Father’s Day is the perfect day to sit in silence next to your dad and watch a movie, right?
Most dads aren’t as capable of showing his feelings as the dad from 7th Heaven or as good at listening as the dad from Bluey, so sitting down and watching a bit of tear-jerker can be as close as you get to sharing a hug. But that’s what movies are for, right? To reveal things that are inside of us that we can’t make sense of? That, and to watch Adam Sandler and Steve Buscemi talk about McDonalds breakfasts, duh.
Below are some films that you can fire up with your dad to avoid talking to them – or any other members of your family – on the awkwardest of Hallmark Holidays:
Boy
Is your dad a better dancer than Michael Jackson? Is he in a three-man biker gang? You’re lucky he’s not… In this film, Taika Waititi plays Alamein, the deadbeat father of impressionable, starry-eyed 11-year-old “Boy”, who returns to their small town in search of money he once buried there. Neglect, moments of tenderness, and and more NZ one-liners that you could poke a piece of driftwood at make this a pretty special movie for you and dad to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP05fUP9xAo&pp=ygUXYm95IGZpbG0gdGFpa2Egd2FpdGl0aXM%3D
Good Will Hunting
This film isn’t about a father and son, you say? You shoehorn Good Will Hunting into every listicle about movies, you say? Well, all I can say is… isn’t it? And also, it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault.
Life Is Beautiful
I had to watch this film in high school and went back and revisited it recently, and I can confirm, it will still make you bawl your eyes out. Written, directed by, and starring Roberto Benigni, it follows a father and son who turn life in a Nazi concentration camp into a game in order to escape their grim reality. The title says it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CTjcVr9Iao&t=0s
Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade
There’s probably no better film for the action-loving dad to watch on Father’s Day than this, or maybe Taken, but that would be pretty weird. Harrison Ford and Sean Connery play father and son on a quest to find the Holy Grail before the Nazis which is the most intense father-son bonding trip imaginable. Still, it’s a fucking classic.
Big Daddy
Speaking of classics, I feel like 1999’s Big Daddy is often overlooked when talking about Adam Sandler’s biggest hits, but it’s got all those key Sandman ingredients that made his early films great: an immature slacker who can’t get his shit together, plenty of heart, and Rob Schneider. It also features some great parenting tips such as, if a child pees the bed, just cover it up with newspaper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXYdcY61j7M
The Royal Tenenbaums / The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
Just about every Wes Anderson film has some sort of family drama or daddy-related issue at its core, but the two above are your traditional selfish-dad-reconnects-with-children-learns-something-along-the-way movies from the Anderson canon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5Hbs0s6_sQ
Interstellar
Send this one to your absentee father. If he wasn’t hurtling through space saving the planet, what was his excuse?
Mrs Doubtfire
I don’t think there’s a kid in the 90s who didn’t at some point wish Robin Williams was their father after watching this movie. Sure he might be doing some pretty questionable shit, but it’s all in the name of his kids… and he does some funny voices. If you would like the film to be ruined for you, watch the trailer cut as a horror film below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U71P5FKFqfg
Pursuit Of Happyness
If your brain is powerful enough to ignore Will Smith’s iconic slap, and you’re able to see him as the Hollywood darling that he once was, there’s probably no film that’s going to get the waterworks flowing like this one. I mean, those last scenes…
The Castle
The legendary battler who’d do anything for his family and his castle (and the dogs), Darryl is Australia’s favourite dad. If your old man doesn’t say your present this weekend is “going straight to the pool room,” you should take it back off him and fire this one up. Just don’t get him a fucking photocopier.
