60+ Famous Mothers And Daughters Photographed Side By Side

The mother-and-daughter comparison is the most emotionally loaded version of this format, and everyone involved seems to know it. There is real affection in most of these photographs - arms around shoulders, matching laughs, the specific body language of two people who genuinely like each other in front of a lot of cameras.

There Is A Second Thing Happening In Every One Of These Photographs

There is also, unavoidably, a second thing happening in every one of these images: an invitation to compare two women of different ages and decide something about them. The internet has been merciless about this for two decades.

What is quietly encouraging about a collection like this is how many of the mothers appear entirely untroubled by standing next to a twenty-five-year-old version of their own face.

The Daughters Work In An Industry Their Mothers Would Not Recognise

The daughters here are working in an industry that has changed almost beyond recognition since their mothers started. It is worth being precise about how:

• Permanent visibility. A career now involves being photographed and commented on continuously, which was unthinkable in the 1980s.
• A wider template. A face considered wrong for leading roles in 1985 can comfortably carry a series today.
• Longer careers. Their mothers' generation faced a much shorter window before the roles dried up.

The Mothers Had Fewer Options

It is worth remembering that the women in the left-hand photographs came up in a Hollywood that offered them a far narrower path. Watching their daughters work into their forties and fifties with the industry's full support is, in its quiet way, a story about progress - uneven and incomplete, but real.

The Mothers Came Up With Far Fewer Options And A Much Shorter Window

One of the longer family collections on the channel. The rest are gathered in the Hollywood Families section.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

Sixty families, and a lot of genuine warmth in the photographs. Watch above, then see the identical-resemblance edition for the pairs that are hardest to tell apart.