Don’t know how to celebrate Mother’s Day? Try watching these 6 movies that are perfect to watch with mom (or on your own).
Every Mother’s Day, forgetful children around the world make a mad dash to the store to find the perfect present for mom. This year, will it be chocolate? Candy? Flowers? A basket of tastefully arranged fruit that really signals your desperation?
Why not give the gift of a good movie? From an Oscar-winning drama starring three acting legends to a sci-fi classic from the 1980s, these movies are sure to appeal to just about every mother and child out there.Steel Magnolias (1989)
At one point, Dolly Parton, as the wise hairdresser Truvy, reveals that “laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.” That pretty much sums up Steel Magnolias, which pulls at the heartstrings and the funny bone equally and to great effect. The story, adapted from a stage play by Robert Harling, is about six Southern women of various ages who experience weddings, pregnancies, heartache, and bad hairdos. The plot pivots around Shelby, played by a pre-Pretty Woman Julia Roberts, who is a diabetic, but still wants to marry, have kids, and grow old with her new husband. Her mother, Sally Field’s M’Lynn, is worried her daughter will hurt herself as she tries to realize her dreams of becoming a mother.
Some people think Steel Magnolias is shameless and melodramatic, but don’t listen to those fuddy-duddies. It’s a great melodrama in the best sense of the word, and each laugh (particularly those garnered by Shirley MacLaine’s ornery Ouiser) and tear is earned. The cast is simply great across the board, and the Deep South locations (the movie was filmed in beautiful Natchitoches, Louisiana), sweeping score by Georges Delerue, and careful direction by Herbert Ross (who also did The Turning Point, another great mother/daughter film) make this a great movie to watch with your mom. What better way to say “I love you” to you mom than watching a movie where the mother is proven to be right all along?
Steel Magnolias can be streamed on Netflix.Aliens (1986)
It may seem odd to see Aliens on a Mother’s Day movie list, but make no mistake, this excellent sci-fi film is all about motherhood and what mothers will do to protect their children, even if they are intergalactic parasites with acid for blood. Seven years after the first Alien, Sigourney Weaver returns as Ellen Ripley, who wakes up to receive some bad news: she’s slept for 57 years (whoops!), which has caused her to miss the entirety of her daughter’s life, and she needs to travel to the same planet where the Nostromo found a lethal alien that slaughtered all of her friends and nearly killed her. Accompanied by a team of tough colonial marines, plus weaselly yuppie Paul Reiser, Ripley not only encounters more aliens, but also a young girl named Newt. In a very convenient coincidence, Newt just lost her own mother, as well as the rest of her family, to those darn aliens.
Aside from its obvious appeal as an intense action movie, Aliens is also a surprising meditation on mothers, daughters, and found family.
