Mother's Day 2021 — Mother of ... Biopics
by urbanemovies | created - 07 May 2021 | updated - 22 Feb 2023 | PublicIn celebration of all mothers everywhere, a motherly biopic-themed poll. This poll is dedicated to one particularly special mom for Mother's Day 2021.
Which of these select movies about a game-changing person who is commonly regraded as the "mother of ...." for a notable discovery, a pioneering effort or inspiring a nation is your favorite motherly biopic?
Discuss the topic here.
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1. Radioactive (2019)
PG-13 | 109 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
The incredible true story of Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her Nobel Prize-winning work that changed the world.
Director: Marjane Satrapi | Stars: Rosamund Pike, Yvette Feuer, Mirjam Novak, Ralph Berkin
Votes: 21,824
Marie Sklodowska-Curie
Mother of Modern Physics, Mother of Nuclear Science, Mother of the Atomic Age Alternate Biopic: Madame Curie (1943)
2. Mary Shelley (2017)
PG-13 | 120 min | Biography, Drama, History
Life and facts of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, who at 16 met 21 year old poet Percy Shelley, resulting in the writing of Frankenstein.
Director: Haifaa Al-Mansour | Stars: Elle Fanning, Bel Powley, Owen Richards, Joanne Froggatt
Votes: 17,867 | Gross: $0.11M
Mary Shelley
Mother of Science Fiction, Mother of Frankenstein
3. Queen of the Desert (2015)
PG-13 | 128 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
A chronicle of Gertrude Bell's life, a traveler, writer, archaeologist, explorer, cartographer, and political attaché for the British Empire at the dawn of the twentieth century.
Director: Werner Herzog | Stars: Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Robert Pattinson, Damian Lewis
Votes: 12,639
Gertrude Bell
Mother of Modern Mesopotamia, Queen of the Desert
4. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)
R | 94 min | Drama, Music
Tensions rise when trailblazing blues singer Ma Rainey and her band gather at a recording studio in Chicago in 1927.
Director: George C. Wolfe | Stars: Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo
Votes: 58,269
Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey
Mother of the Blues
5. Agora (2009)
R | 127 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
A historical drama set in Roman Egypt, concerning a slave who turns to the rising tide of Christianity in the hope of pursuing freedom while falling in love with his mistress, the philosophy and mathematics professor Hypatia of Alexandria.
Director: Alejandro Amenábar | Stars: Rachel Weisz, Max Minghella, Oscar Isaac, Ashraf Barhom
Votes: 73,499 | Gross: $0.62M
Hypatia
Mother of Ancient Feminism
6. Florence Nightingale (1985 TV Movie)
TV-PG | 140 min | Biography, Drama, Family
The fact-based story of the pioneer of nursing, known as "the Lady with the Lamp".
Director: Daryl Duke | Stars: Jaclyn Smith, Claire Bloom, Timothy Dalton, Timothy West
Votes: 367
Florence Nightingale
Mother of Modern Nursing
7. A Woman Called Golda (1982 TV Movie)
191 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of the Russian-born, Wisconsin-raised woman who rose to become Israel's prime minister in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Director: Alan Gibson | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Ned Beatty, Franklin Cover, Judy Davis
Votes: 1,059
Golda Meir
Mother of Nation, Israel
8.
Signals (2014– )
Episode:
The Queen of Code
(2015)
TV-G | 16 min | Documentary
Grace Hopper dedicated her life to bringing computers to the masses, when most supposed the technology was only useful for scientists and the military. Through her genius, she taught ... See full summary »
Director: Gillian Jacobs | Stars: Kurt Beyer, Grace Hopper, Kathy Kleiman
Votes: 34
Grace Hopper
Mother of Computer Science, Grandma COBOL, Queen of Code
9. Suffragette (2015)
PG-13 | 106 min | Drama, History
In 1912 London, a young working mother is galvanized into radical political activism supporting the right for women to vote, and is willing to meet violence with violence to achieve this end.
Director: Sarah Gavron | Stars: Carey Mulligan, Anne-Marie Duff, Helena Bonham Carter, Meryl Streep
Votes: 45,073 | Gross: $4.69M
Emmeline Pankhurst
Mother of the British Suffrage Movement
10. Pocahontas (I) (1995)
G | 81 min | Animation, Adventure, Drama
An English soldier and the daughter of an Algonquin chief share a romance when English colonists invade seventeenth century Virginia.
Directors: Mike Gabriel, Eric Goldberg | Stars: Mel Gibson, Linda Hunt, Christian Bale, Joe Baker
Votes: 204,052 | Gross: $141.60M
Pocahontas
Mother of American History
11. Choices of the Heart: The Margaret Sanger Story (1995 TV Movie)
92 min | Biography, Drama
Margaret Sanger, a nurse who, in 1914, became a pioneering crusader for women's reproductive rights after she published a booklet on birth control techniques that flew in the face of a law ... See full summary »
Director: Paul Shapiro | Stars: Dana Delany, Henry Czerny, Rod Steiger, Julie Khaner
Votes: 180
Margaret Sanger
Mother of Reproductive Rights, Mother of the Birth Control Movement, co-founder, Planned Parenthood
12. Rosalind Franklin: DNA's Dark Lady (2003 TV Movie)
50 min | Documentary
Director: Gary Glassman | Stars: Barbara Flynn, Vittorio Luzzati, Brenda Maddox, John Maddox
Votes: 8
Rosalind Franklin
Unsung Mother of the Double Helix aka Dark Lady of DNA
13. Winnie Mandela (2011)
R | 104 min | Biography, Drama, History
A drama that chronicles the life of Winnie Mandela from her childhood through her marriage and her husband's incarceration.
Director: Darrell Roodt | Stars: Jennifer Hudson, Terrence Howard, Elias Koteas, Wendy Crewson
Votes: 999
Winnie Mandela
Mother of Nation, South Africa
14. The Glorias (2020)
R | 147 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of feminist icon Gloria Steinem's itinerant childhood and its influence on her life as a writer, activist and organizer for women's rights worldwide.
Director: Julie Taymor | Stars: Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, Janelle Monáe, Ryan Kiera Armstrong
Votes: 3,789
Gloria Steinem
Mother of Modern Feminism
15. Mary Magdalene (2018)
R | 120 min | Biography, Drama, History
Twelve men heard and spread the message of Jesus. Only one woman understood it.
Director: Garth Davis | Stars: Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tahar Rahim
Votes: 11,613 | Gross: $0.12M
Mary Magdalene
Mother of Female Mystics
16. Walk the Line (2005)
PG-13 | 136 min | Biography, Drama, Music
A chronicle of country music legend Johnny Cash's life, from his early days on an Arkansas cotton farm to his rise to fame with Sun Records in Memphis, where he recorded alongside Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.
Director: James Mangold | Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick
Votes: 267,289 | Gross: $119.52M
Maybelle 'Mother' Carter
Mother of Modern Country Music
17. Sonja: The White Swan (2018)
113 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of Sonja Henie, one of the world's greatest athletes and the inventor of modern figure skating, who decides to go to Hollywood in 1936 to become a movie star.
Director: Anne Sewitsky | Stars: Ine Marie Wilmann, Valene Kane, Eldar Skar, Anders Mordal
Votes: 1,113
Sonja Henie
Mother of Modern Figure Skating, Queen of the Ice
18. Cheaper by the Dozen (1950)
Approved | 86 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
Myrna Loy plays the wife of the persnickety father of her 12 children, Clifton Webb, who has uniquely humorous methods for dealing with the ordeals such an unwieldy family undoubtedly encounters.
Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Clifton Webb, Myrna Loy, Jeanne Crain, Betty Lynn
Votes: 5,715 | Gross: $9.65M
Lillian Moller Gilbreth
Mother of Industrial Psychology, Mother of Modern Management
19. John Adams (2008)
TV-14 | 71 min | Biography, Drama, History
The life of one of the USA's Founding Fathers, its second President, and his role in the nation's first 50 years.
Stars: Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, John Dossett, Stephen Dillane
Votes: 36,844
Abigail Adams
Founding Mother, Mother of the Nation, United States America
20. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2017 TV Movie)
TV-MA | 93 min | Biography, Drama, History
An African-American woman becomes an unwitting pioneer for medical breakthroughs when her cells are used to create the first immortal human cell line in the early 1950s.
Director: George C. Wolfe | Stars: Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sylvia Grace Crim, Reed Birney, Karen Wheeling Reynolds
Votes: 4,001
Henrietta Lacks
Mother of Modern Medicine
21. Georgia O'Keeffe (2009 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 89 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
Biopic of American artist Georgia O'Keeffe and her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz.
Director: Bob Balaban | Stars: Joan Allen, Jeremy Irons, Ed Begley Jr., Kathleen Chalfant
Votes: 970
Georgia O'Keeffe
Mother of American Modernism
22. Ada's Ideas: The Story of Ada Lovelace, the World's First Computer Programmer (2016)
16 min | Animation, Short
Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was the daughter of Lord Byron, a poet, and Anna Isabella Milbanke, a mathematician. Her parents separated when she was young, and her mother insisted on a ... See full summary »
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron)
Mother of Computer Programming
23.
American Experience (1987– )
Episode:
Rachel Carson
(2017)
TV-PG | 113 min | Documentary, Biography, History
A profile of scientist and writer Rachel L. Carson (1907-64), whose 1962 book "Silent Spring" helped launch the modern environmental movement.
Director: Michelle Ferrari | Stars: Rachel L. Carson, Mary Fassino, John F. Kennedy, Mary-Louise Parker
Votes: 141
Rachel Carson
Mother of the Modern Environmental Movement
24. Heart Like a Wheel (1983)
PG | 113 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
Shirley Muldowney is determined to be a top-fuel drag racer, although no woman has ever raced them before. Despite the high risks of this kind of racing and the burden it places on her family life, she perseveres in her dream.
Director: Jonathan Kaplan | Stars: Bonnie Bedelia, Beau Bridges, Diane Delano, Ellen Geer
Votes: 1,580 | Gross: $0.27M
Shirley Muldowney
Mother of Drag Racing
25. Jinnah (1998)
110 min | Biography, Drama, War
The story of the Indian politician Muhammad Ali Jinnah who successfully campaigned for an independent Pakistan and became its first Governor-General.
Director: Jamil Dehlavi | Stars: Christopher Lee, Shireen Shah, James Curran, Zafar Hameed
Votes: 3,164
Fatima Jinnah aka Māder-e Millat
Mother of Nation, Pakistan
26. Isadora (1968)
M/PG | 131 min | Biography, Drama, Music
A biography of the 1920s dancer Isadora Duncan, who forever changed people's ideas of ballet. Her nude, semi-nude, and pro-Soviet dance projects as well as her attitude and lifestyle shocked the public of her time.
Director: Karel Reisz | Stars: Vanessa Redgrave, James Fox, Jason Robards, John Fraser
Votes: 2,624
Isadora Duncan
Mother of Modern American Ballet
27. The Godmother of Rock & Roll: Sister Rosetta Tharpe (2011)
60 min | Documentary, Biography, Music
Documentary about gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who influenced the early rockers.
Director: Mick Csaky | Stars: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Pauline Black, Chris Barber, Joe Boyd
Votes: 46
Rosetta Tharpe
Godmother of Rock & Roll
28. Mapplethorpe (2018)
Unrated | 102 min | Biography, Drama
A look at the life of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe from his rise to fame in the 1970s to his untimely death in 1989.
Director: Ondi Timoner | Stars: Matt Smith, Marianne Rendón, John Benjamin Hickey, Brandon Sklenar
Votes: 1,862 | Gross: $0.09M
Patti Smith
Godmother of Punk
29. Cocaine Godmother (2017 TV Movie)
TV-14 | 100 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
The real life of Colombian drug lord, Griselda Blanco, who reportedly masterminded more than 200 murders. This film presents her life story from the time she was a young girl to the end of her life.
Director: Guillermo Navarro | Stars: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jenny Pellicer, Alejandro Edda, Warren Christie
Votes: 2,695
Griselda Blanco
Godmother of Cocaine, Queen of Narco-Trafficking, Colombian drug lord of the Medellín Cartel
Alternative Biopics: Griselda (2024) and The Godmother
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