The Good Mother (2023) poster
2023 · thriller

The Good Mother

Directed by Miles Joris-Peyrafitte1h 30m2023
ElsewhereIMDb4.73kRT21%Metacritic45
  • sombre
  • brisk
  • intense
Movie DNA

Sombre, kinetic, measured thriller, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

A journalist and her son's pregnant girlfriend attempt to track down those responsible for the murder of her estranged son. Together, they confront a world of drugs and corruption in the underbelly of their small city in upstate New York, where they uncover an even darker secret.

Our read · The Good Mother (2023) reads as a sombre, kinetic, grounded thriller entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes in scope, cold in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
Where to watch
Not on streaming here right now.Check JustWatch Check Letterboxd
More info & search links
Fingerprint

The shape of The Good Mother

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a grief-driven thriller about a mother investigating her son's murder and drugs.

ends bittersweetit stays with youa slow buildgrips by minute 25attention 3/5earns its length
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-updrug use

Skip it tonightYou want fast-paced mysteries or stories without heavy grief and slow investigation.

If The Good Mother is your film
Prisoners (2013)
parental desperation and investigation
(darker and more intense)
Gone Girl (2014)
twisty domestic mystery
(more marital thriller)
The Girl on the Train (2016)
unreliable narrator and investigation
(more unreliable perspective)
DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself