Movies for When You Miss Your Mom

Missing your mom does not wait for a holiday. It arrives in the supermarket when you see the biscuits she always bought, or when you reach for the phone to tell her something and remember, for a second, that you can't. Maybe she lives far away now. Maybe things between you are complicated. Maybe she is gone.

Whatever your situation, these five films are for the ache. None of them pretends that mothers and daughters are simple. All of them understand that the love underneath the arguments is the most durable thing there is. Make yourself something she used to cook, if you can, and settle in.

1. Lady Bird (2017)

Sacramento, 2002. Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan), who insists on being called "Lady Bird", is in her final year at a Catholic high school and desperate to escape to a college on the East Coast. Her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf), a psychiatric nurse working double shifts to keep the family afloat, thinks that is neither affordable nor wise. Greta Gerwig's solo directing debut was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and nominations for both Ronan and Metcalf.

Why it fits today: Every mother-daughter fight in this film is really a declaration of love that comes out wrong. If you once could not wait to get away from home, and now would give anything for one more car ride with her, this film knows exactly how you feel.

Scene to look for: The very first scene. Mother and daughter, on a long drive home from a college tour, both weeping at the end of an audiobook of The Grapes of Wrath. Thirty seconds later they are in a furious argument. That swing, from perfect closeness to fury and back, is the whole relationship.

2. Petite Maman (2021)

Eight-year-old Nelly's grandmother has just died, and she goes with her parents to clear out the house where her mother grew up. Her mother, overwhelmed, leaves suddenly. Wandering in the woods, Nelly meets a girl her own age building a hut. Her name is Marion, the same as Nelly's mother. Céline Sciamma's gentle fable runs just 72 minutes, and its two young leads are real-life twins, Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz.

Why it fits today: It asks a question everyone who misses a parent has wondered: what would it be like to meet her as a child, before she was your mother? The answer is tender, quiet, and unexpectedly consoling. It is also suitable for watching with children.

Scene to look for: The two girls making crêpes together in the kitchen, laughing at the mess. It is so ordinary, and so precious, that it feels like a memory you did not know you had.

3. The Joy Luck Club (1993)

In San Francisco, four Chinese immigrant women who have played mahjong together for decades, and their four American-born daughters, try to bridge the distance between generations, languages and histories. Wayne Wang directed, from a screenplay by Amy Tan and Ronald Bass based on Tan's 1989 novel. The film opens shortly after June (Ming-Na Wen) has lost her mother, Suyuan, and has been invited to take her place at the mahjong table.

Why it fits today: Few films are as clear-eyed about how mothers carry histories their daughters never fully hear, and how much is said through food, criticism and silence instead of words. If you have ever wished you had asked your mom more questions, this one will move you deeply.

Scene to look for: The kitchen scene after a family dinner party, when June, stung by a humiliation at the table, finally talks honestly with her mother, and Suyuan gives her a jade pendant. It is one of the most cathartic mother-daughter scenes in American film.

4. Terms of Endearment (1983)

Over roughly thirty years in Houston and beyond, the formidable, fussy widow Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) and her warm, impulsive daughter Emma (Debra Winger) argue, disapprove, call each other every day and never stop loving each other, through Emma's marriage, three children and a move across the country. Jack Nicholson co-stars as Aurora's astronaut neighbour. James L. Brooks wrote and directed, from Larry McMurtry's novel, and the film won five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress for MacLaine.

Spoiler-light warning: The final act is famously devastating. Go in knowing you will cry.

Why it fits today: It captures the daily texture of a mother-daughter relationship, the phone calls, the unsolicited advice, the bickering, better than almost any film. Watching it is like being reminded of all the small calls you would give anything to have again.

Scene to look for: The very beginning. A young Aurora, unable to hear her baby breathing, climbs into Emma's crib and pinches her until she cries, then leaves satisfied. It is funny, alarming and completely loving, and it tells you everything about the mother she will be.

5. Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) runs a struggling laundromat, is being audited by the IRS (Jamie Lee Curtis, in a magnificently unflattering wig) and cannot seem to connect with her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu). Then she discovers she can jump into her lives in other universes, just as a mysterious force threatens all of them. Written and directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, it won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Yeoh.

Why it fits today: Underneath the multiverse chaos, hot-dog fingers and kung fu, this is a film about a mother and daughter learning to see each other. If your relationship with your mom was loving but never easy, it may be the most cathartic two hours you spend this year.

Scene to look for: The universe in which there is no life at all, and Evelyn and Joy are simply two rocks on a cliff, talking in subtitles. It sounds absurd. It will break your heart.

A Last Thought

If she is still a phone call away, call her when the credits roll, even if it has been a while, even if the last conversation did not go well. And if she isn't, tell someone a story about her tonight. That is what all five of these films are really about: keeping the conversation going.