Next Sunday is Father’s Day which makes this the perfect time to reminisce about great film fathers – both good ones and bad, all of which can be found on home video.

Unlike great screen mothers, of which there are many, great screen fathers are more difficult to find, so I’ll limit this to ten that have moved me to everything from tears to anger over the years.

In chronological order:

Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Oscar winner Donat did not play an actual father, but an educator, a teacher at an English boys’ boarding school who nurtured children in his care for generations. His motto was “give a boy a sense of humor and a sense of proportion and he’ll stand up to anything.”

His last words, as he lay dying in his 80s were “I thought I heard you saying it was a pity… pity I never had any children. But you’re wrong. I have. Thousands of them. Thousands of them… and all boys.”

Frank Morgan in The Mortal Storm (1940)

One of Hollywood’s first anti-Nazi films, this one concentrates on a German family in the German Alps whose beloved paterfamilias (Morgan) is a distinguished professor who is arrested and sent to a concentration camp in 1933 as the Nazis come to power.

Morgan’s character’s mantra was “may we not believe as we choose and allow others to do the same?” As his life nears its end, he reminisces that “I’ve never prized safety either for myself or my children. I prized courage.”

Donald Crisp in How Green Was My Valley (1941)

Oscar winner Crisp had the role of his career as the patriarch of a Welsh coal-mining family that loses five of its sons to other parts of the world as jobs in the industry dry up. Only the youngest son, the film’s narrator Huw, remains behind.

“Memory,” says Huw, “strange that the mind will forget so much of what only this moment has passed, and yet hold clear and bright the memory of what happened years ago, of men and women long since dead.”

Gregory Peck in The Keys of the Kingdom (1944)

Roman Catholic priests do not marry so they aren’t likely to be biological fathers but are called Father because they are fathers to their flocks as are clergymen of most Christian religions. None has been more memorable than Oscar nominee Peck as the Scottish missionary in China in the 1930s.

“Dear Lord, let me have patience and forbearance where now I have anger. Give me humility, Lord; after all, it was only thy merciful goodness and thy divine providence that saved the boy… but they *are* ungrateful and You know it!” he says in prayer after saving the Mandarin’s son.

James Dunn in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)

Set in poverty-stricken Brooklyn circa 1914, Oscar winner Dunn had the role of his career as the well-meaning but ineffectual father, a singing waiter with a fondness for the bottle. He is always quick with a cheerful bon mot such as “God invented time and when He invents something, there’s always plenty of it.” Sadly, his character didn’t have a lot of time, much of the narrative taking place after his untimely death.

Peggy Ann Garner also won an Oscar, a juvenile award, in an equally unforgettable performance as his daughter.

James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Oscar nominee Stewart’s beloved character is a son, a brother, a husband, and finally a father in this Christmas time perennial. Saved from suicide by his guardian angel, Clarence (Henry Travers), in this well-known tale, he is shown what the world would have been if he hadn’t been there to help people along the way.

“Strange, isn’t it?” Clarence says, “Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”

Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

The screen’s best loved father of all time, Oscar winner Peck hadn’t played a father since the back-to-back one he played in 1946’s The Yearling and 1947’s Gentleman’s Agreement but his widowed lawyer and father of two here was so memorable that no actor has had a comparable role since.

“I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he’d rather I’d shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted – if I could hit ’em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

John Huston in Chinatown (1974)

There was never a screen father eviler than John Huston here. Roman Polanski’s classic tale of deceit, corruption, and murder was tailor-made for the blustery actor-director otherwise best remembered for his work behind the camera than in front of it.

“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

Robert Duvall in The Great Santini (1980)

Oscar nominee Duvall plays a demanding alpha male father, an aggressively competitive, but frustrated Marine pilot who expects too much from his teenage son played by fellow Oscar nominee Michael O’Keefe. It’s nicely resolved, however.

“I’d like to propose a toast, to my son. He is eighteen today. He has just ordered his first drink. Before he drinks it, I’d like to wish him a long life, a wife as fine as his mother, and a son as fine as he’s been. To my son!”

Anthony Hopkins in The Father (2020)

Oscar winner Hopkins plays the kind of character infrequently seen in earlier films, a confused, often terrified old man losing his grasp on reality.

“I don’t need any help from anyone. And I’m not going to leave my flat. All I want is for everyone to fuck off. Having said that… it’s been a great pleasure. Au revoir. Toodle-oo.”

Happy viewing.