Make Way for Tomorrow

Why it's worth watching

A deeply moving masterpiece that explores the enduring power of marital love and the painful realities of aging and family neglect. Directed by Leo McCarey, it challenges viewers to reflect on how we treat our elders and honor our family commitments. It is widely considered one of the most emotionally honest and beautifully acted films of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

For discernment

This is one of the most morally bracing films of its era, and for a Christian it plays almost as a sermon in image: a devoted elderly couple, married fifty years, is split apart because none of their grown children will make room for both, and the film quietly indicts that selfishness while honoring the parents' undimmed love. The final afternoon the couple spends together before their forced parting is devastating in the best sense — it will convict you about how you treat your own aging parents. Content is very mild: no violence, no profanity, a little social drinking and pipe smoking, and one oblique implication about an older man and a seventeen-year-old girl. The real caution is emotional: this is a deeply sad film that offers no tidy resolution, and it means to leave you grieving.

• NoteAn unflinchingly sad, unresolved story of elderly parents abandoned by their children; emotionally heavy by design.
• SexualityOne oblique implication of impropriety involving a thirty-five-year-old man and a seventeen-year-old.
• SubstancesBrief social drinking and occasional pipe smoking.

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