We don’t really celebrate Fathers Day here. Both my wife’s father and my dad are long dead and we have no children of our own. Off and on throughout the day I’ve checked what various stations were playing on TV. If you went out of your way to select the worst Fathers Day movies you’d come up with, well, roughly what TCM is showing.
But some stations are playing good, even inspired selections, and that got me to thinking. What are some really good movies for Fathers Day? My criteria for inclusion include 1) it must be a good, watchable, entertaining picture with 2) an interesting or compelling portrayal of a father and his relationship with his children that 3) doesn’t demean either the father or the children. Here’s a sample of some I think are pretty darned good. In no particular order.
The Castle
This is an offbeat little Australian picture which has become one of my favorites. I hadn’t thought of it as a Fathers Day picture but it’s really an inspired selection. Great, quirky portrayal of a truly great dad.
Big Fish
Another offbeat selection and one which I expect people either love or hate. I love it. Incredible cast topped by one of our truly great motion picture actors, Albert Finney, and Ewan McGregor. There really is magic if you look for it.
Frequency
One of my sisters once pointed out that I like pictures about redemption and that’s what this movie is about. A sci-fi picture in which the protagonist, played by Jim Caviezel, saves his father’s life and his own through the hallowed old-fashioned science fiction convention of a quirk of nature. Another picture I love.
Captains Courageous
Spencer Tracy got one of his Best Actor Academy Awards for his role in this picture but I don’t care for the performance—Tracy is just no dialect actor. It’s distracting and ridiculous. I think the finest performance in this picture is by the wonderful Melvyn Douglas as a father learning how to struggle for his son’s love. Also check out the affecting father-son relationship portrayed by Lionel Barrymore and Mickey Rooney. A great picture, although not necessarily for the reasons usually given.
Life With Father
Based on Clarence Day’s memoir and the Lindsay/Crouse play. Another great ensemble cast, headed by William Powell and Irene Dunne.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Atticus Finch is one of the all-time great movie fathers. That he was a lawyer and wore a rumpled suit makes it all the more affecting for me.
Mrs. Doubtfire
One of several movies in which a man learns to be a better man by pretending to be a woman, this time with respect to paternity. Probably one of Robin Williams’s best roles.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Sean Connery and Harrison Ford certainly make an interesting father-son team without making idiots out of either the father or the son or losing the sense of adventure.
Life is Beautiful
Roberto Benigni as a father who shows incredible heroism for his son’s sake in a Nazi prison camp by convincing his son that the whole horror is an elaborate game. Bring Kleenex.
Please leave your suggestions in the comments.
I’ve seen a few of those.
I loved Frequency. It would have been better if it hadn’t turned into too much of a slasher film at the end.
However I hated Mrs. Doubtfire. Chris Columbus enjoys “funny sadism” too much. The scene where he nearly killed Pierce Brosnan with shellfish really put me off. It wasn’t funny, just cruel.
Field of Dreams
John Q