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Angela, Weaver’s character, is not your typical mother - she does not sacrifice herself for her children like Greer Garson did in Mrs. Miniver or Sally Field decades later, and she does not face difficult choices like Streep’s Sophie did. No, Angela is a con artist, and she is teaching her daughter the trade - how to seduce men to steal their fortune.

Supported by a terrific cast that includes Anne Bancroft, Gene Hackman and Ray Liotta (but not, ahem, the forgettable Jennifer Love Hewitt), Sigourney gets the laughs as the mother who struggles to see her child grow up from under her wing and blossom into a temptress of her own.

Filled with ridiculous turns and outrageous behavior, Heartbreakers is not a movie with deep, emotional meaning about motherhood. It is simply an undeniably funny, infinitely rewatchable movie that leaves you wanting for more of the uniquely devilish Weaver. Oh, and, talk about a MILF!

4. Frozen River (2008)

Before she famously cursed during her Oscar-winning speech after triumphing for the over-acted performance in The Fighter, Melissa Leo made a small but loud entry into the scene with her portrayal of the struggling mother living near the Canadian border in Frozen River.

This movie, however, is unlike those I discarded for focusing simply on the struggling mother and womanhood. In Frozen River, Leo’s character encounters a mother who is arguably more desperate than her - a Native American woman threatened with expulsion from her reservation for the crimes she is committing in the name of being able to keep custody of the child she had with a white man.

Unforgiving and bleak as the tundra it’s centered around, Frozen River is nevertheless a moving portrayal of the lengths that mothers will go for their children. Few movies explore themes of poverty or First Nations like the unmistakably indie Frozen River does.

But it is not just the novelty of its themes that make this movie so great. It has its moments of suspense and twists, and undoubtedly gut-wrenching plot points. Overall, the movie is subtle about its motherhood theme, but the wily viewer will discover its ultimate point: the love for a mother’s children is powerful and it crosses both the generational divide that separates Leo and the Indian woman, as well as the cultural chasm between them.

3. Mildred Pierce (1945)

More in the wheelhouse of movies about the challenges of motherhood is the 1945 vehicle that won Joan Crawford her Oscar, the film noir adaptation of the James Cain psychological thriller.

Crawford stars as Mildred, a mother who goes through more on screen than any other mother figure I can imagine. Her first husband divorces her, her youngest daughter dies, her oldest daughter is a brat and is ashamed of her, and, as the movie opens, she is under interrogation on suspicion of murdering her second husband, who was trying to elope with her daughter anyway. And you thought you had a rough childhood.

What really makes this film unique in its way is how Crawford’s on screen presence buoys the dramatic narrative - the film is meant to be bleak while suspenseful, and Crawford’s visage and expressions are perfect for the role.

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