Father’s Day 2024: From Piku and Udaan to Animal, 7 Bollywood films that beautifully explore father-child relationships

Today is Father’s Day and what better way to celebrate it than with some amazing films? Bollywood movies have always celebrated fathers be they the strict ones, the chilled-out ones, the ones with dad jokes up their sleeves, or those who struggle to make their kid’s dreams come true. From showing us a father-child relationship can blossom against all odds in films like Paa and Masoom to giving us dads who will fight the world for their child – Akele Hum Akele Tum, B-wood films have several types of fathers.

This Father’s Day, watch these 7 Bollywood films that beautifully explore father-child relationships

Masoom

How do you love a son or a father you’ve never known? Directed by Shekhar Kapur, this film features Naseeruddin Shah (DK) and Shabana Azmi (Indu) as a happy, married couple. Until they discover that DK has a son, Rahul, from a previous affair, and that he has nowhere to go as his mother has passed away. Heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal parts, it’s a movie that explores fatherhood through the lens of forgiveness, love and the courage to start afresh.

Wake Up Sid

This coming-of-age story will make you laugh, cry and just reach out to your dad for a long hug. Sid (Ranbir Kapoor) is rich, carefree and has no idea what he’s going to do with his life. His father, the stern but loving Ram Mehra (Anupam Kher) wants him to take his life seriously, and join the family business. After failing his exams, and a fight with his dad, Sid moves out and finds refuge at his new friend, Aisha’s (Konkona Sen) apartment. While Sid and Aisha’s love story takes a heartwarming turn, what stays with you is how Sid and his dad find their way back to each other.

Udaan

Not all father-child relationships have a happy ending. It doesn’t mean that there was no love; it just perhaps wasn’t enough. In Vikramaditya Motwane’s directorial debut, an angsty teenager Rohan(Rajat Barmecha) and his dad Bhairav (Ronit Roy) share a tumultuous relationship. After being expelled from a boarding school, Rohan is forced to live with his oppressive, often abusive father and his six-year-old half-brother Arjun. Rohan wants to write but Bhairav forces him to take engineering classes and work at the local factory to get his life in order. In the end, the roles are almost reversed when Rohan takes Arjun under his wings with the love and care that neither of them received from their father.

Piku

Piku is the story of a beautiful father-daughter bond. The titular character – played by Deepika Padukone, is a career-driven, independent single woman in her thirties caring for her elderly father – played by Amitabh Bachchan, who has gastric problems. The comical twists and turns as they take a road trip to their hometown in Kolkata with Rana (Irrfan Khan) – the owner of a taxi service, is emotional as much as it’s humorous.

Karwaan

This 2018 Bollywood movie explores the complicated relationship of a father and son arising due to conflicting views on the child’s career choices. Avinash (Dulquer Salmaan), who is forced to become an IT engineer, has an estranged relationship with his father who opposes him becoming a photographer. After his father’s death, Avinash embarks on an accidental road trip that reveals the many layers of their relationship.

Animal

This Ranbir Kapoor starrer ignited debate on social media over almost every point the film touched – violence, gender roles, misogyny, music and its performances. But beneath all the hyper-stylish action, inventive screenplay and chartbuster music was the story of a son wanting the love of his father (Anil Kapoor). Animal remains a biting example of the extent a son can go to for his father’s love, making it both, a cautionary tale and a riveting watch exploring the human psyche.

Pushtaini

Are all father-child relationships happy, fun and secure? Some are overcast by trauma, guilt and grief that run deep. Here’s a film that explores all the shades of a father-son relationship. Directed by Hrithik Roshan’s acting coach Vinod Rawat, and presented by Roshan, Pushtaini is the story of Bhuppi (played by Rawat), a struggling actor, who is forced to take a journey back to where he began: his home town in Uttarakhand, where the film takes a nuanced, unbiased approach to the father-son relationship. The film – featuring a special cameo by Rajkummar Rao, releases on June 21.

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads, babas, papas, abbas, appas and dadas out there.

Also Read: Sanjay Dutt remembers father Sunil Dutt on his birth anniversary; promises to follow his values