As a child, having a healthy bond with your parents is crucial; it promotes mental, emotional, and linguistic development and is ultimately one of the most powerful connections two people can share. Many remark that a daughter’s first love is her father. While this isn’t always the case, it actually happens a lot. It’s always heartwarming to witness these strong relationships translated into film, especially when a movie highlights how safe and secure a child feels with her caregiver.

Throughout the years, many touching features have successfully depicted beautiful father-daughter relationships, showing how inspiring, unconditional, and encouraging a father’s love can be. To celebrate this unique bond, we look back at some of the best movies about fathers and daughters, ranking them by how accurately they depict this strong connection as well as their entertainment value.

40

‘Trouble with the Curve’ (2012)

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Amy Adams plays a daughter, Mickey, who seeks to repair her strained relationship with her father (Clint Eastwood), a once-celebrated baseball scout who is now facing health problems, in this Robert Lorenz film. Determined to make amends, she joins him on a recruiting trip that could be his final one. As they spend time together, their tensions come to the surface, but so do moments of understanding.

In Trouble with the Curve, baseball is the source of healing and a common language between the two characters; it is touching despite its lack of over-the-top arguments, and precisely because of the quiet unraveling of misunderstanding. With a refreshing, understated ending that focuses on small victories, the 2012 film has captured the attention of those moved by daughter-father narratives despite being a critically mixed movie.

39

‘Definitely, Maybe’ (2008)

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Starring Ryan Reynolds in the lead role and set in New York City, Definitely, Maybe is an Adam Brooks romantic comedy that follows 30-something political consultant Will Hayes as he attempts to explain to his 11-year-old daughter, played by Little Miss Sunshine‘s talented child actor Abigail Breslin, his divorce, past relationships, and how he ended up marrying her mother.

While it doubles as a romantic comedy, Definitely, Maybe is an incredible father-daughter movie, featuring a believable bond between a dad and his kid at its core. What’s so great about this all-around nice and enjoyable film is, too, its well-cast characters and the funny, emotional moments. Furthermore, Definitely, Maybe does not shy away from tackling serious themes such as divorce and politics.

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38

‘Hearts Beat Loud’ (2018)

In Hearts Beat Loud, a single dad and record store owner (Nick Offerman) and daughter (Kiersey Clemons) form an unlikely songwriting duo in the summer right before she leaves for college.

Out of all the father-daughter movies listed here, this is probably one of the lesser-known. That said, Brett Haley’s often overlooked film (which deserves all the audience’s love) is still very much worth watching: it delivers two great performances — especially from The Last of Us and Parks and Recs‘ Offerman — and provides audiences with a meaningful narrative that is both fulfilling and touching with an incredible duo at its center.

37

‘The Whale’ (2022)

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Although this functions as a character-driven film about a 600-pound English online college professor (Brendan Fraser) struggling with mental health rather than a traditional father-daughter narrative, The Whale also centers on his distant relationship with his daughter (Sadie Sink), whom he left after choosing a lover. Now dying, Charlie reaches out with money as if it could substitute for presence.

When the topic is paternal abandonment, The Whale is a poignant entry precisely because it is harsh and heartbreaking. Aronofsky’s brilliance lies in the way he reveals what Ellie’s cruelty actually conceals: a girl abandoned at eight who learns that tenderness invites abandonment, and in highlighting how Ellie’s armor cracks as the film progresses. Although it has received mixed reviews from critics and audiences, it would be untrue to say Aronofsky’s film isn’t moving.

36

‘Daughters’ (2024)

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Those who are looking for something a bit more raw, humanistic, and perhaps less fictional, this moving Netflix documentary might be worth a watch. Daughters illustrates four young girls preparing for a special Daddy/Daughter Dance with their imprisoned fathers as part of a unique fatherhood program in a Washington, D.C. jail.

Directed by Natalie Rae and Angela Patton, this deeply empathetic documentary offers powerful, heartfelt storytelling about the father-daughter relationship, particularly within the specific context of incarceration. Through a narrative that feels authentic rather than overly-staged, Daughters highlights, at its core, the significance of fathers in their daughters’ lives and emphasizes how these bonds often survive in the face of challenge.

35

‘On the Rocks’ (2020)

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Sofia Coppola‘s father-daughter movie and comedy-drama, On the Rocks, stars Bill Murray and Rashida Jones as the ultimate father-daughter duo as they attempt to find out whether her husband (Marlon Wayans) has been unfaithful on an adventure through New York.

While beautifully executed like many other films in Coppola’s filmography, On the Rocks is likely a different film from what audiences usually expect from the filmmaker. What is so interesting about On the Rocks is how it perfectly captures the dynamic between both characters. While it is not necessarily among Coppola’s best movies, it shines a beautiful light on the relationship between a more mature daughter and her, of course, much older father.

34

‘King Richard’ (2021)

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Will Smith steps into the shoes of Richard Williams, the father and coach of famed tennis players Venus and Serena Williams (played by Demi Singleton and Saniyya Sidney), in this critically acclaimed film that landed Smith his Best Actor Academy Award in 2021, after getting his first Oscar nomination in 15 years. The biopic follows Williams as he brings willpower and determination to another level, carving his daughters’ names into history.

There is no doubt that the highly praised film features heartwarming father-daughter bonds. As it navigates through the Williams’ lives, King Richard sheds an important light on the close relationship the family shares, especially the sisters’ relationship with their father. It highlights how big a role Williams played in the girls’ lives, both on and off the court.

33

‘Gifted’ (2017)

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Centering on a super smart kid, 2017’s Gifted is set in Florida and focuses on Frank Adler (Chris Evans), a single man who is responsible for raising his highly intelligent niece, Mary (McKenna Grace, who has been cast in tons of exciting projects). When the mathematical abilities of prodigy 7-year-old Mary catch the attention of Frank’s mother, Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan), a wild turn of events takes place.

Deeply moving and entertaining, this Marc Webb film touches on very sensitive topics, including suicide and parental abandonment, even if it mostly revolves around a second-grader. Nevertheless, Gifted showcases the importance of standing up for others, all while translating a beautifully written and complex daughter-father relationship to the screen.

32

‘Somewhere’ (2010)

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Although it isn’t as popular as other Sofia Coppola pictures, Somewhere is an interesting entry by the filmmaker. The movie stars a young Elle Fanning as Cleo and explores her relationship with her father (Stephen Dorff), a passionless Hollywood star who reevaluates his life when she steps back into the picture.

Coppola enjoys examining girlhood and father-daughter bonds in her movies and has successfully done so in the past. The latter is evident not only through Somewhere but also On the Rocks; while both are great and even a tad underrated movies in this niche category, they are likely to appeal to different age groups, as the nostalgic Somewhere plays like a coming-of-age and features a teenage protagonist, while On the Rocks, a more mature story, is led by a young woman.

31

‘Father of the Bride’ (1991)

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Steve Martin’s George Banks is devastated when his beloved daughter (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) decides to marry a wealthy man, as he can’t imagine what life is going to be like without her. When their wedding takes place at their home, George finds himself descending into a nightmare.

This romantic comedy by Charles Shyer may not fit everyone’s liking, but it is still a charming and well-executed movie; the average moviegoer who’s keen on the genre may actually enjoy it. On top of featuring one of the most iconic father-and-daughter duos in film, Father of the Bride is funny and even touching at times. Its depiction of a father realizing that his baby daughter is not a baby anymore is precise and makes the movie a relatable picture to some.

For decades, Fallout has trained audiences to look underground for its worst secrets. Vaults hide experiments. Vaults warp people. Vaults are where the real horror lives. But in the Season 2 finale, Fallout finally says the quiet part out loud, and in doing so, reframes the entire franchise.

“The surface is the experiment, not the vaults.”

Spoken by Hank Maclean (Kyle MacLachlan), the line isn’t a shocking revelation so much as a confirmation. It’s the thesis Fallout has been circling for years, now stated with brutal clarity. The vaults were never the end goal. They were infrastructure. The real test has always been what happens when humanity is released back into a world shaped by controlled collapse.

The Vaults Were Always a Distraction

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From the beginning, the vaults have functioned as misdirection. They are grotesque, self-contained, and easy to catalog as evil. Each vault has a premise, a variable, a failure point. They feel like the obvious crime scene. But Fallout has always been more interested in what happens after the experiment concludes. Season 2 makes that explicit. The surface isn’t chaos born from negligence; it’s chaos by design. Societies are allowed to form, fracture, and weaponize ideology without intervention. Factions rise believing they are restoring order, never realizing they are still operating within parameters established long before they existed. Hank’s line confirms that the vaults were never meant to preserve humanity in isolation. They were meant to shape what kind of humanity would emerge when isolation ended.

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Control Never Stopped — It Just Became Invisible

What makes this revelation so dark isn’t that someone is watching. It’s that the watching never required interference. The experiment succeeds precisely because the surface world believes it is free. Season 2 repeatedly emphasizes how institutions persist even when morality fails. Power structures inherit the language of survival and dress it up as necessity. Leaders speak in terms of protection and order, never questioning whether the framework they’re enforcing was designed to be humane in the first place. By positioning the surface as the experiment, Fallout reframes its central tragedy. Humanity isn’t being punished for its mistakes: it’s being observed while repeating those mistakes under slightly altered conditions. Progress is measured not in justice or compassion, but in predictability.

This Changes How Every ‘Fallout’ Story Lands

Hank’s line retroactively sharpens the entire franchise. It explains why no faction is ever allowed to fully “win,” and why every attempt at rebuilding recreates hierarchy, exclusion, and violence. The surface world isn’t meant to heal — it’s meant to demonstrate how power inevitably reorganizes itself when left unchecked. This is also why Fallout has always been skeptical of saviors. Anyone claiming to fix the world is unknowingly validating the experiment’s premise. Stability achieved through control is still control. Civilization rebuilt on old logic is still part of the test. Season 2 forces its characters — and its audience — to sit with that realization. Lucy’s belief in moral choice collides with a system that was never designed to reward it. Maximus’ loyalty fractures as he begins to see how easily institutions survive by consuming those who serve them. Hank’s calm certainty is perhaps the most chilling response of all: acceptance without resistance.

The Horror of ‘Fallout’ Has Never Been the Bombs

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One of the most unsettling implications of Hank’s statement is how little resistance the experiment now requires. There is no singular villain pulling strings, no dramatic reveal of a mastermind intervening from the shadows. The system perpetuates itself through belief alone. People inherit the logic of the old world and enforce it willingly, convinced that survival demands repetition rather than reinvention. In that sense, the experiment has succeeded beyond its designers’ expectations. The darkest realization Fallout offers in its Season 2 finale is that the apocalypse wasn’t the catastrophe: it was the setup. The real horror is how cleanly humanity stepped into the role assigned to it. The vaults feel cruel because they are visible. The surface feels natural because it isn’t. By flipping that perception, Fallout exposes its most unsettling idea yet: that freedom, in this world, is just another variable being tracked. “The surface is the experiment, not the vaults” isn’t a twist. It’s a confession. And once it’s spoken, it becomes impossible to see Fallout — past, present, or future — as anything other than a long-term study in how willingly humanity rebuilds the systems that destroyed it. Season 2 doesn’t just deepen Fallout’s lore: it clarifies its worldview, and it confirms that the franchise’s darkest truth was never buried underground at all — it was always playing out in plain sight.

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Release Date

April 10, 2024

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Network

Amazon Prime Video

Showrunner

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Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan

Directors

Frederick E. O. Toye, Wayne Che Yip, Stephen Williams, Liz Friedlander, Jonathan Nolan, Daniel Gray Longino, Clare Kilner

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Writers

Lisa Joy, Jonathan Nolan

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Political commentator Candace Owens alleged that Turning Point USA faked its All-American Halftime Show’s viewer numbers.

Taking to X on Sunday, February 8, after the right-wing organization founded by Charlie Kirk aired its own halftime show during Super Bowl 2026, Owens, 36, argued that the 5 million viewers it claimed to draw live across its social media platforms was not accurate.

Commenting on an earlier X post that captured a YouTube account’s viewer numbers at just under 6,000, Owens wrote, “The problem with people who have a lot of money they didn’t earn, is that they tend to have no idea how stuff actually works.”

She continued in her second X post, “We have an organization that scammed its views by paying platform advertisers, followed by influencers to pretend they broke records.”

Us Weekly has reached out to Turning Point USA for comment.

Earlier in the evening, Blake Neff, who produced The Charlie Kirk Show before the politician’s September 2025 assasination and helped stage Turning Point USA’s halftime show, wrote via X, “TPUSA All-American Halftime Show … Over 5 million simultaneous on TPUSA YT [YouTube]. Almost 1 million on Charlie Kirk’s YT. 200k on Magno News YT. 220k on TPUSA Rumble. 15k CK Rumble.”

The post continued, “The entire audience on RAV. And noticeably, the audience kept going up throughout the competing show.” (Neff referred to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl 2026 Halftime Show.)

Owens’ thoughts on Turning Point USA’s halftime performance were accompanied by her thoughts on Bad Bunny’s show, revealing that she did not approve of either. “I am sorry but I hate both options,” she declared.

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Of Bad Bunny’s performance, she wrote, “We have a haltime show presented without a word of English spoken,” before she concluded, “The left vs.right grift is actually boring now. What exactly are we doing here, America?”

Owens, who worked as a communications director for Turning Point USA from 2017 to 2019, forged a friendship with Charlie before his death at age 31. The pair met in 2017 while embarking on their individual political careers. Despite their camaraderie, Owens did not share the same fondness for Charlie’s wife, Erika Kirk, in the aftermath of Charlie’s death.

Owens spoke publicly about her belief that Tyler Robinson, who was arrested for Charlie’s death, was wrongfully accused.

Months later, Owens published a leaked conference call recording of Erika, 37, that was allegedly recorded 12 days after Charlie’s death. In the audio, Erika appeared to be praising members of the Turning Point USA team for their recent successes. (A spokesperson for Owens told Us Weekly at the time that the video was “real and authenticated.”)

Owens said of the recording, “We are not even two weeks after watching your husband be assassinated. We’re talking about numbers and metrics that have been hit.”

Erika, who has taken over as CEO of Turning Point USA and also serves as a chairwoman for the organization since Charlie died, publicly condemned the recording’s release while publicly stating that she wanted Owens to stop peddling conspiracy theories about Charlie’s death.

The pair’s tension led to a December 2025 meeting between Erika and Owens. While details of the meeting were not publicly revealed, both parties took to their individual X accounts in the aftermath to label their four-and-a-half-hour discussion “productive.”

Travis Kelce’s ex-girlfriend, Kayla Nicole, referenced his romance with Taylor Swift in a new Super Bowl commercial.

The influencer and podcaster, 34, appeared alongside Tiffany Haddish and the Los Angeles Clippers’ Ben Simmons in a big game spot for betting app Sleeper. The ad featured Haddish and Simmons as “ex-communicators” vowing to help clients get over “high-profile relationships.”

Dubbing themselves “emotional injury specialists,” Haddish and Simmons said, “We will confront your ex so you don’t have to.”

The clip then jumped to testimonials from celebrities including Nicole, Cardi B’s ex Offset and Love Island USA’s Ace Greene, who were enlisted to attest to the duo’s services. It seems results were mixed.

“Don’t get me started on these two. They have no idea what they’re doing. At all,” Nicole said, while a name card described her as the “ex of a certain NFL player.”

Later in the clip, Nicole said, “Simmons & Haddish promised me they could put an end to this whole ex-girlfriend fiasco quickly.”

The camera then cut to Simmons, who responded, “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Rapidly,” Nicole retorted.

Simmons replied, “That’s not what I said.”

“OK, pronto,” Nicole said.

Simmons then dropped a reference to Kelce’s now-fiancée, telling Nicole, “I said swiftly. Why is that so hard to remember?”

Nicole and Kelce, 36, dated on and off from 2017 to 2022. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end moved on with Swift, also 36, the following year, and the couple announced their engagement in August 2025.

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Joe Scarnici/Getty Images Travis Kelce and Kayla Nicole went through several relationship ups and downs before splitting for good in 2022. The exes dated on and off for five years after Nicole kicked things off by sending him an Instagram DM in 2017. “He had been following me and insta-flirting for a few months,” she […]

“Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” the couple captioned a joint Instagram post showing Kelce getting down on one knee and proposing to Swift.

Kelce’s father, Ed Kelce, later shared the proposal took place two weeks before the stars announced their engagement publicly.

“Travis actually did the proposal, oh, maybe two weeks, not quite two weeks ago,” Ed told ABC affiliate News 5 Cleveland at the time. “He was going to put it off till this week … but he was going to put her off till this week to, you know, make some grand thing, to make it a big, special event.”

Ed continued, “And I told him repeatedly, you know, you could do it on the side of the road, do it any place that makes it a special event … when you get down on one knee and ask her to marry you.”

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During an October 2025 appearance on The Graham Norton Show in the U.K., Swift said Kelce did a great job with his sweet proposal.

“He really crushed it in surprising me. While we were talking on his podcast, he had a complete garden built out the back of his house to propose in,” she said. “He went all out — 10 out of 10.”

Swift sang her fiancé’s praises during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that same month.

“He’s just my favorite person I’ve ever met — no offense to everyone else. But the fact that this is the person that I get to hang out with every day forever … that’s the whole thing of it,” she said. “You look at [the ring] and you’re like, ‘I get to hang out with him forever,’ and this represents that.”

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