Motherhood, often romanticized by popular culture, is a vast and multifaceted territory. In cinema, however, we find spaces of honesty where maternal love is portrayed in its rawest, most real, and sometimes painful form. These films not only moved me but provoked deep questions about what it means to be a mother, challenging crystallized ideas and opening space for empathy, reflection, and deconstruction.
Watching these works, I was transported into experiences that transcend the conventional roles assigned to the maternal figure. Mothers who make mistakes, suffer, resist, rediscover themselves. Each story marked me in a different way, revealing that motherhood is not a fixed entity but a plural and ever-evolving experience. This list does not aim to exhaust the subject but rather to open conversations about the various ways of mothering — all legitimate.
Whether in the silent pains of the postpartum period, the strength of those who raise children alone, or the complexity of family bonds, the following films made me see the world of mothers with more clarity and compassion. In times when female perfection is still expected, they serve as a powerful reminder that mothering is human and therefore imperfect.
The Second Mother (2015)
In The Second Mother (Que Horas Ela Volta?), we follow Val (Regina Casé), a Northeastern woman who leaves her young daughter in the countryside to work as a housemaid in São Paulo. For years, she has dedicated her life to the family she works for, especially to the employers’ son, Fabinho (Michel Joelsas), whom she treats with almost maternal affection.
When her daughter, Jéssica (Camila Márdila), comes to take a college entrance exam and needs to stay at the employer’s house, their reunion causes an emotional earthquake. The girl refuses to accept the submissive role her mother has naturalized, highlighting the emotional distance between them and the social gaps that structure their lives.
The film is more than just motherhood: it talks about the price of an unequal society. Val deeply loves her daughter, but her decision to leave and work to provide sustenance created an irreversible distance. The role of being a mother here is shaped by class, race, and region.
While watching, I kept asking myself: what kind of maternal love is allowed to poor women? What rights do these mothers have to be present in their children’s upbringing? The narrative lays bare how the Brazilian domestic system perpetuates colonial and racist structures, and how this reverberates within the family dynamic.
By the end of the film, Val’s transformation is inevitable. The reunion with her daughter does not bring immediate reconciliation, but, as time goes by, Val realizes that she can and should claim her dignity, even as a mother. This awakening deeply moved me: how many women, in the name of caring for others, abandon themselves? The Second Mother is a hard and necessary invitation to view motherhood as a political experience and to recognize the invisible work of millions of Vals across the country.
Tully (2018)
Tully presents Marlo (Charlize Theron), a woman exhausted after giving birth to her third child. She is the personification of many real mothers: tired, lonely, trying to stay functional while dealing with sleepless nights, diapers, a daughter in crisis, and a husband unaware of daily demands.
When the night nanny, Tully (Mackenzie Davis), enters the scene, Marlo finally gets to breathe. The young woman helps with the baby, talks to Marlo, listens to her, and gradually returns to the protagonist a part of herself that she had lost. More than a portrait of motherhood, the movie represents maternal mental health — and very well, may I add. It is a film that dares to show that, behind seemingly organized mothers, there are women on the brink of collapse.
Tully’s presence represents that intimate desire to return to who one was before having children, while also bringing to the surface the sadness of realizing that perhaps that person no longer exists. The film surprises by revealing that Tully is not real, but rather a manifestation of Marlo’s unconscious, a symbol of her lost youth and freedom.
Watching Tully made me reflect on how much we demand from mothers and how we expect that they handle everything with love, patience, and a smile on their faces. Marlo is a silent scream against this suffocating expectation. She reminds us that mothers also get sick, need care, and have the right to ask for help. And more than that, there is no shame in admitting that motherhood can sometimes be lonely, frustrating, and frightening.
Room (2015)
Room (O Quarto de Jack) is a punch to the stomach. Based on a true story, the film follows Joy (Brie Larson), a young woman who was kidnapped and held captive for seven years, during which she had a son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), by her captor. Inside the small room where they live, Joy creates an entire world for him.
She transforms the confinement into an universe of fantasy, loving routines, learning, and imagination. In Jack’s eyes, that place is the only home he knows, and his mother is his entire universe.
What makes this story so powerful is Joy’s ability to maintain her sanity and love within a reality that borders on unbearable. Motherhood, in this case, is synonymous of resistance. It is out of love for her son that Joy survives. And it is also for him that she devises a risky escape plan.
When they finally manage to escape, the film does not end with a traditional happy ending. There are traumas, difficult reintegrations, disorientation. Joy needs to learn how to be a mother in freedom — something she has never experienced.
What struck me the most was how the bond between mother and child is not built on perfection, but on presence. Even under extreme pain, Joy chooses daily to protect her son emotionally. Room made me think about what defines a mother: it is not the setting, nor the circumstances, but the unconditional giving, the willingness to love even amid chaos.
Lady Bird (2017)
Lady Bird is an intimate and, at the same time, universal portrait of adolescence and motherhood. The protagonist, Christine (Saoirse Ronan) — or “Lady Bird”, as she insists on being called — is in her last year of high school, eager to leave Sacramento, California, and seek a new life in New York.
Meanwhile, her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf), struggles to sustain the household after Lady Bird’s father loses his job. Between the two, there is a constant tug-of-war: love and irritation, admiration and frustration, all coexisting in a deeply human and real relationship.
By portraying motherhood as an imperfect construction, the film shows how raising a daughter involves emotional effort, communication failures, and much unspoken affection. Marion is not a sweet and loving maternal figure all the time — she is tough, practical, and critical. But her toughness is the way she found to protect her daughter from the frustration she herself carries.
Lady Bird, on the other hand, does not initially see the sacrifices and pressures faced by her mother, focusing only on her own thirst for independence. However, as she matures, she begins to realize the sacrifices that sustained her life until then.
Lady Bird made me reflect on how complex mother-daughter relationships can be. Not all maternal love is manifested through sweet words or visible gestures — sometimes it is in small actions, attentive looks, attempts to keep a routine functioning. The film taught me that often mothers are just women trying to balance the world on their shoulders, while raising someone to face it with more freedom than they themselves had.
A Happy Family (2024)
In A Happy Family (Uma Família Feliz), we follow the journey of Eva (Grazi Massafera), a woman who, after the birth of her third child, plunges into a spiral of exhaustion, emotional fragility, and isolation. What starts as an everyday portrait of an overwhelmed mother soon transforms into a painfully real narrative about postpartum depression, social pressure, and the cruel judgment many women face when they don’t meet the image of the “ideal mother”.
Eva is not a romanticized character, and that’s exactly why her story becomes so powerful. The film does not shy away from exposing the vulnerability and emotional collapse many mothers hide out of shame or fear. As the narrative progresses, she is accused of abuse, which exposes how society fails to offer support to women who are struggling mentally.
Instead of help, there is distrust, hostility, and silencing. The character is judged before being understood, and her suffering is rendered invisible under the label of “neglectful mother”. A Happy Family courageously questions: to what extent is the idealization of motherhood distancing us from empathy for real mothers? Where is the support system when it is needed most?
This film deeply impacted me because it made me see how maternal mental health is still a taboo. There is relentless pressure for mothers to be strong, present, patient, loving, and balanced all the time. But the reality, as the movie honestly shows, is that motherhood can be brutal, and that women in distress deserve to be cared for, not punished. A Happy Family taught me that we need to talk more about the not-so-bright side of motherhood, so that no woman feels guilty for not handling it all on her own.
Solo Mother (2021)
Solo Mother (Mãe Solo) is a necessary Brazilian documentary that gives voice and visibility to women who, for different reasons, raise their children alone. With emotion and courage, real stories reveal the daily struggle for dignity, sustenance, and affection.
The mothers portrayed face multiple layers of challenge: parental abandonment, lack of public policies, domestic violence, racial and social inequality. Each testimony is a portrait of strength, but also of the pain of doing everything alone.
What struck me the most about was the power of collectivity. These women, although exhausted, create support networks, share strategies, and fight to ensure a better future for their children. The documentary does not portray them as victims, but as agents of transformation, who redefine the meaning of family, love, and resistance daily.
Motherhood, in this context, is not an individual but a collective construction — a community effort to survive and thrive despite systemic barriers. Watching Solo Mother transformed my perception of who the real heroines are in our society. It made me see the urgency of recognizing, valuing, and supporting these women who carry the world on their backs, often without help, without recognition, and without rest.
INNER SEA (2022)
Inner Sea (Mar de Dentro) follows Manuela (Monica Iozzi), an independent and successful advertising professional whose life is turned upside down after discovering an unplanned pregnancy. At first, the film explores how the news impacts her emotional and professional life, as she’s faced with a difficult choice: maintain her autonomous lifestyle or embrace a new maternal identity.
Director Dainara Toffoli guides this transition with subtlety and realism, showing how the arrival of motherhood can be a simultaneous process of deconstruction and rebirth. Forget the melodrama: the story unfolds with deep authenticity and, with honesty, portrays Manuela’s internal conflicts, as she fluctuates between a desire to preserve her individuality and the growing love for her baby.
Loneliness, insecurity, fear of missing professional opportunities, and social judgment are all present, forming an intimate mosaic of doubts and discoveries. More than a story about pregnancy, Inner Sea is about transformation and the time it takes for a woman to recognize herself as a mother, without rush, without formulas.
The film shows that motherhood doesn’t come fully formed. It’s built daily, through mistakes, affection, and reinvention as Manuela doesn’t abandon her essence. She rebuilds it, adjusting her dreams, plans, and priorities.
Inner Sea taught me that it’s possible to experience motherhood authentically, honoring your own time and limits. The film is a reminder that being a mother is about welcoming a child, but often about learning to welcome yourself, too. In the end, Manuela is not the same woman she was at the beginning, but she is still herself, only more whole, stronger, and more aware of what she truly wants.
PIECES OF A WOMAN (2020)
Pieces of a Woman begins with an extended and shocking birth scene, ending in tragedy: the baby dies minutes after being born. From this moment on, the film becomes an emotional exploration of grief, silence, and the crumbling of relationships.
Martha (Vanessa Kirby), the mother, isolates herself from everything and everyone, including her partner. The people around her — her mother, husband, and the justice system — all try to dictate how she should grieve. But she chooses another path: introspection, pause, and reconstruction.
The most powerful thing about the film is how it respects Martha’s time. There is no right or wrong way to grieve, just as there is no universal way to be a mother. Although she does not get to raise her daughter, her entire trajectory is marked by motherhood. She was a mother during pregnancy, childbirth, and even in grief. Her silence is an act of resistance in a society that demands performance and explanations even in the most intimate pain.
Pieces of a Woman showed me that motherhood can be also about the emotional bond, about the mourning of what could have been. The film delicately addresses the need to respect maternal pain in all its forms. It is a brutal, beautiful, and extremely human narrative that made me reflect deeply on the multiple ways to experience and survive motherhood.
In each one of the eight narratives, marked by love, pain, choices, losses, and rebuilding, I recognized a trace of reality: those who raise their children alone, who suffer in silence, love imperfectly, find themselves in pain or reinvent themselves through sacrifice. None of them are the same, and that’s exactly what makes motherhood so powerful: it is plural, full of contradictions, and deeply human.
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The article above was edited by Beatriz Cyrino.
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