The 15 Best (and Worst!) Moms in Movie History

Good Moms: Tsai Chin, Kieu Chinh, Lisa Lu, France Nuyen in The Joy Luck Club (1993)

Inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry as “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant,” this get-out-your-handkerchiefs adaptation of Amy Tan's novel examines the loving but fraught relationships between four Chinese immigrant mothers and their hopes and dreams for their assimilated Chinese-American daughters. Though set in a specific culture, who can't relate to the line, “I want to understand my mother"?

Watch it: The Joy Luck Club, on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube

On the fence: Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment (1983)

When it comes to being a helicopter parent, Shirley MacLaine's Aurora Greenaway is an AH-64E Apache. She is at once overprotective, willful and maddening. But if you're in the hospital and it's 10 p.m., and the nurse hasn't arrived with your pain medication, you want Aurora Greenway in the nurse's station screaming, “GIVE MY DAUGHTER THE SHOT!”

Watch it: Terms of Endearment, on Hulu, Starz, Philo, YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu

Good Mom: Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (1965)

Stepmothers have gotten a pretty raw deal in films and fairy tales. Enter Julie Andrews’ Maria, the new governess to the Von Trapp children. Before you can say do-re-mi, she brings laughter, love and song to the stoic household and melts the heart of widower Captain Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer).

Watch it: The Sound of Music, on Disney+, YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu

Bad Mom: Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The studio initially resisted bringing Richard Condon's novel to the screen because it was a political hot potato, but when Frank Sinatra mentioned to then-President John F. Kennedy that the book was to be his next project, Kennedy responded, “That's great; who's going to play the mother?” Angela Lansbury portrays Eleanor Iselin, who uses her own Korean War hero son (Laurence Harvey) in a treasonous Communist assassination plot. Our vote for Worst. Movie. Mom. Ever. Fun fact: Sinatra originally wanted Lucille Ball to play Eleanor.

Watch it: The Manchurian Candidate, on Amazon Prime, Vudu, Apple TV

On the fence: Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce (1945)

Joan Crawford's self-sacrificing, long-suffering Mildred is a self-made woman who denies her daughter nothing and will do anything for her. And that's the problem. Veda is a monster, a spoiled, “cheap and horrible” social climber, unrelenting in her contempt for her mother. While mom would even take a murder rap for her daughter, her best friend knows better. “Veda's convinced me,” she states, “that alligators have the right idea; they eat their young.”

Watch it: Mildred Pierce, on Vudu, YouTube, Amazon Prime, Apple TV

Good Mom: Sally Field in Forrest Gump (1994)

"He might be a bit on the slow side, but my boy Forrest will get the same opportunities as everyone else.” Sally Field's Mama Gump is fiercely devoted to her son, and she sets him on his extraordinary life's path to find his destiny. “Don't ever let anybody tell you they're better than you,” she tells him, just one of her inspiring aphorisms, along with “Stupid is as stupid does” and that thing about the box of chocolates.

Watch it: Forrest Gump, on YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu

Bad Mom: Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest (1981)

Faye Dunaway pulls out all the stops as Joan Crawford in this controversial biopic based on the memoir by Crawford's score-settling daughter. She's a monster (momster?), inflicting verbal and physical abuse on her hapless child. Don't let this film's designation as a “camp classic” emotionally distance you from the horrors of this unflinching Oscar-nominated portrayal that recast Crawford's legacy.

Watch it: Mommie Dearest, on Paramount+, YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu

On the fence: Kathleen Turner in Serial Mom (1994)

In John Waters’ black comedy, Kathleen Turner's Baltimore housewife Beverly Stuphin is by all appearances “as nice and normal a lady as you're going to find.” A meticulous and exacting wife, mother and homemaker, this woman would kill for her family. And that, too, is the problem. Woe be the boy who stands up her daughter, or the neighbor who won't recycle or even a stranger who wears white shoes after Labor Day. Good mom or psycho mom? The jury is out on this one.

Watch it: Serial Mom, on Peacock, YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, iTunes, Google Play, Vudu

Walt Disney/Courtesy Everett Collection

Good Mom: Holly Hunter in The Incredibles (2004)

Moms have to be flexible and will often bend themselves out of shape to care for their families. No one illustrates this better than the Holly Hunter-voiced Helen Parr (aka Elastigirl), the homebound superhero in Pixar's Oscar-winning animated classic.

Watch it: The Incredibles, on Disney+, YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu

(Left to right) Leopoldine Konstantin, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains in "Notorious."

Courtesy Everett Collection

Bad Mom: Leopoldine Konstantin in Notorious (1946)

What does it say that in Alfred Hitchcock's classic romantic thriller about a Nazi conspiracy, it's the mom who's the real villain? Leopoldine Konstantin's Madame Sebastian knows just what to do when her son (Claude Rains) inadvertently marries a woman (Ingrid Bergman) in cahoots with an American agent (Cary Grant). He wants to kill her. All in good time. “You're almost as impetuous as before your wedding,” she coolly calms her distraught son. “You barred me from that episode. Let me arrange this one."

Watch it: Notorious, on YouTube

Donald Liebenson has written on film and entertainment for AARP, the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly.