Sci-fi movies that'll make you cry about your dad
Want to feel emotional about fatherhood this Father's Day? Watch sci-fi.
The big picture: Sci-fi films often use fantastical plots to explore something deeply human: the love and heartbreak of the parent-child bond.
Zoom in:"The Empire Strikes Back" is about interplanetary war — and unresolved daddy issues.
"Interstellar" is about secret space travel — and the grief of being a dad watching your kids grow up.
"Contact" is about extraterrestrial communication — and the power of a father-daughter bond. The list goes on.
And there are plenty of sci-fi titles about motherhood, too — " Arrival" and " Terminator 2," to name a couple.
Zoom out: What better way to capture the vastness of the parent-child connection than through the language of the cosmos?
And at the same time, "parenthood is a very clean, direct way" to make stories with fairies, aliens or multiple dimensions "emotionally recognizable," says TV writer Marc Bernardin ("Star Trek: Picard," "Carnival Row").
"It also kind of lumps in with the feeling of being lost in a world bigger than you are, and trying to find some sense of comfort in that loss," he tells Axios.
You don't have to be a parent to connect with the themes.
FWIW: George Lucas wasn't a dad when he made the first couple of "Star Wars" films, and James Cameron didn't have children before the first two "Terminator" movies came out.
Between the lines: There's a pattern worth noting. Many of these stories are haunted by loss — often a parent or child.
You already know this if you watch enough movies and, in Bernardin's apt wording, "start to see the code of the matrix."
From the writer's perspective, when you're more than 30 minutes into the movie about to crest into the second act, "we need to propel our hero out of the comfort of the womb," Bernardin says, speaking metaphorically. "How do we do that? Somebody's gotta go."
Carly's thought bubble: Last year, pregnant and weepy during a sci-fi movie marathon, I realized how deeply the genre explores parent-child bonds.
"Arrival" and "Dune: Part Two" are now two of my favorite films. (Yes, I'm a Denis Villeneuve fan.) The former is my biggest personal tearjerker, and I'm convinced that the latter — which I saw in theaters twice — encouraged my baby to kick for the first time.
We're re-watching "Interstellar" for my husband's first Father's Day.
And this line from Matthew McConaughey's character lingers with me: "Once you're a parent, you're the ghost of your children's future."
OK, one more, from Anne Hathaway's character:"Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can't understand it."
Father's Day movie picks
Let screenwriter Colby Day ("Spaceman," "In the Blink of an Eye" out this year) be your personal Blockbuster salesperson with five of his recommendations for Father's Day sci-fi films:
1. "Contact" (1997)
" Based on a story from one of the fathers of modern science writing, Carl Sagan, this explores the intersection of faith and science. The hero's entire journey is at its core the story of a father-daughter relationship."
2. "Children of Men" (2006)
" What would our world look like without any children? Pretty bad! Clive Owen plays a reluctant hero and reluctant father figure in a sci-fi movie that also has enough action for the dads."
3. "Interstellar" (2014)
"Our generation's 'The Odyssey,' a science fiction myth of epic proportions about a man leaving his family behind to hopefully save the world, and in the process nearly losing himself."
4. "The Mitchells vs. the Machines" (2021)
" A really special father-daughter depiction and family film that also happens to have evil robots."
5. "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" (2001)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
NEWS OF THE WEEK: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex celebrates 'best' dad Prince Harry on Father's Day
Taking to Instagram on Sunday, the royal uploaded a montage of clips showing the Duke of Sussex spending time with their two children - Prince Archie, six, and Princess Lilibet, four. The video, featuring Have It All by Jason Mraz as the soundtrack, begins with an image of Harry embracing his little ones in a garden while standing underneath a banner that reads, "Happy Father's Day". The sweet clip then moves into never-before-seen footage of Archie and Lili as newborns and toddlers before showing more recent snaps of the children.
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
‘Jaws': The Prototype Summer Blockbuster Turns 50, Losing None of Its Bite
One of my formative movie memories is of being in a theater in 1975, packed with excited kids and teenagers in Newcastle, Australia, to see Jaws for the first time. It's not surprising that an audience in a city with miles of golden beaches might be especially primed to react to Steven Spielberg's ageless shark shocker. Even so, the screams were deafening, the nervous laughter that followed each jolt of terror was contagious and the physical sensation of entire rows of seats shaking as people reflexively lifted their feet up off the floor — and 'out of the water' — during each attack was unforgettable. More from The Hollywood Reporter 'Jurassic World Rebirth' Tracking to Set Off Major Box Office Fireworks With $100M-$125M Opening Scarlett Johansson Details Depths of Her 'Jurassic Park' Fandom, From Pitching Herself to Steven Spielberg to Organizing Screening for Avengers Cast 'Music by John Williams' Doc Director on How Spielberg Convinced the Legendary Composer to Do the Film This was long before massive Imax screens, earth-rumbling sound systems and haptic motion seating made the visceral moviegoing experience a regular thing. It felt like the modern-day equivalent of French audiences ducking or even fleeing the theater as cinema pioneers the Lumière brothers sent a train hurtling toward them in 1896, urban legend or not. Spielberg's first major hit single-handedly changed the business model for Hollywood, giving birth to the blockbuster summer event movie. I've been a sucker for shark thrillers ever since, and even after way too many viewings to count, Jaws still scares the hell out of me. It spawned a feeding frenzy of imitators that continues to this day, aiming to tap into our primal fear of the monster from the deep. Some are effectively lean and mean, like the narratively spare Open Water in 2003, or The Shallows from 2016, which is basically Blake Lively in a bikini being circled on a rock by a great white for 90 minutes. But nothing has ever come close to the tension that floods our veins at the sound of that immortal two-note ostinato, the signature of John Williams' suspenseful score. Or the dolly zoom on the face of Roy Scheider's aquaphobic Amity Island police chief Martin Brody as he watches from the beach while a kid on an inflatable raft turns into a fountain of blood. Or Brody scooping chum from a bucket off the back of the Orca — the boat owned by Robert Shaw's maverick shark hunter Quint — when their target rears up out of the Atlantic, razor teeth bared. Spielberg's mastery, even at that early stage of his career, was in full bloom. Possibly the best thing that happened to him on that troubled shoot — with its soaring budget and stretched schedule — was the constant malfunctioning of the mechanical prop sharks. That forced the director to get crafty, almost inadvertently generating one of the all-time great screen examples of the power of the unseen monster to frighten the wits out of us. Prop issues also led to Spielberg making more extensive use of footage shot by pioneering Australian underwater cinematographers Ron and Valerie Taylor, notably in a standout scene in which a shark attacks and destroys a dive cage. That sequence featuring a real great white in action prompted a rewrite that saved the life of Matt Hooper, the wise-ass oceanographer played by Richard Dreyfuss. (He was shark food in the novel and the original shooting script.) Jaws was shot on Martha's Vineyard, just a hop, skip and jump up Cape Cod from where I spend time every summer in beautiful Provincetown. Even before reports of shark attacks in the area in recent years or the addition of warning signs on the main beaches, I always had a Chief Brody moment whenever I put a toe in the water. But it's never stopped me going in. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Wes Anderson's Movies Ranked From Worst to Best 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT
Buzz Feed
18 hours ago
- Buzz Feed
Jon Stewart Shocked His Staffer Won A Pedro Pascal Lookalike Contest
The fake Pedro Pascal may be as charming as the real Pedro Pascal. On Tuesday, The Daily Show shared a behind-the-scenes clip to its X account in which Jon Stewart revealed to fans that the winner of a New York-based Pedro Pascal lookalike contest was George Gountas — who happens to be the lighting designer for The Daily Show. After inviting Gountas on stage, who looks like he could be a long-lost member of Pascal's family, Stewart made a confession. 'I've never noticed he looks like Pedro Pascal,' Stewart admitted, before showing a photo of what Gountas typically looks like in the office, which looks less like Pascal, but still very Pascal-esque. 'How did you do this?' Stewart asked Gountas. Gountas then launched into a very funny explanation as to how he went from 'Pedro No. 5' during a silly contest on Sunday to its ultimate winner. Gountas explained that a fellow Daily Show staffer noticed fliers for the contest last week. The contest was held at Son Del North, a Mexican restaurant in the lower east side, and the prize for the winner was $50 and a year's supply of free burritos, according to local news station FOX 5 New York. The co-owner of the eatery, chef Annisha Garcia, told People she was inspired to create the contest after coming across an interview with Pascal in which he said that there isn't any 'good Mexican food in New York City.' Gountas went on to tell Stewart about the contest, who was only mildly interested, and completely forgot about it. That was until he mentioned it to his wife, Jenny, just two days before the contest — and Jenny told Gountas he was absolutely doing it. Contesting whether Gountas liked it or not, Jenny enlisted the help of a neighbor, who was a stylist, in order to pin down Pascal's look. 'And I showed up on Father's Day — you were supposed to pre-sign up, I did not sign up,' Gountas said. 'I rolled up, and I was like, 'Yo, I'm here.' And they're like, 'You're going to win.'' And he did. The winner of Pedro Pascal lookalike contest in New York City 📹 jameskleinmann | instagram — Pedro Pascal Daily (@pascalarchive) June 15, 2025 @pascalarchive/X/jameskleinmann / Via Later on in his discussion with Stewart, Gountas eventually revealed that his wife had an ulterior motive in her insistence that he enter the Pedro pageant — and it's that she wanted to use Gountas' 15 minutes of fame to meet the real Pascal. So, Gountas decided to be a good hubby and shared his wife's request on camera in hopes that Pascal would receive the message. 'Hey Pedro, this is Pedro No. 5 from New York,' Gountas began. 'It would be a great, great, great gift if you could meet my wife, Jenny. It would mean the world to her. We need to make this happen.' The winner of the Pedro Pascal lookalike contest is also The Daily Show's lighting designer, George Gountas! #AfterTheCut — The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) June 17, 2025 Although it's currently unclear if Pascal is even aware of this whole fiasco, fans of the Daily Show were blown away by how much Gountas does look like the Last of Us star. See their comments below. I almost feel like that is Pedro Pascal and they're punking us. Anyway Pedro has to meet Jenny he just has to! — Nice4What (@mizztotal) June 18, 2025 @mizztotal/X / Via @dailyshow should change their intro to say "now featuring pedro pascal on camera 2" — Lucas Lyons (@lucaslyonsart) June 18, 2025 @lucaslyonsart/X / Via Pretty amazing!!! He's got the body language dialed in. — Wear your masks (@tonyver45) June 18, 2025 @tonyver45/X / Via He's got the mannerisms down! If that's not him trying to do that, it's even more eerie — j🍥 (@Noteless) June 17, 2025 @Noteless/X / Via
