With The Nan Movie in cinemas, there's only one way that Cinema Paradiso can celebrate Mother's Day and that's by taking a look at grandmas in the movies.
As Prince William once famously put it, 'you don't mess with your grandmother'. As grandson Jamie (Matthew) knows full well, this advice goes double for Joanie Taylor (Catherine Tate). But, when news comes that her sister is dying, Jamie insists on taking Joanie to Ireland to say goodbye in The Nan Movie. En route, he discovers that there's life in the old gal yet (especially during a stopover in Liverpool), while also learning the reasons for Joanie's decades-long estrangement from Nell (Katherine Parkinson).
This raucous road movie (whose release has been delayed a year because of Covid) marks quite a change of pace for director Josie Rourke, after being the artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse between 2010-19. It's certainly a major departure from her feature bow, Mary Queen of Scots (2018). For Tate, however, it's a return to a favourite character from The Catherine Tate Show (2004-06) and such spin-offs as Nan's Christmas Carol (2009) and Catherine Tate's Nan: The Specials (2015). But not every screen grandma is quite such a handful.
Growing Old (Dis) Gracefully
It's often said that children and grandparents have a common enemy in the parents caught between them. Alliances are certainly struck in a number of screen comedies, including Dennis Dugan's Happy Gilmore (1996). Having learned that Grandma (Frances Bay) owes $250,000 in back taxes, failing ice hockey player Happy (Adam Sandler) discovers a talent for golf and enters a tournament in the hope of winning enough to save Grandma's house.
With a pet llama to look after and an active (if somewhat secretive) social life, Carlinda Dynamite (Sandy Martin) hasn't time to fix 'dang quesadillas' for grandsons Napoleon (Jon Heder) and Kip (Aaron Ruell). But, when she's injured in a quad bike accident in the desert, the boys from Preston, Idaho have to stay with their Uncle Rico (Jon Gries) in Jared Hess's Napoleon Dynamite (2004).
Having stolen Adam Sandler's thunder with her rendition of 'Rapper's Delight' as Grandma Rosie in Frank Coraci's The Wedding Singer (1998), nonagenarian Ellen Albertini Dow returned to scene-stealing duties in David Dobkin's Wedding Crashers (2005). In addition to having to be carried back to her room by Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn), rifle-wielding Grandma Mary also provides some shockingly homophobic insights into Eleanor Roosevelt's sexual preferences.
Considering the eccentricities of her relatives, Grandmama (Judith Malina) seems comparatively normal in the two films harking back to the glory days of the classic sitcom, The Addams Family (1964-66), in which the part was played by Blossom Rock. In Barry Sonnenfeld's The Addams Family (1991), Grandmama hosts a séance to help Gomez (Raul Julia) and Morticia (Anjelica Huston) contact the spirit of Uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd), while she realises that baby Pubert's blonde hair and blue eyes are a result of domestic dysfunction in Addams Family Values (1993).
Speaking of TV spin-offs, Penelope Spheeris's The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) had the thankless task of trying to recreate the comedy gold that had bubbled forth from all 274 episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies (1962-71). Give Cloris Leachman her due, she tried hard to get laughs as Granny, but she couldn't emerge from the shadow of Irene Ryan, who set the standard for screen grandmothering as Daisy May Moses, the Ozark mother-in-law who fetches up in Los Angeles after Jed Clampett (Buddy Ebsen) strikes oil.
By contrast, Tom Shadyac's The Nutty Professor (1996) and Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps (2000) derived from a hit feature, Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor (1963). There is no granny in the original lampoon of Robert Louis Stevenson's story about Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. But Ida Mae Jenson gave Murphy the chance to demonstrate his comic versatility, as her overactive sex drive and underdeveloped social skills lead to plenty of comic confrontation with son-in-law Cletus (also Murphy) and a potentially embarrassing sequel encounter with Buddy Love.
Tyler Perry also plays multiple roles in Darren Grant's adaptation of Perry's stage play, Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005). As well as essaying Great Uncle Joe and lawyer son Brian, Perry also takes centre stage as Mabel Earlene Simmons, the tough cookie with a heart of gold who offers granddaughter Helen (Kimberly Elise) sanctuary after she's ditched by her rat husband.
Perry has since reprised the role of Madea in 12 pictures (including two cameos). Sadly, however, only Boo! A Madea Halloween (2016) is available to rent from Cinema Paradiso. Those pining at not being able to see A Madea Homecoming (2022) on disc can take comfort in the numerous Brendan O'Carroll comedies on offer, as he co-stars opposite Perry as Dublin's favourite grandmother, Agnes Brown, in her second big-screen outing after Ben Kellett's Mrs Brown's Boys D'Movie (2014).
Blythe Danner's Dina Byrnes wasn't a grandmother in Jay Roach's Meet the Parents (2000). But, both she and Barbra Streisand's Roz have to get used to the idea when Pam (Teri Polo) gets pregnant in Meet the Fockers (2004). However, they prove much better at taking care of twins Samantha and Henry than husbands Jack (Robert De Niro) and Bernie (Dustin Hoffman) in Paul Weitz's Little Fockers (2010).
It's two for the price of one when it comes to the title, Grandma's Boy. The first was made by Fred C. Newmeyer in 1922 and can be found on the superb compendium, The Art of Harold Lloyd (2006). The bespectacled everyman (Lloyd) plays a milquetoast, who becomes a hero after his grandma (Anna Townsend) gives him the lucky charm that had seen his grandfather (also Lloyd) through the American Civil War. The prized item in Nicholaus Goossen's Grandma's Boy (2006) is a ticket to a taping of the TV show, Antiques Roadshow, which luckless thirtysomething Alex (Allen Covert) acquires for Grandma Lilly (Doris Roberts) and her dotty friends, Bea (Shirley Knight) and Grace (Shirley Jones), after they give him somewhere to stay.
A girl's best friend proves to be her grandmother-in-law in Anne Fletcher's The Proposal (2009), after New York book editor Margaret Tait (Sandra Bullock) is threatened with deportation back to Canada and receives some words of wisdom from Gammy Annie (Betty White) after assistant Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds) agrees to marry her so that she can obtain a Green Card. A helping hand is also provided by lesbian poet Elle Reid (Lily Tomlin) in Paul Weitz's Grandma (2015), as she gets over a break-up with her girlfriend by helping granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) find the money she needs to raise before sundown.
There are shades of Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) in Clara Mamet's Two-Bit Waltz (2014), which sees 17 year-old Maude (Mamet) inherit $5 million from her recently deceased grandmother, on the proviso that she completes her education rather than wasting her time on her first novel. There may be a familial link with our next offering, but the tone is pure Todd Solondz in Wiener-Dog (2016), whose concluding vignette centres on the eponymous dachshund's final owner, Nana (Ellen Burstyn). Between bouts of reminiscence about missed opportunities, she helps long-unseen granddaughter Zoe (Zosia Mamet) discover whether her boyfriend, Fantasy (Michael Shaw), is cheating on her.
Completing the comic section are Srikant Chellappa's Bad Grandmas (2017) and Ol Parker's Mama Mia! Here We Go Again (2018). The former sees Mimi (Florence Henderson), Coralee (Pam Grier) and Virginia (Sally Eaton) help out best friend Bobbi (Susie Wall) when she accidentally kills her worthless son-in-law and is pestered by a con-man named Harry (Judge Reinhold). Both a prequel and a sequel, the latter sees Donna Sheridan (Lily James) find her way to the Greek island of Kalokairi in 1979, while grieving daughter Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) prepares to reopen the Hotel Bella Donna on the same island four decades later.
There's No One Quite Like Grandma
We stay in a musical mood for Harold D. Schuster and Hamilton Luske's So Dear to My Heart (1948), a Disney reworking of Sterling North's novel, Midnight and Jeremiah. Blending live-action and animation, this overlooked period piece centres on a tussle on a farm in 1903 between Jeremiah Kincaid (Bobby Driscoll) and Granny (Beulah Bondi), who disapproves of his pet lamb. Disney was also responsible for two more grandmaternal charmers, Moana (2016) and Coco (2017).
Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, the former is set on the Polynesian island of Motunui and sees grandmother Tala (Rachel House) take Moana (Auli'i Cravalho) to the secret cave of ships to explain why she has to return the stolen pounamu stone that is the heart of the goddess of nature, Te Fiti. Made for Pixar by Lee Unkrich, the latter takes us from the Mexican village of Santa Cecilia to the Land of the Dead, as Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) strives to understand why his great-great grandmother, Imelda (Alanna Ubach), refuses to let anyone in her shoemaking family play music.
Holding back dark forces is a task shared by Mai Zetterling and Octavia Spencer in the two big-screen adaptations of Roald Dahl's The Witches. In Nicolas Roeg's 1990 retelling, Helga Eveshim has to protect grandson Luke (Jason Fisher) after he is turned into a mouse by Eva Ernst, who is also known as the Grand High Witch (Anjelica Huston). Whereas, Robert Zemeckis's 2020 version, has Agatha Hansen rescue grandson Charlie (Jahzir Bruno) from the murine machinations of the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway).
Hathaway is seen in a much sweeter light as Mia Thermopolis, who is swept from San Francisco to the European kingdom of Genovia in Garry Marshall's adaptation of Meg Cabot's young adult bestseller, The Princess Diaries (2001). On learning that she's the heir to the throne, Mia is guided through court etiquette by her paternal grandmother, Clarisse Renaldi (Julie Andrews). She's also on hand in The Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement (2004), as Mia turns 21 and has to fight off an attempt to seize power by Viscount Mabrey (Jonathan Rhys-Davies).
Both the Hathaway connection and the fairytale feel continue into Cory Edwards's Hoodwinked (2005), an animated parody of the Little Red Riding Hood saga that draws inspiration from Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950) and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) to show how Detective Nicky Flippers deals with a case of house invasion. Glenn Close voices Granny Abigail Puckett in this amusing romp, which is just one of many Red Riding Hood variations detailed in Part One of Cinema Paradiso's Brief History of Pantomime Stories on Film.
Grans That Go Bump in the Night
While we're on the subject of Red Riding Hood, Neil Jordan's adaptation of Angela Carter's gothic revision, The Company of Wolves (1984), transformed the way in which film-makers tackled the topic by shifting the emphasis away from the folly and lustfulness of the Wolf (Micha Bergese) to the psyche and sexuality of the heroine, Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson). Caught in the middle of their relationship is poor old Granny (Angela Lansbury). But few will have any sympathy for Olivia (Louise Fletcher), the religious fanatic who makes life hell for the four grandchildren who come to stay after their mother is widowed in Jeffrey Bloom's 1987 interpretation of Virginia C. Andrews's cult novel, Flowers in the Attic.
Orphaned teenagers David (Eric Foster) and Lynn (Kim Valentine) also find it hard to settle when they move to the creepy abode owned by their grandparents (Ida Lee and Len Lesser) in Peter Rader's slasher, Grandmother's House (1988). Unfortunately, it's not possible to see Stella Stevens relishing a role against type in Luca Bercovici's The Granny (1995), but Cinema Paradiso users can treat themselves to Sava Popovic going on the rampage with an axe when eight college students hove into view in Boris Pavlovsky's Granny (1999), which boasts the tagline, 'She'll Love You to Pieces'.
The very fact that The Visit (2015) has been directed by M. Night Shyamalan should clue viewers to the fact that all will not be what it seems when a divorced mother goes on a cruise with her new beau and leaves Philadelphia teenagers Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) with Marja Bella (Deanna Dunagan) and Frederick Spencer Jamison (Peter McRobbie). Sure enough, Nana and Pop Pop weren't kidding when they told the kids not to venture out of their rooms after 9:30pm!
The bogeyman arrives a little later in Travis Zanwy's The Midnight Man (2016), a reworking of Irishman Rob Kennedy's 2013 chiller of the same name. Genre icon Lin Shaye plays the dementia-addled granny whose rambling house contains a sinister game that proves irresistible to caretaker granddaughter Gabrielle Haugh and her boyfriend, Grayson Gabriel. Welshman Marcus Carroll also discovers that all is not well with grandma Abigail Hamilton when she turns into a zombie and makes a beeline for his brains in Tudley James's Granny of the Dead (2017).
The undead spirits prove to be more benevolent in Okko's Inn (2018), Kitaro Kosaka's anime feature based on the novels of Hiroko Reijo, which sees Oriko Seki lose her parents in a car crash and come to live with Grandma Mineko at the Hananoyu Inn, a traditional Japanese ryokan whose grounds are haunted by ghosts. The storyline bears a passing similarity to that of the six sublime books that Lucy M. Boston set in a house dating back to the Norman Conquest. Daphne Oxenford played Mrs Oldknow in Colin Cant's 1986 BBC serialisation of The Children of Green Knowe, in which grandson Tolly (Alec Christie) gets to know three ancestors who lived in the reign of Charles II.
The books clearly left an impression on screenwriter Julian Fellowes (of Gosford Park and Downton Abbey fame), as he made his directorial debut with From Time to Time (2009), an adaptation of The Chimneys of Green Knowe that brings Tolly (Alex Etel) home to spend a wartime Christmas with his grandmother (Maggie Smith). However, a spectral encounter takes him back a century to a time when Green Knowe was under threat.
Having been the stalked teenager in John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) finds herself so traumatised by Michael Myers that she is estranged from her daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), and granddaughter, Allyson Nelson (Andi Matichak) in David Gordon Green's Halloween (2018). But terror has a habit of bringing families together. As is the case when a visit to Grandma Edna (Robyn Nevin) turns into a living nightmare in Natalie Erica James's Relic (2020). On discovering that Edna is missing, daughter Kay (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) are troubled by noises from behind the walls and the appearance of a mysterious black mould. However, they are even more bemused when Edna reappears barefoot and dishevelled and unable to say where she has been.
Nans For the Memory
What wouldn't we give for a chance to see Minerva Hatton (May Robson) turn sheriff to clear granddaughter Julie Westcott (Margot Stevenson) of murder in George Amy's Nevada drama, Granny Get Your Gun (1940) ? But we'll settle for Shukichi (Chishu Ryu) and Tomi Hirayama (Chieko Higashiyama) trying to be good grandparents to the sons of their eldest boy in Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story (1953). However, the couple's visit is regarded as an inconvenient intrusion by their busy offspring and they only receive a warm welcome from their widowed daughter-in-law, Noriko (Setsuko Hara).
In Mark Rydell's adaptation of Ernest Thompson's play, On Golden Pond (1981), Norman Thayer (Henry Fonda) is more begrudgingly willing to allow 13 year-old Billy (Doug McKeon) to stay at his New England cottage to allow estranged daughter Chelsea (Jane Fonda) to spend time with the boy's father. In his final film, Fonda earned his sole Oscar, while Katharine Hepburn took her fourth for excelling as his coaxing spouse, Ethel. Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) also promises to take good care of her three grandchildren after disaffected daughter Emma (Debra Winger) falls ill in James L. Brooks's poignant adaptation of Larry McMurtry's novel, Terms of Endearment (1983).
Gaining a new lease of life from bathing in a pool full of Antarean pods, retirement home residents Ben (Wilford Brimley) and Mary Luckett (Maureen Stapleton) make a decision that will separate them forever from grandson
David (Barret Oliver) in Ron Howard's touching sci-fi saga, Cocoon (1985). By contrast, a reunion is planned by four grandchildren in Akira Kurosawa's Rhapsody in August (1993). However, Grandma Kane (Sachiko Murase) is reluctant to meet her long-lost brother and his Hawaiian son, Clark (Richard Gere), because she can't forgive America for killing her husband in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
Another departure drives the action in Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust (1991), which was the first feature directed by an African American woman to secure a theatrical release. While everyone around her plans to leave St Simons Island for the mainland in 1902, Nana Peazant (Cora Lee Day) is keen for the migrants to remain true to their West African roots. And remembrance is also the theme of Jocelyn Moorhouse's adaptation of Whitney Otto's novel, How to Make an American Quilt (1995), as Finn Dodd (Winona Ryder) is joined by grandmother Hyacinth (Ellen Burstyn) and her feuding sister Glady Joe (Anne Bancroft) in a summer quilting bee while she contemplates the prospect of marriage.
Memories are also stirred when 100 year-old Rose Dawson Calvert (Gloria Stuart) and her granddaughter, Lizzy (Suzy Amis), travel to meet treasure hunter Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) and see a drawing found in a safe recovered from a sunken liner in James Cameron's multi-Oscar-winning Titanic (1997). Despite sharing the same house, Granny Wallon (Freda Dowie) and Granny Trill (Margery Withiers) are as distant as the First and Third Class passengers in Charles Beeson's delightful adaptation of Laurie Lee's memoir of his Cotswold childhood, Cider With Rosie (1998).
We'll see more of Ella Hirsch (Shirley MacLaine) and Georgia Randall (Jane Fonda) when we discuss Curtis Hanson's In Her Shoes (2005) and Garry Marshall's Georgia Rule (2007) in Cinema Paradiso's Top 10 Movie Grandmas list. In the meantime, let's call in on Cilla McGowan (Brittany Murphy), the former child star who learns about the fate of her famous actress grandmother when she tries to renovate her old home in Martha Coolidge's take on Nora Roberts's bestseller, Tribute (2009).
An unconventional family comes under scrutiny in Hirokazu Kore-eda's Oscar-nominated Palme d'or winner, Shoplifters (2018). However, the elderly Hatsue Shibata (Kirin Kiki) keeps a close eye on Tokyo bar hostess Aki (Mayu Matsuoka), as she is the daughter of the son her late husband fathered during an adulterous affair. Family relations prove just as complex in Lulu Wang's The Farewell (2019), as the New York-raised Billi (Akwafina) can't understand why her relatives don't want Nai Nai (Zhao Shu-zhen) to know that she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Two grandmothers take differing approaches to a problem keeping their children apart in Barry Jenkins's adaptation of James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk (2018). But, while the pious Alice Hunt (Aunjanjue Ellis) expresses her disapproval of the fact that jailed son Fonny (Stephan James) is expecting a child with Tish (KiKi Lane), Sharon Rivers (Regina King) travels to Puerto Rico to find evidence to prove him innocent of rape.
King won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and Judi Dench has been nominated for the same award for her performance as Granny in Kenneth Branagh's semi-autobiographical drama, Belfast (2021), which centres on the experiences of nine year-old Buddy (Jude Hill), as the Troubles erupt in Northern Ireland.
Cinema Paradiso's TV Grandmas Checklist
It seems a shame to limit ourselves to a Top 10 of movie grandmas when there are also a few memorable small-screen grannies on offer in the Cinema Paradiso catalogue.
How many of the following do you remember? Order now to revisit your favourites or discover a new boxed set fixation this Mother's Day.
Maybe we've missed the grandmother you like best. Why not tell us about it on Twitter or Instagram?
1. Endora (Agnes Moorehead) in Bewitched (1964-1972)
2. Esther (Ellen Corby) in The Waltons (1972-81)
3. Anna Huxtable (Clarice Taylor) in The Cosby Show (1984-91)
4. Sophia Petrillo (Estelle Getty), Rose Nyland (Betty White), Dorothy Zbornak (Beatrice Arthur) and Blanche Devereaux (Rue McClanahan) in The Golden Girls (1985-92)
5. Beverly Harris (Estelle Parsons) and Nana Mary (Shelley Winters) in Roseanne (1988-97)
6. Mother (June Whitfield) in Absolutely Fabulous (1992-2012)
7. Marie Barone (Doris Roberts) in Everybody Loves Raymond (1996-2004)
8. Nana Norma Jean Speakman (Liz Smith) in The Royle Family (1998-2012)
9. Livia Soprano (Nancy Marchand) in The Sopranos (1999-2007)
10. Emily Gilmore (Kelly Bishop) in Gilmore Girls (2000-07)
11. Lucille Bluth (Jessica Walter) in Arrested Development (2003-18)
12. Evelyn Nora Harper (Holland Taylor) in Two and a Half Men (2003-15)
13. Lorraine Saracen (Louanne Stephens) in Friday Night Lights (2006-11)
14. Lois Henrickson (Grace Zabriskie) in Big Love (2006-11)
15. Adele Stackhouse (Lois Smith) in True Blood (2008-14)
16. Lily (Linda Bassett) in Grandma's House (2010-12)
17. Dowager Countess Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith) and Martha Levinson (Shirley MacLaine) in Downton Abbey (2010-15)
18. Grandma Nellie Buller (Frances Cuka) and Cynthia 'Horrible Grandma' Goodman in Friday Night Dinner (2011-20)
19. Lady Olenna Tyrell (Diana Rigg) in Game of Thrones (2011-19)
20. Granny (Julia McKenzie) in Gangsta Granny (2013)
21. Grace Hanson (Jane Fonda) and Frances Bergstein (Lily Tomlin) in Grace and Frankie (2015-17)
