier are back to finish the job, meaning Emily and Matt are officially out of retirement and their kids are about to see a whole other side of them. Not to mention, meet the badass grandmother, Ginny (Glenn Close), they never knew they had.

Back in Action

1h 54m   PG-13   2025

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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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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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Goodbye June

In her directorial debut, Kate Winslet plays Julia, one of four siblings who gather for the sake of their mother, June (Helen Mirren), when June’s cancer returns just before Christmas, and the family is told she likely only has a few weeks left to live. Julia and her younger sister Molly (Andrea Riseborough) are completely at odds, unable to keep from bickering over their mother’s wishes and treatment. Helen (Toni Collette), the eldest, is pregnant with her first child and hiding things from her family. And Connor (Johnny Flynn), the youngest, is floundering in a somewhat aimless life. Their final weeks with their mother will bring them all together in new and profound ways.

Goodbye June

1h 56m   R   2025

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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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Look Both Ways

With dual storylines, this unique film explores two possible, divergent paths that branch from a single life event. On the day she graduates from college, Natalie (Lili Reinhart) takes a pregnancy test. In one reality, it’s positive, and in another, it’s negative. In the timeline where she’s pregnant, she heads home to live with her family. She has a baby, Rosie, and tries to make a go of co-parenting with Gabe (Danny Ramirez), the friend she’d slept with a few weeks before graduation. In the negative test result timeline, Natalie and her best friend head to LA, where she pursues her dreams of being an animator. In both realities, Natalie has to choose to forge her own way in the world by different means. 

Look Both Ways

1h 51m   TV-14   2022

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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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Otherhood

Carol (Angela Bassett), Gillian (Patricia Arquette), and Helen (Felicity Huffman) meet every Mother’s Day to commiserate over their grown sons never doing anything for them on the holiday. On a whim, they decide to each crash in on their sons for some forced togetherness. With their sons so immersed in their own lives, nothing goes to plan. The women decide to stay and try to connect with their kids, learning quite a few new things about them. In turn, they each learn to be a bit more vulnerable with their sons and each other, in order to have the relationships they want.

Otherhood

1h 40m   R   2019

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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 Ananda Dillon.