Favorite Dad Movies

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The thing about dad movies is that they’re simple. That’s why the sheer joy of them is universal. You don’t have to be a dad to love a dad movie, just like you don’t need to be a man to love a dad movie either. Dad movies bring everybody to the cookout.

Over the years, I’ve tried to curate the perfect list of dad movies, and I think I’ve finally nailed it thanks to a recent release. Of course, these are MY picks of what I define as a dad movie, which I’ll get into. (No Empire Strikes Back here; go someplace else for that.) These are my favorite dad movies guaranteed to get your dad kickin back in his La-Z-Boy on this here Father’s Day.

You can trust me on this. For I am dad 😉

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‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Is Why We Go to the Theater

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He’s old, he’s problematic, but goddammit he’s the only man for the job.

There’s nothing Tom Cruise can’t do at this stage. I’m saying that partly because I don’t wanna goad him any further. Mans got a death wish enough as it is, and god love him. He’s COMMITTED to putting us on the edge of our seats like nobody else in the business, and Top Gun: Maverick might be Cruise’s finest thesis on the cinematic roller coaster front. It’s an adrenaline rush unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in the theater. This thing banks harder than a motherfucker, makes the Star Wars trench run look like a 25¢ kiddie ride, and does laps around the current superhero landscape at 10x the speed of sound. Top Gun: Maverick nods to a bygone era of thrill-seeking action movies and reassures that those good ole glory days haven’t gone bye bye just yet.

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‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ Review – Sam Raimi’s Back, Baby!

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The thing about Sam Raimi is that he was once a magician.

Over his indelible career, Raimi’s garnered a reputation as a horror director, a Three Stooges-slapstick connoisseur, and the guy who brought Spider-Man to the big screen. He’s got the director origin story of many a renowned filmmaker from Steven Spielberg to J.J. Abrams – grabbing ahold of his parent’s 8mm camera and making movies with family and friends. But there’s another alter-ego hidden in his backstory that I think puts everything into perspective: lil Sam Raimi used to perform magic tricks at kid’s birthday parties.

Raimi might’ve been a Spider-Man dork throughout his childhood, but he was secretly perfect for a Doctor Strange movie one day.

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‘Spider-Man’ – When Sam Raimi Cracked the Modern Superhero Formula

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I didn’t know who Sam Raimi was at 10-years-old, but I knew Spider-Man. The animated series was part of my Saturday morning ritual as a kid. And like every kid in 2002, I was stoked for the live-action Spider-Man.

I was a Batman fan my whole life. But after Spider-Man’s dazzling and high-flying cut to black – which gave my scrawny kid body such a weightless sensation that I thought was only possible on roller coasters – I was convinced I’d get a Spider-Man tattoo. I didn’t, sadly, but I’d become a fan of Raimi’s iteration of the web crawler forever.

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‘The Scorpion King’ – An Action Star Was Born

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Take a stroll back in time with me. It’s 2001, you’re nine years old, and you’re seated for The Mummy Returns. You were an unexpected fan of the first one, even though The Mummy was pretty scary for you at times, but oh so much rollicking fun. Brendan Fraser became your Indiana Jones, you had a crush on Rachel Weisz, and this is all you want more of in a sequel. Then the movie starts and you see another hero you’ve been watching on Monday nights, one who were a different kind of tights.

That’s right, I’m talking about The Rock. Not yet Dwayne Johnson, not quite a movie star then.

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