10 great films about mothers and daughters

The mother-daughter relationship is inherently complex – a bond woven with tenderness, fragility and emotional intensity. Filmmakers have long been captivated by this dynamic, exploring its many shades with fascination. These portrayals range from heartwarming and affectionate to fraught and volatile, often rooted in deep-seated misunderstandings and tensions that can erupt with startling force.

The latest entry into the mother-daughter cinematic canon is Hot Milk, arriving in UK cinemas on 4 July. Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s directorial debut – after penning Disobedience (2017), Colette (2018) and She Said (2022) – is an adaptation of Deborah Levy’s 2016 novel of the same name. Hot Milk sees a mother and daughter locked in a silent head-to-head, a portrait of simmering resentment under the Spanish sun. Rose (Fiona Shaw) is accompanied by her daughter Sofia (Emma Mackey) as she journeys to the Spanish coast to find a cure for her strange illness that prevents her from walking. Meanwhile, Sofia must reassess her sense of self when she meets the whimsical Ingrid (Vicky Krieps).

Hot Milk is one of many tender mother-daughter films that portray the relationship as a dynamic from which confrontation naturally sprouts. These portraits of womanhood showcase the diversity of the intergenerational mother-daughter pairing, how love and hate are painfully close and how the ballad of a mother-daughter connection transcends time and place. Ahead of the release of Hot Milk, here are 10 films that authentically capture the mother-daughter relationship.

Director: John M. Stahl

This classic American melodrama, based on Fannie Hurst’s 1933 novel of the same name, centres on two struggling single mothers and their respective daughters. One is Bea (Claudette Colbert), a widowed white woman, and her daughter, haphazardly trying to make ends meet. Then there’s Delilah (Louise Beavers), a Black housekeeper who is reeling from her white-passing daughter’s rejection. When the two mothers go into business together, they forge a rags-to-riches tale, but family hardships still linger.

Imitation of Life is a film about the sacrifices mothers will make for their daughters, even when they’re heartbroken by their actions. The enduringly relevant portrait invites viewers into domestic spaces to offer insight into racial and social class differences, yet motherhood transcends these divisions. This is especially poignant in the performances from Beavers and Fredi Washington as Delilah’s daughter, who capture the raw emotional tension of love strained by resentment.

Director: Max Ophüls

At the heart of Max Ophüls’ noir melodrama is the tense relationship between protective Lucia Harper (Joan Bennett) and her reckless 17-year-old daughter, Bea (Geraldine Brooks). Their relationship intensifies when Lucia forbids her daughter from dating shady LA criminal Ted Darby (Shepperd Strudwick). However, her maternal instincts reach new heights when she finds Ted dead. Assuming her daughter is involved, she disposes of the body only to be blackmailed by another criminal who knows about Bea and Ted’s romance.

The powerful image of Lucia on a speedboat, sunglasses on and scarf billowing in the wind, captures a determined mother not second-guessing the moral, financial or social implications of protecting her daughter. With her daughter’s freedom on the line, Lucia’s perseverance is repeatedly tested, but she doesn’t waver. Ophüls’ classic baroque style embraces this female-centric narrative, sidestepping femme fatale archetypes to focus on a mother’s dedication to her family.

Directors: Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Muffie Meyer

A reclusive mother and her camera-loving daughter make quite the pairing in this cult classic documentary. Grey Gardens spotlights two reclusive, upper-class women, both named Edith Beale (but going by Big Edie and Little Edie) — the aunt and cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy. They spend their days squabbling in the crumbling disarray and faded glory of their once majestic home in the Hamptons, which they share with stray cats and rabid raccoons.

This documentary by Direct Cinema pioneers Ellen Hovde, Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Muffie Meyer is effectively a character study of these two eccentric individuals, capturing the unvarnished reality of a mother-daughter connection. The middle-aged and older woman appears unchanged by the presence of the documentary crew, offering unique insight into their relationship. The image of Little Edie entering the frame dancing, singing and waving the US flag while Big Edie tells her to quiet down is a snapshot of a specific space, time and bittersweet relationship.

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Sandwiched between The Serpent’s Egg (1977) and his TV movie From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) in writer-director Ingmar Bergman’s filmography, Autumn Sonata was the last of his films made for theatrical exhibition. It was also Ingrid Bergman’s swan song and the fulfilment of her wish to work with her namesake. The tragic drama follows world-renowned pianist Charlotte (Bergman) reuniting with her neglected daughter Eva (Liv Ullmann) to heal their fractured relationship before it’s too late.

Bergman invites viewers to sit with the uncomfortable, awkward and painful discussions these two women must endure to reconcile and tackle their generational trauma. In one scene, Charlotte and Eva huddle around the piano as each interprets a Chopin composition differently. They take turns to listen to each other’s melodies, and while their styles are different, there’s the acknowledgement that they are playing the same notes and trying to reach each other.

Director: James L. Brooks

Every possible emotion comes to the surface between these two polar opposite women, anxious mother Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) and her strong-willed daughter Emma Greenway-Horton (Debra Winger), in a story spanning 30 years. While Terms of Endearment seems like a simple premise, the film’s expansive timeline offers a rare opportunity to show a mother and daughter’s evolving bond as they accompany each other through the ups and downs of life, marriages, rebirth and illness. Whether lying together in bed or on the phone hundreds of miles away, their communication is always piercingly intimate, like they can communicate without words.

Adapted from Larry McMurtry’s 1975 novel, James L. Brooks’ first film as both writer and director contains equal helpings of heartache and hilarity, impressing many and winning five top awards at the 1984 Oscars. Brooks’ starry cast also includes Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Jeff Daniels and John Lithgow.

Director: Richard Benjamin

Cher, Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci make quite the trio in this heartfelt and witty comedy-drama. Set in the 1960s, the shimmering mother-daughter portrait follows quirky nine-year-old Kate (Ricci), awkward 15-year-old Charlotte (Ryder) and fabulously flamboyant single mother Rachel (Cher) as they all come of age. Mermaids plays out with Rachel’s voice (her teenage hormones clashing with Catholic beliefs) narrating the bristling disappointment she holds for her mum.

It’s not just the young daughters growing up in Mermaids, but also Rachel. She struggles to settle down in a home, commit to a relationship and locate her true desires. The film serves as a reminder that becoming a mother doesn’t mean one will instantly be blessed with motherly wisdom and have the answers your children are looking for. The tenacity of this mother-daughter connection is elevated by the performances and fantastic soundtrack, including two tracks from Cher.

Director: Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut sees the rebellious, pink-haired Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) doing everything she can to distance herself from her confrontational mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf). While Lady Bird longs for the freedom of college, her mother shoots down her creative dreams as unrealistic. In response, Lady Bird throws herself out of the car. This early scene encompasses their volatile mother-daughter relationship, which drives them to emotional extremes.

Set in Sacramento, California, in 2002, Gerwig’s intensely specific film captures the universal thematics of the strong-willed mother-daughter connection with all its convoluted intricacies. While many of these films identify with the mother figures, Gerwig’s portrait of generational womanhood emphasises the daughter’s perspective. The film lingers on Lady Bird’s stern frown, moody glare and a heart-wrenching question aimed at her mother: “But do you like me?”

Director: Céline Sciamma

Motherhood and childhood blend unexpectedly in Céline Sciamma’s French fairytale. The film follows eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz), who is grieving her beloved grandmother. When she wanders into the nearby woods, she has a magical experience where she meets her mother, Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), who has been transformed into a girl the same age as her. Together, the two girls play in this strange time warp, nonchalant about the time travel that has happened.

This fantastical story of two girls, with a strangely familiar bond, tenderly bridges the mother-daughter age divide. Sciamma’s film transcends the impossibility of truly knowing a parent. The Sanz twins put on phenomenal performances, reaching emotional heights that would be hard for even a seasoned dramatic actor. Their youthfulness softens the harsh edges of these troubled characters, allowing a mother and daughter to understand each other on an impossibly close level.

Directors: Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan

This Oscar-winning absurdist comedy-drama charts the infinite possibilities of the mother-daughter connection. No matter what universe demanding Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) and nihilistic Joy (Stephanie Hsu) exist in, this mother-daughter pairing is trapped in a cycle of unspoken misunderstandings and immigrant trauma that pushes them apart. Both women flounder as they seek acceptance from one another, only to realise they are more alike than they thought. As Evelyn says of Joy: “She turned out to be stubborn, aimless, a mess… just like her mother.”

In one multiverse, Evelyn and Joy are two rocks on the precipice of a cliff. The emotionally turbulent scene is deftly handled by the Daniels, who plunge the movie into silence as the two voiceless characters communicate via subtitles. When the world is stripped back to nothing but themselves, it becomes clear that despite their brash quarrels, this mother-daughter unit is forever tethered by a deep love.

Director: Kaouther Ben Hania

Four Daughters is a heart-wrenching docudrama hybrid that pushes the borders of genre categorisation. The film follows a Tunisian family left devastated when the two eldest daughters leave to join fundamentalist ISIS fighters in Libya. In an unconventional move, director Kaouther Ben Hania had two professional actors (Nour Karoui and Ichraq Matar) stand in for the missing daughters under matriarch Olfa’s roof to articulate the circumstances of their disappearance.

The Oscar-nominated documentary sees a divided family not shying away from recreating challenging moments between a mother and her daughters as they seek answers that the other cannot provide. The reality is uncomfortable and tragic as Olaf’s daughters fight against the mother’s firm grasp on their lives. Ultimately, Four Daughters benefits from Hania’s non-judgmental direction, which unveils repressive expectations of womanhood passed down through the generations. As Olfa shares: “I repeated everything that my mother did to me.”