This week in OKCMOA’s virtual theater, we’re excited to welcome a new lineup of films designed with the whole family in mind. From the studio behind Parasite and Apollo 11, hit Sundance documentary Spaceship Earth tells the fascinating stranger-than-fiction story behind the 1991 Biosphere 2 project. Another engaging new documentary, Santiago, Italia, directed by celebrated Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti (Caro Diario, Mia Madre), chronicles the heroic efforts of the Italian Embassy to aid Chilean citizens persecuted by the Pinochet regime. Finally, we’re proud to host two programs of artful and imaginative short films from the New York International Children’s Film Festival. Kid Flicks One is recommended for ages 3-and-up, while Kid Flicks Two is for children 8+. After you watch Kid Flicks, visit NYICFF’s fantastic recommendation site to find more kid-friendly films to watch together.
Also, just in time for Mother’s Day (May 10), the Museum Films team has compiled a selection of our favorite movies about moms. Arranged in chronological order, this diverse list runs the gamut from classical Hollywood to contemporary world cinema and includes melodramas, comedies, documentaries and even horror films.
Want to host your own virtual Mother’s Day viewing party, check out this helpful article from The Verge that offers tips and app recommendations for watching movies with friends and family online. Happy watching!
Mother’s Day film recommendations:
Stella Dallas (King Vidor, 1937) Available to stream on Amazon
One of classical Hollywood’s most emotionally powerful melodramas, Stella Dallas stars the great Barbara Stanwyck as a working-class mother who dedicates her life to ensuring that her beloved daughter Laurel receives every advantage and luxury life has to offer, even if that means they have to live apart. Anyone who can make it through the film’s devastating closing shot without shedding a tear or two may not be human.
Mother India (Mehboob Khan, 1957) Available to stream on Amazon
One of Bollywood’s grandest and most beloved epics, Mother India stars legendary actress Nargis as a poverty-stricken mother who faces immense hardships as she raises her two sons in the absence of her husband. Often interpreted as a patriotic emblem of Indian nationhood, filmed less than a decade after the founding of modern, independent India, this massive epic has been cited by a number of international critics as the Bollywood industry’s Gone with the Wind. A great pick for that history-shaping matriarch in your life.
Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959) Available to stream on Amazon and iTunes
We could just as easily have chosen the 1934 version by John M. Stahl, but there’s no denying what the great melodramatist Sirk brings to his more celebrated version. Made in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, this story of mothers and daughters is one of Hollywood’s most stinging portrayals of race relations, depicting a mixed-race teenager’s rejection of her loving African American mother. Scandal surrounded the release, with star Lana Turner’s own daughter killing Turner’s real-life boyfriend in a domestic struggle prior to the film’s premiere.
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) Available to stream on Amazon and iTunes
Featuring Hollywood’s most notorious “mother,” Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Psycho pointed the way toward to a new kind of American filmmaking when it arrived in 1960. After a series of wide-canvased Technicolor classics that spanned his previous half decade of work, Hitchcock turned to black-and-white and schlock horror in this story of an unwitting traveler who finds herself in a dangerous spot in a motel run by Norman Bates and his terrifying off-screen mother. When Janet Leigh exits the narrative, Hollywood would never again be the same.
Grey Gardens (Albert and David Maysles, 1975) Available to stream on Amazon and The Criterion Channel
In this truly iconic work of cinematic non-fiction, the Maysles brothers introduced the world to two of the medium’s most memorable characters: mother and daughter “Big” and “Little” Edie Beale—aunt and cousin to American royal, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Not exactly an aspirational portrait of motherhood or mother-daughter relationships, Grey Gardens nonetheless offers insight into one of life’s most powerful bonds. When asked on her deathbed whether she had anything else to say, Big Edie insisted that the film said it all.
Mother (Albert Brooks, 1996) Available to stream on Amazon and Google Play Movies
The congenitally self-critical counterpoint to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall and Manhattan persona, Mother finds star-director Albert Brooks as a middle-aged writer who moves back in with his equally strong-willed mother (Debbie Reynolds, in her first major role in two decades) in an attempt to resolve long-standing interpersonal issues. Brooks is one of the most consistently under-valued talents in the American cinema, and in this mid-career gem he creates a mother-figure with a rich secret history that far exceeds her banal son’s imagination.
Volver (Pedro Almodóvar, 2006) Available to stream on Amazon and Hulu
From art-house legend Pedro Almodóvar, Volver is one part ghost story, one part murder mystery and one part multi-generational mother-daughter drama. Boasting Almodóvar’s signature surreal wit and bold visual style, this exquisitely atmospheric film stars Penélope Cruz (Pain and Glory) as a woman who travels to a small Spanish village with her daughter and sister to visit her mother’s grave, only to discover that she might still be alive.
Mother (Bong Joon-ho, 2009) Available to stream on Amazon and Hulu
From the Oscar-winning director of Parasite, Mother is a riveting, beautifully crafted, and darkly funny story about a devoted mother who goes to extremes to protect her son after he’s accused of a horrific crime. A masterclass in pulse-pounding Hitchcockian suspense, anchored by Hye-ja Kim’s remarkable lead performance, this award-winning follow-up to Bong’s 2006 breakthrough The Host, revels an emerging master already at the top of his game.
Mia Madre (Nanni Moretti, 2015) Available to stream on Kanopy and Amazon
The director of one of this week’s Virtual Cinema offerings, Santiago, Italia, Nanni Moretti is one of the more important figures of recent Italian cinema, having crafted a deeply psychoanalytic body of work that deftly pairs light comedy with deeply-felt melodrama. 2015’s Mia Madre is signature Moretti—with a timely twist. Long known for playing the role of filmmaker in his own films, here Moretti steps aside to allow a female performer the privilege, even as he accepts the task of caring for his (and his filmmaker-sister’s) ailing mother.
The Florida Project (Sean Baker, 2017) Available to stream on Kanopy and Netflix
One of the best American indies of recent years, Sean Baker’s (Tangerine) The Florida Project follows precocious six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) and her rebellious young mother Halley (Bria Vinaite) as they live week-to-week in a pastel purple budget motel on the fringes of Disney World. Featuring astounding performances from Prince, Vinaite and Best Supporting Actor nominee Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project is an enchanting, heartbreaking, visually stunning neorealist ode to childhood and family that deserves to sit alongside The 400 Blows and The Bicycle Thieves.
-Co-written by Michael J. Anderson and Lisa K. Broad
More in Virtual Cinema:
READ: “A Guide to Director Bong Joon Ho’s Deeper Cuts,” by E. Alex Jung and Alison Willmore, Vulture
LISTEN: “Norman Bates: A Most Terrifying Mama’s Boy,” from NPR’s All Things Considered
WATCH: More Mother’s Day Film recommendations from Kanopy
WATCH: “The Front Row: ‘Mother,'” by Richard Brody The New Yorker
