--- title: Family Ties: 10 Movies with Father-Child Stars description: Will and Jaden Smith's 'After Earth' is the latest movie to treat its stars' nepotism as a selling point canonical: https://time.com/archive/7118732/relative-value-10-movies-with-father-child-stars/ author: Gary Susman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-06-04T09:45:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-16T05:40:11.696Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Family Ties: 10 Movies with Father-Child Stars og:description: Will and Jaden Smith's 'After Earth' is the latest movie to treat its stars' nepotism as a selling point og:url: https://time.com/archive/7118732/relative-value-10-movies-with-father-child-stars/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e3bd48c1cf13200/698a8ec5db2987ac982714ba/wallstreet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: POPULIST - Movies Starring Fathers and Kids - Wall Street og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Family Ties: 10 Movies with Father-Child Stars twitter:description: Will and Jaden Smith's 'After Earth' is the latest movie to treat its stars' nepotism as a selling point twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e3bd48c1cf13200/698a8ec5db2987ac982714ba/wallstreet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # Family Ties: 10 Movies with Father-Child Stars > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. by [Gary Susman](https://time.com/author/gary-susman/) Jun 4, 2013 9:45 AM UTC  Twentieth Century Fox by [Gary Susman](https://time.com/author/gary-susman/) Jun 4, 2013 9:45 AM UTC Will and Jaden Smith’s ‘After Earth’ is the latest movie to treat its stars’ nepotism as a selling point ## In the Name of the Father 
It's curious that Sony didn't wait a couple more weekends, until Father's Day, to release After Earth. After all, it's all about daddy issues, centering on a space cadet whose father is a legendary serviceman, who finds himself marooned along with the old man on a post-apocalyptic Earth and fighting for survival. That the pair are played by Jaden Smith and his real-life pop, box office titan Will Smith, is only supposed to add resonance to the movie's exploration of its daddy issues. Indeed, the Smiths are old hands at this sort of thing, having played father and son before, to great acclaim, in The Pursuit of Happyness.



In Hollywood, such nepotism is no sin; in fact, it's often a selling point. Not only do we get to compare the scion to the sire and see whether the genes for talent, attractiveness, and charisma lined up, but we also get a glimpse at what the off-screen relationship between father and child may be like. (Or, at least, we think we're getting such a glimpse; the movies certainly do little to discourage us from thinking so.) Sometimes, in fact, we may learn more than we really want to know about the stars' family lives.



Here are 10 such movies, featuring famous fathers co-starring with their actual kids, that deliberately smudge the line between performance and private life, all for our entertainment. niennunb ## Blown Away 
Lloyd and Jeff Bridges



Aside from the fact that it's impossible to watch this 1994 movie now without being reminded of the recent Boston Marathon bombing (the film's set-piece is a terrorist explosion in Copley Square, the location of last month's attack), there's also the fact that Blown Away isn't really a good movie to begin with. Still, it gets points for casting Lloyd Bridges as Jeff's uncle. This being Boston, the elder Bridges' performance is full of Irish blarney, while the younger Bridges, playing a bomb squad investigator, offers his usual understated performance full of inner demons who stay inner.



It's a fun contrast, and an instructive one. Lloyd, after all, was often full of boiled ham, but his showmanship, his old-school eagerness to entertain and give viewers their money's worth, is of no small value. But if you prefer the more modern, Method-informed style of movie acting, one that aims for psychological realism rather than for the back row seats, then Jeff's your man. Either way, both men seem to display a mutual appreciation and affection that, by all accounts, marked the pair's real-life relationship. niennunb ## It Runs in the Family 
Kirk, Michael, and Cameron Douglas



Michael Douglas' first real movie work was in a film of his father's, the aptly titled Cast a Giant Shadow. These days, Michael casts nearly as giant a shadow as Kirk, though Pop arguably has the edge as both a movie icon and a charismatic screen presence. This is true even after the stroke that has impaired Kirk's speech. For proof, check out this movie, an apparent labor of love that features Kirk, Michael and Michael's son Cameron playing father, son, and grandson. (Even Diana Douglas, Michael's mom, who divorced Kirk decades ago, came back to play Kirk's wife and Michael's mother.)



The plot is standard-issue stuff about Oedipal anxiety among a family of Manhattan overachievers. (The family profession here is law, not showbiz, but it could just as easily have been plumbing or horticulture.) Kirk gets most of the big emotional moments here, with the others seemingly happy to cede the spotlight to him. Cameron, as the ne'er-do-well grandson, acquits himself as an actor among his more celebrated relatives. Watching the film may feel like eavesdropping on the Douglas family Passover seder, but then, that's what a seder is, the umpteenth retelling of a very old and familiar story. niennunb ## Honkytonk Man 
Clint and Kyle Eastwood

There's a lot in Honkytonk Man to make you squirm, and not just because you have to listen to Clint Eastwood rasp out some country-western tunes. (You'd think he'd have learned his lesson after Paint Your Wagon.) He's Red Stovall, a self-destructive, roguish, Hank Williams-esque crooner hoping to reach Nashville to record his songs before tuberculosis claims his pipes and his life. Kyle plays his 14-year-old nephew Whit, who's a better driver than his uncle and who sees Red's quest as an opportunity for him to escape from the family's Dust Bowl Oklahoma farm.

Along the way, Red teaches him some dubious moral lessons and oversees the loss of Kyle's virginity in a whorehouse. It's hard to watch that sequence without wondering what in the world Clint, who directed and produced the film in addition to casting his own son, thought and felt while directing Kyle's performance in the scene. Then again, in real life, Kyle grew up to be a jazz bassist and did soundtrack work on a number of his father's films. So maybe Clint knew what he was doing. niennunb ## On Golden Pond 
Henry and Jane Fonda



Henry Fonda won his only Oscar for what turned out to be his last role, as crotchety patriarch Norman Thayer Jr., but given the famously fraught relationship between Fonda and daughter Jane, maybe the character wasn't much of an acting stretch. Probably not a stretch for Jane, either. She seethes throughout the film as Norman's daughter Chelsea, bitter over a lifetime of failing to win her father's approval.



For his part, Norman, whose lifelong emotional detachment is now eclipsed by his preoccupation with death, isn't about to stop withholding his feelings and become emotionally expressive and open. (Some old-fashioned sexism may be involved, as Chelsea observes that Norman has bonded with her future stepson in a way he never did with her.) When Chelsea finally tries to meet him halfway on his own turf, it's a small moment, but it feels like a huge emotional dam-burst. niennunb ## The Great Buck Howard 
Tom and Colin Hanks



In this fable, Colin Hanks drops out of law school and becomes the assistant to a has-been magician (John Malkovich), much to the dismay of his own father (Tom Hanks). Is this perhaps how Tom felt in real life when Colin decided to follow him into the often cruel and callous world of show business? (Indeed, the whole point of the movie is that Buck is happiest performing at community arts centers and miserable amid the glitz and forced charm of full-on Vegas-style showbiz fame.)



Actually, the elder Hanks is probably okay with his son's career choice, given that Tom also served as producer on this project. Besides, the movie only played a handful of art-houses instead of enjoying a national release, so only a handful of local audiences saw it. In other words, it achieved a Buck Howard level of success. So everything turned out all right for the Hankses. niennunb ## The Treasure of the Sierra Madre  Walter Huston, Tim Holt and John Huston (director) on the set of 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'
Walter and John Huston

John Huston remains the only filmmaker in movie history to direct both his daughter and his father in Oscar-winning performances. Daughter Anjelica won a Supporting Actress trophy for 1985's Prizzi's Honor, while her grandfather Walter won his 37 years earlier in Sierra Madre. (John, too, won an Oscar for directing Sierra Madre.) Walter's vanity-free performance as Howard, the wily prospector, suggests a lifetime of hard-won experience and wisdom. (John persuaded his father to abandon his matinee-idol image, along with his dentures, to play Howard.)

Even if Howard is ultimately as foolish as his hot-tempered younger colleagues (Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt) on their self-destructive quest for gold, the director still paints his father's character in the most flattering possible light. Whenever he's in the picture, he gets the best lines and the biggest emotional moments, while Bogart and Holt simmer on the back burners. Decades later, John would play similar crafty, patriarchal roles in movies directed by others, but here, he gives himself just a small, amusing cameo, as a white-suited man who gets increasingly irritated as Bogart repeatedly begs him for money. niennunb ## Paper Moon 
Ryan and Tatum O'Neal



In Peter Bogdanovich's Depression-era dramedy, Ryan O'Neal is a con man posing as a Bible salesman, while Tatum is a wily con artist herself, one whose innocent-cherub act complements and enhances his patter. There's a sense throughout that the nine-year-old girl is both more emotionally honest and smarter than the rakish slickster she's taken on as a father figure. (Indeed, Tatum became the youngest Oscar-winner in history for the role.)



For his part, he seems to regard her as an annoyance, especially when he's trying to rev up his romantic life, rather than someone for whom he has fatherly affection, someone he can't do without. Given what we know now about the long-estranged Ryan and Tatum — whose mutual nadir was probably when he encountered her at a funeral, didn't recognize her, and hit on her — their twisted relationship in Paper Moon suddenly seems even more believable. niennunb ## Wall Street 
Martin and Charlie Sheen



As in Oliver Stone's previous movie, Platoon, a doe-eyed young Charlie Sheen is caught between two father figures fighting for his soul — only here, one of them is his real dad. Carl Fox is a straight-arrow blue-collar guy, the opposite of Bud Fox's (Charlie) greed-is-good mentor, financier Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). A quarter-century after its release, it's hard to watch Wall Street, with its prickly arguments between the Sheens, and not hear premonitions of solid journeyman Martin's likely disappointment with Charlie over his son's notorious hubris ("Winning!") and wastrel ways. ("I don't sleep with no whore," says Carl.)



Still, familial pride is apparent, too. For proof, watch the meta-gag in Charlie's Hot Shots! Part Deux, where he's a mercenary on a mission, offering a gritty voiceover monologue while his patrol boat navigates a river. Suddenly, here comes Martin, on a boat going the opposite direction, doing his voiceover from Apocalypse Now. As they pass each other, they shout, in unison, "I loved you in Wall Street!" niennunb ## Zoolander 
Jerry and Ben Stiller



Jerry Stiller specializes in comic apoplexy and rage, while son Ben specializes in comic humiliation and shame. Both play against type somewhat in Zoolander (which Ben also wrote and directed), but their relationship works anyway. As an over-the-hill male model, Derek Zoolander (Ben) suffers repeated humiliations, but fortunately, he's too oblivious to feel embarrassment. His agent, Maury Ballstein (Jerry) both exploits and shelters him, so the elder Stiller's performance is a mix of crass opportunism and paternal protectiveness.



Those two elements can't be separated, so you'll forgive Maury when he sells out Derek and then later comes to his rescue. If you imagine Ben's childhood in the Jerry Stiller-Anne Meara household to have been marked by lots of yelling and screaming, punctuated with rueful laughter, then the Maury-Derek relationship is probably a true emotional portrait of that upbringing. niennunb ## Lara Croft: Tomb Raider 
Jon Voight and Angelina Jolie



Voight and Jolie have a notoriously strained relationship off-screen, but there's no evidence of that in the first Lara Croft movie, made while they were still on civil terms. Indeed, there's little but mutual father-daughter admiration in their interactions here. Voight plays a skilled veteran who doesn't mind being upstaged and eclipsed by his brazen daughter in their shared field of endeavor (in this case, supernatural archaeology, of the Indiana Jones variety).



Everything about this video game adaptation is pretty shameless, from Jolie's spot-on appropriation of a British upper-class accent, to her curve-hugging look-but-don't-touch wardrobe, to the casting of Voight as her character's dad, and yet it all works, in a base, pandering way. Maybe there's something extravagant about the movie's purchase of emotional heft by casting real-life father-daughter Oscar-winning actors, but you almost have to admire the movie's unruffled shamelessness. niennunb ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7118732/relative-value-10-movies-with-father-child-stars/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7118732/relative-value-10-movies-with-father-child-stars/"},"headline":"Family Ties: 10 Movies with Father-Child Stars","datePublished":"2013-06-04T09:45:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-16T05:40:11.696Z","description":"Will and Jaden Smith's 'After Earth' is the latest movie to treat its stars' nepotism as a selling point","url":"https://time.com/archive/7118732/relative-value-10-movies-with-father-child-stars/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e3bd48c1cf13200/698a8ec5db2987ac982714ba/wallstreet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Gary Susman","url":"https://time.com/author/gary-susman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e3bd48c1cf13200/698a8ec5db2987ac982714ba/wallstreet.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"POPULIST - Movies Starring Fathers and Kids - Wall Street","caption":"","creditText":"Twentieth Century Fox","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7118732/relative-value-10-movies-with-father-child-stars/","name":"Family Ties: 10 Movies with Father-Child Stars"}}]}] ```