Grandmas on Film

I absolutely loved How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies mainly because it was an incredibly moving reminder that superheroes aren’t only in fantasy novels and films – they’re grandmas. I know that won’t feel true for everyone as lots of people don’t have grandmas or have complex relationships with theirs. However, as someone who’s been lucky enough to have two fiercely loving grandmas, this felt like the kind of story I’d been waiting to see – the kind I’d love to make to honour my grandmas’ life stories if only I was a talented filmmaker like Pat Boonnitipat!

Boonnitipat’s film is very emotional but also heartwarming and worth the tears. It made me think about on-screen grandma representation and how refreshing it felt for Menju, the grandmother in the film, to be such a key character. I think we need more films like this! So, I then began seeking out old and new films with key grandma characters and asking colleagues if they had any suggestions too which I’ve gathered together here for the enjoyment of any other big grandma fans.

I really enjoyed Yasujirō Ozu’s Tokyo Story (1953) which felt like it was similarly trying to press the importance of appreciating grandparents while they’re still alive. However, perhaps my all-time-favourite grandma on film is Madame Souza from The Triplets of Belleville (2003). What a woman! Even with barely any dialogue her brilliance is plain to see. Her commitment to her grandson – both in supporting his cycling career and venturing on a rescue mission when he’s kidnapped – knows no bounds. Watching her follow a ship on a pedalo was one of my favourite scenes and didn’t even feel too far-fetched for me because of the almost mad levels of selflessness that my grandmas have shown over the years. This devotion also reminded me of the caring and protective Hattie in Nickel Boys.

Although Madame Souza is sweet, funny, kind and has the classic grandma hobby of knitting, she also has a violent side when needed. I think there is often such fierce love within grandmas that can manifest violently if necessary – but sometimes films focus on their sweeter side. Another mistake we can fall into with grandmas in life and in films is by seeing them only as relational to their children and grandchildren. They become of and for their offspring even in name. So, even though for much of The Triplets of Belleville you see Madame Souza doing things for her grandson, it’s refreshing to see how exceptional she is in her own right. For example, she’s very musically talented and even manages to make a bicycle wheel rhythmic and join a band.

I love seeing this kind of vibrant, dynamic representation of older women in films. I think that’s partly why two of my favourite documentaries are The Babushkas of Chernobyl (2015) and The Last of the Sea Women (2024). They’re not all grandmas but they’re all very impressive and stubbornly determined. Even if I’m not entirely on board with their decisions to dive into the ocean’s depths at 90 without oxygen or insist on staying in their radioactive homes, I’m wholeheartedly impressed by their commitment.

So, since my new favourite genre seems to have become grandma films, I’m pleased to present a list of recommendations from my brilliant colleagues:

Yaaba (1989)

My film grandma I want to spotlight is from the Burkina Faso film Yaaba (1989) by Idrissa Ouedraogo. A gentle but powerful drama about a little boy named Bila, and his bond with an elderly woman in the village, Sana. Sana is ostracized and labelled a witch, but Bila sees beyond the judgement and community reputation and becomes her friend, calling her Yaaba (Grandmother). This is a gorgeously elegant film with a simple message, and the relationship between the two shows masterful direction and storytelling. We need both more Bilas and Yaabas in the world! 

Mosa, Creative Engagement Officer.

The Witches (1990)

Much as The Farewell's (2019) Nai Nai may have been a recent Grandma to catch my heart, for this I had to go earlier to find what is for me a definitive on-screen matriarch. Grandma Helga is the perfect combination of warm and loving (complete with great knitwear and a beautiful Norwegian upbringing that screams style) who also knows about witches and is up for a good fight. She's the kind of Grannie who will notice if you've been turned into a mouse and 100% love you anyway. I think ultimately, she's an early (or early for me) representation of a version of growing old I feel excited for.

Wendy, Head of Cinema.

Grandma’s Boy (1922)

Harold Lloyd, often hailed as the third genius of silent comedy alongside Keaton and Chaplin, was one of the biggest stars of the 1920s. In Grandma’s Boy (1922), Lloyd plays a timid, self-doubting young man whose Grandma gives him a “lucky charm” to boost his confidence. Emboldened by the charm, he joins a posse determined to capture a dangerous criminal. The film includes a thrilling car chase and a climactic fight that ends with Lloyd pushing the villain down a well. At the end, Lloyd’s Grandma reveals that the charm was a hoax all along. 

Simon, Volunteer.

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

Although not strictly a grandma, the protagonist Sophie, a young girl who is cursed by a witch and transforms into an old lady, has the traits of my favourite grans! She is both loveable and affectionate whilst also being stern and forthright. It is through her extreme coming-of-age metamorphosis from a timid young girl into a wise, nurturing and confident pseudo-grandma that she is able to literally tame talking fire and offer guidance beyond her years to the immature and insecure wizard, Howl.

Sylvia, Young Audiences Officer.

A White White Day (2019)

Age is seldom just a number when it comes to characters in fiction. A more youthful protagonist may be more appropriate in certain dramatic narratives precisely because they still have “so much to live for”, while an older supporting cast member may serve to administer guidance to them on their journey. On the other hand, an older protagonist often provides an apt vehicle for exploring ideas surrounding memory and thematic subcategories such as nostalgia, grief, and regret. In multimedia artist and director Hlynur Palmason’s melancholic, yet gently nurturing Icelandic drama A White White Day, released in 2019, one of its most pivotal characters is in fact deceased pretty much from the word ‘go’, and remains largely an unseen figment of her husband Ingimundur’s memories and perverse fantasies for the remainder of the runtime. The thrice denominated wife, mother, and grandmother clearly means a great many things to a great many people for her part in upholding their respective family dynamic, and yet we come to learn that her relationship with her husband may not have been as conventionally perfect in life as everyone might have liked to believe. Her role in her family’s lives is a tripartite gear system which grinds to a screeching mechanical halt, demanding the inclusion of clandestine others to stay in motion, and this in turn lights the spark of Ingimundur’s own supressed male covetousness and sulfuric rage. Ingimundur asks himself, did he ever truly know his wife? He would once certainly have liked to think so. In his bereft, perverse, and paranoid obsessions, Ingimundur seeks to reconstitute his wife from the Hadean shards of her intangible object status into some form of explanation resembling the truth of who his wife was to herself, to him, and to others. But in the end, when the utmost strength of his flesh, hardened by the years, goes only so far as to shatter the bonds of trust with those he most cares for, far from hoisting her very soul out of the mud of the River Styx, the only thing left for poor Ingimundur is to reckon with all that demonstrably remains of his beloved wife: herself, as she persists in his subconscious sightlines. Sexy, dependable, and ever-present. An especially noble fancy? Perhaps not. But no-one’s perceptions could ever matter more to him than his own when the imperfect truth has gone to ground. And thus, she remains a grandmother, a mother, and a wife, but also so much more, and still nobody at all. 

Charlie, Volunteer.

Visiting Grandpa (2001) & Our Little Sister (2015)

Perhaps my two favourite depictions of grandmothers in cinema are examples of how physical absence doesn’t preclude emotional presence.

All four of Co Hoedeman’s Ludovic films unfailingly move me to tears every time because of how they exploit the emotional potential of the essence of stop-motion: that it’s things which don’t move of their own accord appearing to move of their own accord. With the third, Visiting Grandpa (2001), they begin welling up pretty much from the start. In this, Ludovic’s Grandma is at first only seen as a still photograph, but she’s animated by Ludovic’s memories just as the puppets are animated by Hoedeman.

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Our Little Sister (2015), based on comics by Akimi Yoshida, takes the concept a step further. The Kōda sister’s grandmother is, like Ludovic’s, technically gone before the start of the film. But, as well as the house they shared being crammed full with evidence of her life, her granddaughters habitually compensate for her absence from their lives by imitating her, so that she’s effectively played, at different points, by the different actresses who otherwise play the sisters. The combined effect is that one comes away from it with an enduring impression of Grandma as a distinct character, like any of those portrayed more conventionally on screen.

Our current favourite grandma film, How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, is back at HPPH from Sat 01 Feb. You can book tickets here.