10 Movies to Watch at Home on Father’s Day

Sr. (2022)

All too often, sons don’t get the chance to share how much their fathers have meant to them until it’s too late. In this wonderfully poignant and often hilarious love letter of a documentary, actor Robert Downey Jr., 59, turns the camera on his iconoclastic father, the late pioneering experimental filmmaker Robert Downey Sr., to examine their battles in Hollywood, their unusual bond and how close the apple wound up falling from the tree.

Watch it: Sr. on Netflix

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Has there ever been a wiser, kinder and more morally upright on-screen father than Gregory Peck’s small-town Southern lawyer Atticus Finch? Never mind that this film (adapted from Harper Lee’s novel) is a masterpiece regardless when you watch it, Peck’s openhearted love for his two pint-size kids, Scout and Jem, is a timeless primer for doing the right thing and a blueprint for parenting through deeds rather than words.

Watch it: To Kill a Mockingbird on Prime Video

Father of the Bride (1950)

The 1991 Steve Martin remake is excellent, but if forced to choose, we’ll tilt toward the Spencer Tracy original about an overwhelmed, overextended and overprotective father wrestling with the emotional and financial anxiety of planning the wedding of his young daughter (Elizabeth Taylor). It’s a comedy — and a darn good one — but Tracy makes his character’s sense of loss both bittersweet and palpable.

Watch it: Father of the Bride on Apple TV, Prime Video

Parenthood (PG-13, 1989)

Ron Howard’s multigenerational dysfunctional family comedy is very much an ensemble movie. But the more you watch it (or, as a father, the more I watch it), the more I can’t take my eyes off the performance of Steve Martin, 78, as an overwhelmed father of three (soon to be four) who constantly doubts his abilities as a dad. Afraid of repeating the mistakes of his own distant father, Martin’s Gil steals the movie (and my heart) after a cowboy performer fails to show up at his son’s birthday party and he turns a bath mat into a pair of chaps and improvises a Wild West routine to wow the kids and save the day.

Watch it: Parenthood on Apple TV, Prime Video​

Paper Moon (1973)

Real-life father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O’Neal, 60, costar in director Peter Bogdanovich’s charmingly barbed black-and-white road movie about a pair of con artists who banter and bicker while fleecing unsuspecting bumpkins in Depression-era Kansas. As you might expect, the pair’s feisty chemistry is a delight, especially when their love for one another manages to peek through. Still, it’s the sassy, sour-faced 9-year-old Tatum who steals the show, nabbing a best supporting actress Oscar for the role.

Watch it: Paper Moon on Prime Video

​Mrs. Doubtfire (PG-13, 1993)

A story about the lengths that loving fathers will go to stay connected to their children, director Chris Columbus’ suspend-your-disbelief comedy stars Robin Williams as a divorced dad who hatches an elaborate plan to disguise himself as an elderly British woman and get hired by his ex (Sally Field, 77) to be his children’s nanny. Think of it as Mary Poppins meets Tootsie. The movie is crammed with hilarious slapstick, but by the end, you’ll be choking back tears as Williams learns how to be a better dad.

Watch it: Mrs. Doubtfire on Apple TV, Prime Video

​The Pursuit of Happyness (PG-13, 2006)

It’s rare to see Will Smith, 55, play a character who isn’t cool, confident and completely in charge. Maybe that’s why The Pursuit of Happyness isn’t better known. Well, it deserves to be. Smith plays a single father who, with his young son (played by Smith’s real-life son Jaden), is evicted from his apartment and has nowhere to go. Living in a shelter and unable to make ends meet after taking a job as an intern at a financial firm, Smith’s Chris Gardner is proof that there is no sacrifice too big for a father to make to provide a better life for his child. Be warned: Have a box of Kleenex nearby.

Watch it: The Pursuit of Happyness on Apple TV, Prime Video