Movies about Single father
This list has the best movies about single dads, ranked from best to worst by user votes. The best single dad movies come in many forms. Some single father relationship movies are about struggling with their kids while other movies about single fathers are comedies. Movies like Signs and War of the Worlds feature single dads as heroes in science fiction situations.
What films will you find on this best single father movie list? Will Smith teamed-up with his real-life son, Jaden Smith, for the 2006 film, The Pursuit of Happyness . The movie, which was based on Chris Garder’s memoir of the same name, shows the struggles facing a homeless single father as he works to turn his life around. Finding Nemo is a classic animated movie about a single dad. Love Actually is another good movie that features a single father storyline.
Dustin Hoffman won an Academy Award for his role as a single father fighting for custody in Kramer vs. Kramer. Other good films that appear on this top single dad movies list include Finding Nemo , Big Daddy, and The Descendants .
Do you have a favorite single father film? Vote the best movies to the top of this list and please add any good single dad films we may have missed.
Streaming: the best single dads on screen
I t’s Father’s Day, and if you’re looking for a suitable new film to mark the occasion, Netflix has cannily released Paul Weitz’s Otcovství just in time – ending a long period of pandemic limbo for a film that was supposed to be out in April 2020. One way or another, it has found its moment: sweetly agreeable if no classic, you’d never guess it wasn’t entirely custom-made for this one day of the year.
It’s a showcase for the softer side of Kevin Hart, the brash, unfiltered comedian who got into hot water some years ago over homophobic tweets and comedy routines detailing his fear of his son growing up to be gay. Perhaps Otcovství is to some extent an image reform exercise. He’s certainly quite disarming in it, as an overwhelmed widower left holding his infant daughter without a clue about how to raise her. As you can probably predict, what ensues is a dual coming-of-age story, as the manchild matures in tandem with his kid. Weitz, who has experience in crude comedy (American Pie) and mellower male crisis (Asi Boy), unsurprisingly pitches Otcovství halfway between those two modes, allowing some room for Hart’s trademark shtick between sentimental life lessons.
The figure of the burdened, honourable single father has a long history in the movies, combining as he does mainstream cinema’s preferences for solo heroes, family values and patriarchal dominance. (The single mother, unsurprisingly, gets shorter shrift.) A lone man and a child has been a shortcut to audience sympathies ever since Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp adopted an abandoned newborn in Kid (Amazon), one of his warmest and most sugar-crusted comedies, exactly 100 years ago.
A few decades later, in Elia Kazan’s robust film of John Steinbeck’s Na východ od ráje (1955; YouTube), the single father was a less cuddly presence. Flawed, hyper-religious patriarch Adam Trask (Raymond Massey) risks pushing his wayward son Cal (James Dean) away with his stern principles, though his affection remains the most prized reward of this Cain and Abel narrative. (The lad’s absent mother is a brothel madam; Steinbeck’s tale was always more stirring than subtle.)
Less compromised single-dad virtue came to the fore a few years later courtesy of Gregory Peck’s Oscar-winning, stout-hearted Atticus Finch in Zabít drozda. The plain, unpious decency of his performance is one reason this 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel has aged so gracefully. The same year, over in Japan, Yasujirō Ozu presented his own elegant vision of reserved fatherly duty: in Podzimní odpoledne, an elderly widower (the wonderful Chishū Ryū) faces a bittersweet choice between his unmarried adult daughter’s happiness and his own future wellbeing.
Selflessness prevails, but cad dads are more fun. Perhaps my favourite single-father story is one where even the matter of paternity is in doubt: Ryan O’Neal’s crooked bible salesman may or may not be the father of the equally devious nine-year-old tyke (Tatum O’Neal) he falls in with in Peter Bogdanovich’s irresistible jaunt Papírový měsíc (1973; Google Play), but they’re clearly peas in a pod. Never have real-life kin been so ideally cast.
If single fathers on screen had until this point largely been victims of tragic death and circumstances, it took Dustin Hoffman’s scrambling, left-in-the-lurch dad in perennial tearjerker Kramer versus Kramer (1979; Amazon) to bring the role into the age of divorce and modern families.
More recently, Mike Mills’s lovely, autobiographical Začátečníci (2010; iTunes) further updated the archetype: as played by Christopher Plummer to wry, bright-eyed effect, a gay man could also be a model of paternal care and kindness. Mills’s film glows with gentle empathy; it’s a far cry from the very tough love espoused in John Singleton’s indelible Boyz N Hood (1991; Google Play), in which Laurence Fishburne’s brooding, fiercely upstanding Furious Styles, with his hard worldview and politically alert pep talks, endures as a bastion of black masculinity on film. “Any fool with a dick can make a baby, but only a real man can raise his children,” he famously says. It’s a conclusion that Otcovství reaches in a sunnier way.
Nově také na streamování a DVD
London Indian film festival
The UK’s biggest Indian film festival – which, despite the name, is running in Birmingham and Manchester too – is also offering a digital programme for at-home audiences this year, with 16 selections available to stream for 24 hours after their premiere. Highlights include the Bangladeshi documentary Baganiya, a perceptive study of tea-field labourers, and the absorbing Muslim-American family saga Setkáme se tam.
Jidáš a černý Mesiáš
(Warner Bros.)
Out Mondayon DVD and non-premium VOD, Shaka King’s film about real-life FBI informant William O’Neal’s infiltration of the Black Panther party isn’t as formally radical as it is politically impassioned, but it’s riveting just the same, getting additional voltage every time Daniel Kaluuya – fully earning his Oscar as Panther revolutionary Fred Hampton – fills the screen.
Munyurangabo
(Mubi)
If the delightful, Oscar-winning minari was your introduction to the work of director Lee Isaac Chung, you’ll be glad to see that Mubi is currently streaming his equally worthwhile but relatively little-seen 2007 debut. Shot entirely in Rwanda – it was the first film ever made in the Kinyarwanda language – its tale of two boys returning home in the wake of the Rwandan genocide is thoughtful and closely observed, avoiding any sense of cultural tourism.
Ale já jsem roztleskávačka
(Lionsgate)
Given little attention on its release, Jamie Babbit’s cheerfully chaotic 1999 comedy about a teenage lesbian cheerleader shunted off to a gay conversion camp has amassed a genuine queer cult over time – now validated with a shiny 4K restoration and Blu-ray release. Young RuPaul converts, meanwhile, will want to see his winking against-type turn as a “reformed” counsellor.
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Our 9 favourite single dads from movies!
Classic movie where single dad, lawyer Atticus Finch played by Gregory Peck, brings up his children Scout and Jem on his own and teaches Scout moral values through a controversial trial. Compelling and inspiring.
I haven’t seen it for a while, nor reread the book it’s based on, but every time I see the movie the performances by Gregory Peck as the man who stands up for what he believes and leads by example to his children really connects with me.
8. Paní Doubtfire (1993)
Robin Williams at his comedic best as divorced dad Daniel Hillard who disguises himself as a middle aged nanny Mrs Doubtfire to spend more time with his beloved children.
Laugh-out-loud humour of the brilliant Robin Williams and his character’s determination to be a part of his kids’ life no matter what he has to do to achieve that makes this movie an endearing favourite.
7. Láska nebeská (2003)
Recently widowed single step-dad Daniel, played by Liam Neeson, helps his little boy Sam come to terms with loss and his attraction to his lovely classmate Joanna. The poignant story is one of the romantic thread to the movie.
The romance, humour and stellar cast makes this gorgeous movie a keeper for me—we watch it every Christmas.
6. Obsazený (2008)
Retired CIA agent and single dad Bryan Mills, played by Liam Neeson, takes action to rescue his teenage daughter when she is abducted by sex slavers on a vacation in France. Fiercely protective, he fights incredible odds to save her.
The situation Bryan’s daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) finds herself in is a parent’s nightmare. Bryan’s love for her sees him fighting against a ticking clock and powering through danger with heart-stopping determination and fierceness. Thank heaven I saw it after my daughter returned safely from a trip to France!
5. Hledá se Nemo (2003)
In this animated movie, single dad Marlin might be a clown fish but his fatherly anguish and hunt for his lost son, little clown fish Nemo, is no less heart wrenching and engaging.
Marlin never gives up on the search for his much loved son. There are lots of ups and downs and dangerous situations—they’re fish!—but if find myself emotionally engaged and really wanting that father-son reunion! There’s the brilliant animation too.
4. Štěstí na dosah (2006)
Based on a real-life story, Will Smith plays single dad Chris Gardner, who finds himself living on the streets with his young son. Inspiring story of a father’s struggle to make a better life for his son.
Despite all the hardship he faces, the dad in this movie remains unfailingly optimistic in a heart wrenching story of fatherly love. Perhaps the fact that the son, Christopher, is played by Will Smith’s real-life son Jaden Smith makes the movie all the more endearing.
3. Sleepless v Seattlu (1993)
Tom Hanks as Sam Baldwin, the widowed single dad of a cute little boy who plays matchmaker in a classic romantic comedy culminating in that heart-wrenching scene at the Empire State Building with Meg Ryan on Valentine’s Day.
Heart stopping until the very last moment—will two people who have never met but only connected on the phone get that magical happy ever after? Will cute little Jonah get the mom he wants? When you look at it, the plot is improbable in so many ways but it really works, after all Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan! Sam is a wonderful single dad, always appealing, and the whole thing is just so darn romantic.
2. Dovolená (2006)
Gorgeous Jude Law plays Graham, a charming single dad to two adorable little girls. A winner!
I love the romances that develop when Iris (Kate Winslet) in England swaps houses with Amanda (Cameron Diaz) in Los Angeles. Iris meets her soulmate in Miles (Jack Black) as well as a wonderful friend in retired movie producer Arthur (Eli Wallach). Amanda has no idea that widower Graham has two children but one of the movie’s delights is how she falls in love with them and they with her. I laugh and cry every time I see this movie. Oh, and there’s serious house porn here too!
Určitě, možná 2008
Ryan Reynolds plays New Yorker Will Hayes who is getting divorced from the mother of his delightful eleven-year-old-daughter Maya, played by Abigail Breslin. She asks him to tell her about how he met her mother and he recounts the stories of the three serious love affairs in his life. Maya has to guess which one was her mother. A delightful story for romance lovers. There’s a nice twist as, with the help of his daughter, Will discovers the woman who really is the love of his life.
I was recommended to see this film and am so glad I followed up on it. It’s warm, smart, funny and really gets you involved in Will’s dilemma. As a romance writer I can so clearly see who is “Ms Right” for Will and it’s part of the fun to urge him to realise it too. I love the way wise little Maya is so involved in finding happiness for her father.
Second Chance with the Single Dad by Kandy Shepherd
From long-lost friends…to newfound family?
Georgia and Wil were best friends until he married and disappeared from her life. Now he’s back, asking Georgia to forget the past and help him secure his future – the daughter he never knew he had! Georgia’s heart goes out to new dad Wil, but there’s an uncharted chemistry fizzing between them and she must protect her heart. Can they confront their unspoken attraction and finally become a family?
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