Forget mugs that say "World's Best Dad," we're here to talk about cinema's best fathers. There are tons of great movies about dads and fatherhood, as the relationship between a dad and their children is one of the most fundamental and complex familial connections there is, so it's no wonder that there are plenty of themes and ideas to explore through movies.
However, despite all the best dads in cinema throughout the ages, there are still a few that really stand out (for better or for worst). So, here are 32 of the greatest fatherhood films. Please note that not all of the dads in these movies are good dads—some are quite bad, in fact. But all of these films say something interesting about the challenges and rewards of raising a child, as well as the trials and benefits of being a child who was brought up by a dad.
32. Son of Godzilla
Year: 1967
Director: Jun Fukuda
The eighth movie in the Godzilla franchise introduced Minilla, a diminutive (for a kaiju) little Godzilla who would go on to become the King of the Monsters' ward in many movies to come. Son of Godzilla is hardly the best Godzilla movie—it's set mainly on a tropical island, which offers the big guy fewer buildings to smash—but it's fun to see Godzilla being a pretty good dad, including teaching Minilla how to breathe his atomic fire breath. (The design of Minilla is pretty ugly, it must be said. Hopefully he'll grow out of it.)
31. Star Wars: Episode IV: The Empire Strikes Back
Year: 1980
Director: Irvin Kershner
The most famous paternity reveal in cinema history comes at the climax of the second Star Wars movie, when Darth Vader (James Earl Jones) informs Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) that he's his daddy. Return of the Jedi, the next film, would explore the implications of this familial connection and is, therefore, in all honestly, probably a better selection as a great movie about dads, but how can you deny such an iconic moment and quote, even if the famous line is often misquoted? It's "No, I am your father," not "Luke, I am your father."
30. The Shining
Year: 1980
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Stephen King famously hates Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of his book The Shining, largely because in the novel, Jack Torrence is a much more sympathetic character, and the violence he unleashes upon his son is the dreadful results of tragic demons—be they in a bottle or ghosts in a haunted hotel. In the 1980 movie, though, Jack (played by Jack Nicholson) has much more unstable and sinister vibes from the jump. He's shown to be inclined towards violence even when sane, and that makes his eventual unraveling all the more terrifying. The Shining is a frightening look at fatherhood gone abusively wrong.
29. Hook
Year: 1991
Director: Steven Spielberg
The '90s were full of movies about workaholic dads who needed to hang up their brick-sized cellphones and make it to their son's baseball game. Liar Liar is another classic of the genre, but Hook—a fairly polarizing Steven Spielberg movie—really gets at the fatherhood themes. Starring Robin Williams as a grown-up Peter Pan who has forgotten about his time in Neverland until his children are kidnapped, Hook is about fathers, children, inner children, and the healthy balance of those three that all dads should strive for.
28. The Judge
Year: 2014
Director: David Dobkin
Robert Downey Jr. starred in one of his few non-Marvel roles of the 2010s as a successful lawyer who returns to his small hometown only to learn that his estranged father(who is also a judge)has been accused of murder. Can Hank Palmer (Downey) put aside his animosity to defend his dad, Judge Joseph Palmer (Robert Duvall)? It's a decent but not exceptional legal thriller, though it's worth it to see Downey and Duvall play out a complex father-son dynamic.
27. Chef
Year: 2014
Director: Jon Favreau
Jon Favreau directs and stars in Chef, his 2014 comedy-drama about Carl Casper, a celebrity chef who quits his prestigious gig at a fancy restaurant following a scandal and opts to run a food truck. As he tries to make this new venture work, he rediscovers his love for cooking and strengthens his bond with his young son, Percy (Emjay Anthony), who helps him inside the truck's kitchen. Chef is a charming little film; a great food movie and dad movie all at once.
26. The Road
Year: 2009
Director: John Hillcoat
Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee star as father and son in a post-apocalyptic wasteland in this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name. A grim, unflinching film, The Road is about the lengths to which a father will go to protect his son as they travel through the desolate remains of society looking for refuge. It's also about the challenge of opening up such a profound parental relationship to any hope of "community" in such a dangerous world.
25. War of the Worlds
Year: 2005
Director: Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg's 2005 adaptation of H.G. Wells' famous alien invasion story is deeply influenced by the then-recent 9/11 terrorist attacks and the sense of uneasy fear that permeated throughout the nation in its aftermath. It is in this environment that Ray Ferrier, a divorced dock worker, must protect his son and daughter (Justin Chatwin and Dakota Fanning) when Martians invade. War of the Worlds is one of Spielberg's most undercelebrated works; it's a gripping sci-fi thriller and an astute portrait of a father trying his best in the most overwhelming circumstances.
24. Call Me By Your Name
Year: 2017
Director: Luca Guadagnino
The majority of Call Me By Your Name focuses not on a father-son connection but instead on 17-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and his relationship with Oliver (Armie Hammer), the 24-year-old graduate student he forms a romantic bond with. However, near the end of the movie, when Elio is suffering from heartbreak, Michael Stuhlbarg swoops in playing Elio's dad with one of the greatest, most touching, and warm fatherly monologues in all of cinema. You'll wish he were your dad.
23. Signs
Year: 2002
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Mel Gibson stars as Graham Hess, a farmer and former Episcopal priest who lost his faith after his wife's death in this suspenseful M. Night Shyamalan sci-fi thriller. Even at this low point, though, Graham must still be a good father all on his own to his kids, played by Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin. It's a very emotionally raw and nuanced portrait of a grieving, struggling father—a scene during dinner when the family all breaks down as the emotions and stress bubble up is especially moving. Ultimately, as the alien visitors arrive, Graham finds his footing as a father once more.
22. Taken
Year: 2008
Director: Pierre Morel
Taken may not have the warmest or most nuanced portrayal of fatherhood, but what it does have is a protagonist with a very specific set of skills—skills that will make it a nightmare for people like the kidnappers who took the daughter of ex-Green Beret and CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson). Taken is a great action romp, and there's something primal and enjoyable about watching a devoted father go absolutely nuts on the people who took his daughter.
21. Definitely, Maybe
Year: 2008
Director: Adam Brooks
Ryan Reynolds stars as Will Hayes, a New York City ad executive whose young daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin), is feeling anxious about her parents' imminent divorce. So Will does what any good dad will do: tells a story about his dating history, using pseudonyms so that Maya doesn't know which of the three women (Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz, Elizabeth Banks) is her mom until the end. Despite the somewhat contrived premise, Definitely, Maybe is a very sweet rom-com, anchored by a very sweet father-daughter relationship.
20. The Mitchells vs the Machines
Year: 2021
Director: Mike Rianda
One of the best animated movies of the decade, Netflix's The Mitchells vs. the Machines's primary emotional story centers on the relationship between Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobson), an aspiring filmmaker eager to leave her hometown and go off to film school in California, and her dad, Rick (Danny McBride), who worries that he's losing his little girl. Rick decides to have the family go on a road trip to take Katie to school, which Katie hates, but bigger problems soon arise. A rogue AI has started a technological uprising, and only the Mitchells have a chance to save humanity (and save Katie and Rick's relationship in the process).
19. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Year: 1989
Director: Steven Spielberg
Never mind that Sean Connery was only a dozen years older than Harrison Ford when they played father and son in the third Indiana Jones movie. It's perfect casting, and the pair have an undeniable parental chemistry as they bicker, work together, and bicker some more, hashing out old grievances while going on a great adventure together. It's a rollicking fun time (as you would expect an Indiana Jones movie from Steven Spielberg to be), and it's also a quite astute look at the ways we tend to end up like our parents and have more in common with them than we might like to admit.
18. The Lion King
Year: 1994
Directors: Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff
Mufasa (James Earl Jones) famously (and as many a scared child viewer will tell you, tragically) dies relatively early into this Disney masterpiece, but the impact he left on his son Simba (Matthew Broderick) and the rest of the film is undeniable. The noble lion is one of the most inspiring fathers ever to grace the big screen. If you haven't seen The Lion King in a while, you might be surprised at how short the scene where he returns to speak with his now-adult son through the clouds is. That it's briefer than you remember only speaks to how powerful it is.
17. Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2
Year: 2017
Director: James Gunn
Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn loves a found family, and the second movie in his MCU trilogy has a profound emotional core amidst all the sci-fi superhero antics. Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) has met his father, Ego, a nigh-omnipotent and initially pretty cool-seeming Celestial dude played by Kurt Russell. However, once he learns that Ego plans to use him to help rule the universe—and that he was responsible for his mother's death—Star-Lord turns on his biological dad, in the process realizing that Michael Rooker's alien pirate (and one-time kidnapper) Yondu is his real father. It's earnestly touching stuff!
16. Meet the Parents
Year: 2000
Director: Jay Roach
Fathers are one thing, fathers-in-law are a whole different can of worms. Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro star in this very funny comedy that probably hits close to home for a whole lot of married men watching. Greg Focker (Stiller) is excited to marry his girlfriend (Teri Polo), but first he needs to win the approval of her dad (De Niro)—which is easier said than done, because he is one intimidating man. Very observed with an equal measure of insightful, character-based humor and silly gags, Meet the Parents is a great film about one of the more potentially loaded familial relationships.
15. The Descendants
Year: 2011
Director: Alexander Payne
George Clooney stars as Matt King, a lawyer and the trustee of his family's large property in Kauai. With a deadline to sell the land looming, Matt must also deal with his wife being in a coma following a boating accident, forcing him to manage his daughters, Alex (Shailene Woodley) and Scottie (Amara Miller). Profound, funny, and sad in a way that all of Alexander Payne's great tragicomic works are, The Descendants is a unique look at a complex relationship.
14. Fantastic Mr. Fox
Year: 2009
Director: Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson, one of the most singular directors around, has a lot of visual hallmarks in his films, but he also has some narratives he returns to in many of his films. One of those is the relationship between fathers and sons. His 2009 stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl's book about a clever fox who returns to a life of chicken-stealing crime to provide for his family is one of his most charming dad movies, and George Clooney as the titular Mr. Fox and Jason Schwartzman as Ash, his son, have a great rapport.
13. King Richard
Year: 2021
Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Though somewhat eclipsed by the controversy that arose at the Oscars when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on stage shortly before winning his Best Actor award for his leading role in King Richard, the film itself is a lovely film about sports and fatherhood. Smith stars as Richard Williams, father to future tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, and the movie documents Richard's occasionally odd and domineering but always devoted and heartfelt belief that his girls had what it took to become tennis legends.
12. Field of Dreams
Year: 1989
Director: Phil Alden Robinson
One of the ultimate male weepies is Field of Dreams, a movie about fathers that also has a knack for making any dads who are watching cry. Kevin Costner stars as Ray, a farmer who didn't have a great relationship with his father before his dad passed. Suddenly, he starts getting supernatural messages urging him to build a baseball diamond in the middle of his corn field. "If you build it, he will come," Ray is told, and indeed the ghost of his father comes to play ball, and play one cathartic game of catch with his grown-up boy.
11. Father of the Bride
Year: 1991
Director: Charles Shyer
Steve Martin stars in this remake of a 1950s movie of the same name, playing George Banks, a man who is having a really hard time grappling with the fact that his daughter, Annie (Kimberly Williams), is about to get married. Heartfelt but with plenty of jokes, Father of the Bride is a sweet look at growing up and how that can affect such a profound relationship as the one between a father and his little girl. Martin is especially great in the film, making George a very sympathetic character even when his own going crazy about the upcoming wedding starts to make everyone else—including his daughter—a bit crazy.
10. Train to Busan
Year: 2016
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
In addition to being one of the best zombie movies and one of the best train movies, the 2016 South Korean horror movie Train to Busan is also an incredible dad movie. Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) is a white collar workaholic with a bad relationship with his young daughter (Kim Su-an). When she wants to go back to stay with her mom in Busan, Seok-woo gets on a high-speed rail with her to take her there, just as a zombie outbreak begins and one of the infected boards the train before it leaves the station. Exhilarating and terrifying, Train to Busan has a truly moving sense of humanity amongst all the undead, culminating in a beautiful and sad act of fatherly love.
9. To Kill a Mockingbird
Year: 1962
Director: Robert Mulligan
Gregory Peck stars as Atticus Finch, one of the most famous and most beloved fathers in all of literary fiction, in the acclaimed 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. In many ways, Atticus is the platonic ideal of a father: stern but loving, smart and capable but with a desire to have his kids figure things out for themselves, and a beacon of morality. There's a reason why the American Film Institute named Atticus—not Superman or Indiana Jones or anybody else—as the greatest movie hero of the 20th century.
8. Boyhood
Year: 2014
Director: Richard Linklater
Typically, when actors are playing father and son, that on-set relationship doesn't last that long. Maybe a year or two at most. That wasn't the case for Boyhood, which director Richard Linklater filmed over the course of a decade as his stars aged in real time. Because of that, Ellar Coltrane, who played Mason Evans Jr. from the time he was six to when he was 18, got to really know and develop a connection with Ethan Hawke, who played his dad. Boyhood is a truly unique coming-of-age film, following Mason as he grows up in Texas more literally than perhaps any other movie, and the way his relationship with his dad changes as he matures is an essential part of that.
7. Mrs. Doubtfire
Year: 1993
Director: Chris Columbus
Mrs. Doubtfire is a classic '90s comedy filled with plenty of laughs and winning performances from Robin Williams, but it's also a supremely empathetic and surprisingly nuanced film about divorce. Williams plays Daniel Hillard, an out-of-work actor in San Francisco whose wife (Sally Field) asks for a divorce. Now away from his three children, Daniel is desperate to spend more time with them, so he concocts the persona of a kindly old nanny, moonlighting as "Mrs. Doubtfire" to spend time with them without anybody knowing. The farce is a laugh riot, though it's supported by an earnest sense of love and an understanding of how divorce may change things, but it doesn't have to be the end of a parent's relationship with their kids.
6. Bicycle Thieves
Year: 1948
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Widely considered to be among the best films ever made (and in fact, in the '50s, the prestigious Sight & Sound magazine poll named it in top spot), Bicycle Thieves is an undeniable masterpiece. The Italian neorealist film follows a father in the aftermath of World War II who has managed to get a job he needs to provide for his family, but when his bicycle is stolen, he won't be able to do the work. Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) must set off in pursuit of the people who took his bike, with his young son Bruno (Enzo Staiola) tagging along.
5. Dick Johnson Is Dead
Year: 2020
Director: Kirsten Johnson
A documentary unlike any other, Dick Johnson Is Dead is an effort by director Kirsten Johnson and her father, the titular Dick, to comprehend his mortality in an offbeat, funny, and admittedly morbid way. Dick, who has dementia and is likely nearing the end of his life, enacts a series of scenarios for how his death could play out, including bizarre accidents. Along the way, the father-daughter pair explores their own relationship with death and with each other.
4. Trap
Year: 2024
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Shyamalan's psychological thriller Trap stars Josh Hartnett as Cooper, a proud "Hashtag Girl Dad" who is taking his daughter to the big pop concert she's been dying to go to. The problem for Cooper is that the entire concert is a trap. The authorities have the arena surrounded and are trying to find the serial killer known as "the Butcher," who they believe is inside… and Cooper is the Butcher. It's a hoot to see Cooper problem-solve and try to stay one step ahead of the police without giving himself away, though the most interesting part of the film comes from his relationship with his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue). He may be a psychopathic mass murderer, but he genuinely loves his little girl and wants her to be happy, and it's interesting to see those two traits play out simultaneously.
3. The Meyerowitz Stories
Year: 2017
Director: Noah Baumbach
Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, and Elizabeth Marvel star as the three adult Meyerowitz children in Noah Baumbach's indie drama, which follows them as they try to figure out their complex, essentially estranged relationships with each other and their father, Danny (Dustin Hoffman), a figure who still casts a large, large shadow over their lives. A profound, witty, and bittersweet film, The Meyerowitz Stories is a touching movie about the familiar ties that bind us, for worse and, ultimately, for better.
2. Finding Nemo
Year: 2003
Director: Andrew Stanton
Albert Brooks voices Marlin, a clownfish who is very, very overprotective of his only son, Nemo (Alexander Gould). Nemo, like most kids, wants to rebel and thinks his dad is stifling him, but when Nemo gets taken, Marlin sets out on an epic journey across the sea to find him. This Pixar classic is a funny, thrilling aquatic adventure that is also a remarkably heartfelt (and relatable) story about both sides of the parent-child relationship. Marlin must learn to let his boy swim on his own, and Nemo must come to understand where his dad's protective nature was coming from, a place of love.
1. The Royal Tenenbaums
Year: 2001
Director: Wes Anderson
Wes Anderson's best film tells the story of Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman), a wealthy and eccentric man who raised three very gifted and talented children before more or less falling out of their lives as they grew up and all encountered significant problems. Royal, who says he's suffering from a terminal illness, wants to make amends with his now-adult kids (played by Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, and Luke Wilson). It's a wonderfully stylized, beautifully poignant, and nicely tragicomic movie—a unique encapsulation of the complex and sometimes contradictory aspects of fatherhood.
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