All The Best ‘90s Butter Mom Movies To Watch This Summer

Diane Keaton’s Nina Banks is the blueprint. The ‘90s butter mom final boss. She’s the reason Father of the Bride is currently the most-searched butter mom movie. She set the standard with the way she floats through the impossibly inviting Banks family home (which we all 100% dreamed of living in), with its white picket fence and basketball hoop in the driveway. It goes without saying that Father of the Bride Part II (1995) should be watched immediately after.

It might not seem as though a posh wedding gown designer who lives in a London townhouse with her own butler and chic mother-of-pearl haircut would qualify as a butter mom, but it totally makes sense when you think of Elizabeth James as the mom who drops everything to make her long-lost daughter feel right at home. I’m also morally bound to mention that Chessy, the Napa housekeeper, is the Parker family’s true butter engine. The lemonade? The “I made cornbread and chili”? I rest my case.

In this dramedy about a close-knit family in Chicago, Big Mama (Irma P. Hall) *is* the aesthetic. A wise and deeply loving matriarch, she anchors her entire family through all sorts of ups and downs, and she does it all through her love language: food. When she passes, her family relies on Mama Joe’s favorite tradition, Sunday dinners, to bring everyone back together. Bonus butter mom: Middle daughter Maxine, played by Vivica A. Fox, is a chip off the old block.

She may technically be an 1860s butter mom, but Susan Sarandon’s Marmee was made for ‘90s butter momdom. How could she not, in her candlelit kitchen, singing and hand-knitting and dispensing wisdom to her four daughters? Marmee, the ultimate nurturer, represents the aesthetic in its purest, most lived-in historical form. The entire movie feels like a patchwork quilt that you can wrap around your shoulders.

“In this house, we have chocolate cake for breakfast and never bother with silly things like bedtimes!” I mean, c’mon… that’s the most butter mom sentence ever committed to film. Aunt Frances and Aunt Jet live in a dreamy old Victorian house with a rose garden, conservatory kitchen, and the occasional batch of midnight margaritas (show me a butter mom without a little good-natured chaos, and I’ll show you a liar). This movie was cottagecore before cottagecore became a trend, and cottagecore is the gateway drug to the butter mom aesthetic.

Bonnie Hunt’s Alice runs a household that contains three wildly different (but equally headstrong) kids and a 200-pound slobbering mass of a Saint Bernard rescue dog, and she pulls it off in that classic ‘90s butter mom way — a little harried, sure, but always loving. Her home is the non-Pinterest version of the butter mom, and we adore her for it.

We had a “Halloween” movie with Practical Magic, why not a Christmas movie too? Butter moms know no seasonal limitations. Although Kate McCallister could easily be considered a controversial pick (she did, after all, forget her kid… twice!), she’s a butter mom when it counts. She crossed a damn ocean, rode in a van with John Candy’s polka band, and generally begged and bartered her way back home to get to her baby.

Taxidermy-loving Texas grandma that she was, Gena Rowlands’ Ramona Calvert had real butter mom charisma. She took in her daughter and granddaughter in the wake of a devastating life change (she’d already taken in her grandson), and she does it all with a trademark blend of humor and no-nonsense advice. She managed to keep everyone in the house happy and well-fed, making the strong case that butter grandmas should also be recognized.

Make no mistake, there are two moms we need to talk about here: Sally Field’s Miranda Hillard and Robin Williams’ Euphegenia Doubtfire. Was the latter a real mom? No. Was she a real woman? Also no. But she gentle-parented Miranda and those kids in the most comically endearing way that she more than earned her spot on this list.

The moms are mostly in the background of this cult-favorite coming-of-age dramedy, but it’s got all the other necessary ingredients. Plus, the entire film is a love letter to the ‘90s butter mom kind of childhood so many of us are trying to recreate with our own kids: freedom, friendship, and unadulterated summer magic.

If you’re looking for an excellent example of the filming aesthetic that makes ‘90s butter-mom movies so cozy, warm, and lived-in, look to One Fine Day. The colors, the lighting — why aren’t movies filmed like this anymore?! In this dramedy, Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney are two stressed single parents in New York City just trying to do their best… which in and of itself is so very butter-mom coded. See also: Pfeiffer in that little dino tee is high art.

This one will probably make you cry, but it’s still 100% worth your watch. Mermaids centers on an unconventional single mom (played by Cher) who moves her two daughters (played by Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci) to a quiet seaside town in Massachusetts. The setting itself feels very on-trend with the aesthetic, and there are some truly “buttery” scenes between this complicated trio.

Set in the ‘50s/early ‘60s, this movie sees Whoopi Goldberg’s title character coax a grieving little girl out of her shell through music, food, and just plain joy. The little girl, Molly, needs exactly the patient presence Corrina brings to their household, and isn’t that what all the best butter moms do? They heal us.

Yes, this is set in 1989 — close enough! This beaut of a film follows the interconnected lives of the messy and chaotic but unconditionally loving Buckman family. It’s got parents, it’s got siblings, it’s got grandparents and grandkids… so much life happens in their home, and even when it’s not perfect, it somehow is. This movie marks Dianne Weist's second time on the list (the first being Practical Magic), and her character in ‘87’s The Lost Boys can be considered an honorable mention.

Anytime food is at the center of a movie, it’s a good sign, and Fried Green Tomatoes is truly one of the best. Idgie, Ruth, Sipsey… the women here feed an entire Depression-era Alabama town out of one tiny cafe: fried green tomatoes, biscuits, pie, barbecue (“the secret’s in the sauce!”). And no one gets turned away, ever. Ruth is the heart, Idgie is the spice, and Sipsey is the institutional knowledge, and altogether, they prove that community is a huge part of the Butter Mom Collective.

Butter moms and farm movies sort of go hand in hand, and Esme Hoggett is the platonic ideal of the farm-wife butter mom: perpetually knitting and cooking and running a kitchen. She’s probably the butter mom at its most literal, churned right on site. All of the cute farm animals just sort of pile onto the aesthetic here.

Granted, Dottie Hinson (Geena Davis) wasn’t a mom-mom in this movie, but she was something vitally important: a team mom. She kept the Rockford Peaches (and, namely her hot-headed little sis Kit) calm and functional while Tom Hanks’ Jimmy Dugan got his sh*t together. We could also make a strong case here for Dottie’s teammate Evelyn, who brought her bratty son Stilwell along on the tour bus and bribed him almost exclusively with chocolate bars.

In this Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen caper, Kirstie Alley plays Diane Barrows, a social worker who takes a busload of orphans to summer camp. And at that summer camp, we happen to get one of the greatest food-fight scenes in cinema history — think sloppy joes, creamed corn, and messy spaghetti. She believes every kid deserves a second chance, and that ultimately lands her a mansion, a millionaire, and a daughter. The butter mom economy at work.

Here’s a Disney Channel deep-cut for ya: Alley once again as a dentist who dies (don’t worry, it’s not all sad!) and becomes the tooth fairy. A butter mom even in death, she learns to nurture beyond the veil.

Another butter mom win for Geena Davis! Here, in pearl-buttoned cardigans, she presides over her family’s brownstone. And, well, she ends up adopting a literal mouse as a son. No questions asked! No panic! The Littles’ whole brand is warmth without explanation, which is the very throughline of the butter mom thesis.

Sorry, had to sneak in one more tearjerker… and one more Susan Sarandon pick. In Stepmom, she’s the maximalist butter mom: She takes her daughter horseback riding and ice skating, she makes homemade Halloween costumes and hires a magician for her son’s birthday party. She’s the butter mom you’d want to be in the bunker with if something goes down.

Miss Honey may not be a mom for most of the movie’s runtime, but she’s arguably the most butter-mom-coded of the bunch. The quaint little cottage. The garden full of wildflowers. The tea served in mismatched cups. The swing in the yard. Miss Honey gave us a literal bread-and-butter moment in a cottage the size of a shoebox and managed to make it look like the most magical and abundant meal. She’s the perfect illustration of what this trend is all about: warmth.

Kathleen Kelly may not have been a mother, but one could argue she was a mom figure to many — she ran a twinkle-light children’s bookshop where she knew the name of every kid who came for reading time and made each and every one of them feel special. She believed daisies were the friendliest flower. She romanticizes a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils. And even though we don’t actually get to meet Kathleen’s mom, Cecilia, you just know she was the butter mom prototype.

These may not have come out in the ‘90s, but they’ve got all the makings of a good butter mom movie.

• Julie & Julia (2009)
• It's Complicated (2009)
• Almost Christmas (2016)
• Cheaper By the Dozen (2003)
• Because I Said So (2007)
• Catch & Release (2006)
• Under the Tuscan Sun (2003)
• Life As We Know It (2010)
• Raising Helen (2004)
• The Family Stone (2005)
• The Secret Life of Bees (2008)
• Something’s Gotta Give (2003)
• The Holiday (2006)
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)
• Spanglish (2004)
• Mamma Mia! (2008)
• The Christmas (2007)