The 20 best films about being a parent

You thought Get Out was scary? Try meeting the parents when one of them is played by Robert De Niro. He wants what's best for his daughter, but that leads to all sorts of hilarious hijinks along the way. If you can milk a cat, you can milk jokes about being a concerned parent. 

They want a kid more than anything else, but they just can't seem to have one. Paul Giamatti is the poet laureate of parents who can't catch a break, and his character is a sadsack we can't help but root for. He's the heart of this sad, funny and melancholy film--a movie that births laughs out of the womb of despair.

Another movie about a married couple who can't conceive. These spouses decide to steal a child for themselves in this indie classic. Shifting from comedy to romance to surrealism like a madman shifting lanes, Raising Arizona is a fun ride that never swerves into conventionality. 

Life is Beautiful finds humor and warmth in the most terrifying of circumstances. As a father tries to disguise the concentration camps to his son, pretending it's all some kind of game, audiences are going to be reminded of the lengths they would go to protect their own children. Plenty of life and beauty is on display, even as the worst of mankind surrounds the characters.

Get out those tissues! This is perhaps the best example of how far mothers would go to be with their children. In futile Japan, a family is separated in a gruesome scene that sends them on a lifelong pursuit of reconnection. After one horrifying, dazzling and poetic scene after another, they finally get closure in what may be the most moving scene in all of cinema. You'll want to call your mom after this film ends.

She's not their real parent, but that doesn't matter when she's the one raising them. Julie Andrews is everyone's favorite babysitter in this classic musical. She's funny, bubbly, understanding and for some young boys in the crowd, sexy. I'm not saying I was one of those boys, but dang, was I lost in Julie Andrew's eyes. 

Don't ever kidnap another man's daughter, especially if they have a particular set of skills. The gangsters who steel Liam Neeson's daughter couldn't possibly know he's an assassin--he wasn't cinema's go-to revenge dad yet--but they're about to find out. 

Most movies about parenting are brutal dramas about where it all went wrong. There's nothing cinematic about parents and children living joyously at home, at least according to studios who don't understand the power of a feel-good film. Anyways, rant aside, this is a powerful drama about the toll divorce can take on children.

His kid could be anywhere in the entire ocean. It's a lot worse than losing your kid at Costco, but that's not going to stop him from scouring every corner of the sea. He's just got to keep swimming in this funny and moving film. 

Not all heroes wear capes, some of them wear spandex and tuck their children in at night--the Incredibles are a different breed of hero. Their strength comes from their family ideals. In this riveting, action-packed, and adorably human film, the heroes wear their hearts on their sleeves, not their capes. 

Okay, so maybe this movie is about a grump who would rather throw a child off a hot air balloon than care for him, but it does eventually become a sort of parent-child friendship. The opening montage, as well, is something to behold.

A father takes his children to the countryside when their mother gets sick, which ends up being home to all sorts of fantastical creatures. The creatures help them cope with their situation, of course, but they never seem like sappy metaphors. They're just fictional monsters who, for the characters on screen and the viewers at home, help process life through a joyously optimistic lens.

Great parenting often means doing what's best for your child, but how do you know what is best for your child? You're often guessing with a biased opinion of what your child needs. For a father-daughter hiding in the woods, it's not easy to see what's best. Dad thinks he's keeping his daughter safe from the bad parts of society by having them live in nature, but maybe that's not what's best for her. In this astonishingly emotional and achingly sad movie, the answer leads to a path of uncertainty.

Penguins, they're just like us. They trudge through miles of tundra to bring their children food, and while humans just go to the grocery store, we share the common need to care for our children.

Any son of a middle-class father knows that paps are out there trying to put food on the table. And this classic about a father who puts up posters around Rome is crushing when his bicycle is stolen. But it's beautiful as well. This relationship between a father and son may have the wheels spinning in your head long after the credits role.

It's more about the daughters than the parents, but the story of twins trying to get their parents back together is endlessly endearing, thanks to Lindsay Lohan's performance.

This is more of a warning to parents who forget their children. Yeah, they probably won't end up fending off burglars on their own, but maybe don't forget about the children at home.

A beautiful film about moms and what they talk about when men aren't around. Steel Magnolias has a terrific ensemble and moments of hair salon wisdom. Yes, there's more than just gossip at some hair salons, believe it or not.

Everyone was talking about Bong Joon Ho after Parasite, but he'd been cranking out tone-shifting thrillers long before that. Mother is about a son who may have committed a crime and what his mother does to save him. 

Let this be a lesson to parents everywhere: let kids be kids. That doesn't mean let them do whatever they want, but let children explore, play with their friends, be childish and youthful. Mon Oncle is about the child in all of us, the silliness of modernity and an uncle who lets the kid have fun. It's a wonderful comedy.