Single motherhood can mean carrying responsibilities that rarely stop – providing for a family, making difficult decisions alone, dealing with judgment and still finding space for your own dreams, relationships and identity. The best movies about single mothers understand that motherhood can be filled with love while also being exhausting, complicated and deeply personal.
From mothers struggling to keep their families financially afloat to women rebuilding after loss, fighting for their children or learning how to start over, these films explore very different sides of raising children without a partner. And rather than filling the list with decades-old classics, we’ve focused on more recent movies that feel relatable to today’s audiences.
15 Movies About Single Mothers Every Single Mom Must Watch
1. Straw (2025)
Janiyah is a hardworking single mother already struggling to stay financially afloat when one terrible day sends every part of her life spiralling out of control. As bills, work pressures and concern for her sick daughter pile up, a series of increasingly desperate circumstances pushes her towards a situation she never imagined.
Starring Taraji P. Henson, Straw is one of the most intense recent movies about single mothers because it focuses on how quickly someone can reach breaking point when there is no safety net. Beneath the thriller-like tension is a painful story about financial insecurity, loneliness and a mother who feels as though the world has stopped seeing how hard she is trying.
Where to Watch: Netflix
2. Left-Handed Girl (2025)
A single mother returns to Taipei with her two daughters and opens a food stall in a busy night market, hoping the move will give the family a fresh beginning. Instead, financial pressures, difficult relationships and long-hidden family secrets begin testing their already fragile bond.
Left-Handed Girl looks at single motherhood through the everyday realities of trying to earn enough money, keep a family together and raise children who are developing identities of their own. Colourful and intimate at the same time, the film is particularly strong in the way it examines mothers and daughters across different generations.
Where to Watch : Netflix
3. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025)
Four years after losing her husband Mark Darcy, Bridget Jones is raising their two children, Billy and Mabel, on her own. Encouraged by the people around her to start living for herself again, she returns to work, tries online dating and discovers that moving forward does not mean leaving grief behind.
Unlike many heavier movies about single mothers, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy combines parenting struggles with humour, friendship and romance. Bridget worries about her children, deals with judgment from other parents and wonders whether she can build a new relationship while still honouring the family she once had. It is a warm reminder that becoming a single mother does not mean the romantic or adventurous parts of life are over.
Where to Watch: Peacock
Also Read: 15 Older Woman – Younger Man Movies That Show Love Knows No Age
4. Freakier Friday (2025)
Years after the events of Freaky Friday, Anna Coleman is now a single mother raising teenage daughter Harper while managing a demanding career. When Anna falls in love with Eric, a single father with a teenage daughter of his own, the two families prepare to become one – until another mysterious body swap throws everyone’s plans into chaos.
Beneath the comedy and fantasy, Freakier Friday touches on a very modern parenting challenge: trying to create a blended family without making your child feel that her place in your life is changing. Anna’s relationship with Harper gives the movie an emotional centre that makes it more than simply a nostalgic sequel.
Where to Watch: Disney+
5. Woman and Child (2025)
Mahnaz is a widowed nurse raising her children while preparing to begin a new chapter with her boyfriend Hamid. But tensions involving her rebellious son and a devastating family tragedy suddenly turn her hopes for a more stable future into a painful fight for answers and justice.
Woman and Child presents single motherhood against the pressures of family expectations and a society in which a woman’s choices are frequently judged by others. Mahnaz is not simply protecting her children; she is also fighting to be heard and respected as a woman capable of making decisions about her own life.
Where to Watch: Not currently available to stream in the US
6. Call Me Mother (2025)
A devoted foster mother hopes to legally adopt the boy she has raised and build the permanent family they both want. But when his biological mother re-enters their lives, questions about custody, belonging and what truly makes someone a parent become impossible to avoid.
Call Me Mother approaches motherhood from a different perspective by asking whether being a mother is defined by biology or by the person who actually shows up every day. Mixing comedy with emotional family conflict, it offers a heartfelt look at parental love, sacrifice and the fear of losing a child you consider your own.
Where to Watch: No US streaming option currently listed
7. Suncoast (2024)
Kristine is a single mother caring for her terminally ill son while also raising her teenage daughter Doris. With much of her attention consumed by her son’s worsening condition, tensions grow between mother and daughter as Doris struggles with grief, guilt and her desire to experience an ordinary teenage life.
Suncoast refuses to suggest that a mother facing tragedy will always respond perfectly. Kristine’s exhaustion and fierce devotion sometimes make it difficult for her to recognise what her daughter needs. That emotional messiness gives the movie an honest understanding of how caregiving and grief can affect an entire family.
Where to Watch: Hulu
Also Read: 30 Inspiring Movies Every Woman Should Watch To Take On The World
8. Janet Planet (2024)
During the summer of 1991, 11-year-old Lacy spends much of her time with Janet, her single mother, in rural Massachusetts. Lacy is intensely attached to her mother, but the arrival of different adults in Janet’s life slowly changes the private world the two have built together.
Rather than relying on dramatic confrontations, Janet Planet captures the quieter complexity of a mother-daughter relationship. Janet has romantic relationships, frustrations and uncertainties that exist beyond her role as a parent, while Lacy gradually begins to understand that her mother is a complicated person rather than someone who belongs entirely to her.
Where to Watch: Rent or Buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV Store and Fandango At Home
9. A Thousand and One (2023)
After leaving prison, fiercely determined Inez secretly takes her young son Terry out of foster care and attempts to build a stable life for them in a rapidly changing New York City. Her decision places their future at enormous risk, but she refuses to allow the system to determine whether she can remain part of her son’s life.
A Thousand and One does not portray motherhood as uncomplicated heroism. Inez can be loving, impulsive, protective and deeply imperfect at the same time. The result is a powerful story about the lengths a mother will go to keep her family together and the consequences that can follow even decisions made out of love.
Where to Watch: Peacock
10. The Justice of Bunny King (2021)
Bunny King is a struggling mother of two who earns money washing car windows while desperately trying to regain access to her children. Without stable housing and with her past constantly being used against her, even something as simple as promising her daughter a birthday celebration becomes an enormous challenge.
The film is especially effective at showing how poverty can turn ordinary parenting responsibilities into battles with institutions and bureaucracy. Bunny makes questionable decisions, but her determination to see her children gives the story enormous emotional force. The Justice of Bunny King asks viewers to look beyond someone’s circumstances before deciding what kind of mother she is.
Where to Watch: Prime Video; also available free with ads on select services
11. Single Mother by Choice (2021)
A successful workaholic decides that she does not need to wait for the perfect relationship before becoming a mother and chooses to have a baby on her own. Her carefully organised plan changes dramatically when her pregnancy unfolds during the extraordinary circumstances of 2020.
Unlike films in which single motherhood happens after divorce, abandonment or loss, Single Mother by Choice examines a woman deliberately choosing to build a family without a partner. That makes it a refreshing addition to the list and raises interesting questions about independence, expectations and how modern families are created.
12. Herself (2020)
After escaping an abusive marriage, Sandra finds herself trapped in an exhausting housing system while trying to create a secure life for her two daughters. Frustrated by waiting for someone else to provide a solution, she decides to build an affordable home herself with help from people in her community.
The unfinished house gradually becomes a symbol of Sandra’s recovery. Every stage of building represents another step towards independence, dignity and control over her future. Herself is powerful because it is not simply about a mother rescuing her children from a dangerous relationship; it is also about a woman rebuilding the confidence that abuse tried to take away.
Where to Watch: Prime Video
13. Miss Juneteenth (2020)
Turquoise once won the Miss Juneteenth pageant and believed the achievement would open doors to a better future. Years later, while working hard to support her teenage daughter Kai, she becomes determined that Kai should enter the same competition and take advantage of an opportunity she feels she lost.
The film beautifully captures a tension many parents understand: wanting something better for your child without turning your own unfinished dreams into their responsibility. Turquoise loves Kai deeply, but she must gradually accept that her daughter deserves the freedom to decide what kind of future she wants.
Where to Watch: Starz
14. Wild Rose (2018)
After leaving prison, Rose-Lynn returns home to her two children with an enormous dream of becoming a country singer. While her mother has been caring for the children during her absence, Rose-Lynn remains convinced that a music career in Nashville could finally give her the life she has always wanted.
Wild Rose is refreshing because it allows its central character to be ambitious, selfish, loving and frustrated all at once. Rose-Lynn cares about her children but also struggles with the feeling that motherhood has interrupted her dreams. The film never suggests that having ambitions makes her a bad mother, but it does insist that freedom and responsibility have to coexist.
Where to Watch: Tubi
15. American Woman (2018)
Deb is a single mother living with her teenage daughter Bridget and young grandson in a small Pennsylvania town. When Bridget suddenly disappears, Deb is left searching for answers while taking responsibility for raising her grandson and somehow keeping the rest of her life moving forward.
What begins as a mystery gradually becomes a much broader portrait of a woman changing over many years. Deb experiences grief, difficult relationships, financial pressures and enormous uncertainty while becoming the person her grandson depends upon. Sienna Miller’s performance gives American Woman a rawness that makes Deb’s journey from instability towards resilience especially affecting.
Where to Watch: Prime Video; The Roku Channel
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What connects these movies about single mothers is that they allow mothers to be more than symbols of sacrifice. These women can be ambitious, exhausted, romantic, angry, funny, frightened and imperfect. Most importantly, they still have identities and dreams of their own.
Whether you want an emotional drama such as Straw and Herself, a warm story about moving forward like Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, or a complicated mother-daughter story such as Left-Handed Girl and Janet Planet, these movies about single mothers offer very different but memorable portraits of what it can mean to raise a family on your own.
Streaming availability is based on current US listings and may change over time.