The top 10 worst movie stepmothers

"Stepmother" has become a byword for twisted, malicious maternal femininity, yet even the worst versions enshired on film are deliciously rotten, vamping around with smoky eyes and an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. Following the success of our Top 10 Worst Movie Mothers, we round up the Top 10 Worst Movie Stepmothers (and Almost-Stepmothers).

1. Snow White
Ordering a flunky to kill your stepdaughter is bad enough. But personally trying to poison your husband's child with laced apples is pretty much as bad as it gets. That's why Snow White's wicked stepmother takes our top spot. The mother of evil stepmothers. The queen demands Snow White's heart, gift wrapped.

2. Cinderella
The tagline to this story could be, “My stepmother inherited my dad’s fortune and all I got was this pair of Marigolds.” Walt Disney’s original animated movie is a classic and the story has been retold in countless versions, including an Oscar-nominated 1971 musical starring Richard Chamberlain. In that version, royal ministers conspire to send Cinderella away even after her Prince has come, adding insult to injury. Watch a fan's mashup

3. Stepmom
It’s every film studio executive’s dream. After you divorce the older, demanding mother of your children (Susan Sarandon), you meet the young and beautiful Julia Roberts who wants to play stepmom to your kids. Bonus: your wife dies of cancer after everyone makes friends, so you can move on without any emotional hangover (or financial maintenance). Roberts’s character isn’t so much evil as clueless, one-dimensional and very very annoying. Trailer

4. Enchanted
The stepmother in this 2007 Disney princess story isn't related to the protagonist Giselle. The Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) is stepmum to Prince Edward and she pushes Giselle down a magic well to keep them apart. The well actually leads to New York City , where Giselle finds true love with Dr. McDreamy. Oh wait, that's Seattle and Grey's Anatomy. Anyway, forgetting the slightly creepy outcome where the young girl marries the 40something guy, the movie does feature Sarandon sporting seriously fierce eye makeup and stomping around in fabulous high dudgeon. See Sarandon work her look.

5. St Elmo's Fire
You never see the stepmonster that Jules (Demi Moore) is obsessing over. But she's dying and, in a cocaine-addled hysteria, Jules prattles on about how she can arrange a cheap funeral, with ideas such as dressing up her stepmum as a large cat. Driven by her obsession and fuelled by hate of her stepmother, Jules dates dodgy guys with sportscars, has empty sex and eventually has a nervous breakdown. Some websites claim the movie coined the term “step-monster”. Seems unlikely, but then again it briefly turned Judd Nelson into a sex symbol, so anything’s possible. Trailer and an almost unwatchable music video

6. My Stepmother Is an Alien

Kim Basinger as Celeste comes to earth and seduces Dan Akroyd’s Steven Mills - talk about an alien concept. Mills’s daughter (Alyson Hannigan) notices Celeste’s out-of-this-world behaviour but in the end, no, wait we won’t ruin it for you. Celeste is perhaps the worst stepmother on our list as a result of being in the worst movie on the list. Trailer


7. Juno
This one isn't strictly a wicked stepmother. In fact Juno's stepmother takes the tough-but-kind approach to the teenager, who is pregnant at 16. On hearing the unexpected news she says: "I was hoping she was expelled or into hard drugs." Trailer

8. Wicked Stepmother
This was the last film Bette Davis starred in; she died a few months after it was released. Davis plays a witch who marries Sam (Lionel Stander), to the objection of her new stepdaughter, a vegetarian. She chainsmokes, she eats meat and she's got Bette Davis eyes. Spooky. Scene from Wicked Stepmother featuring Tom Bosley.

9. Nanny McPhee
Emma Thompson wrote the screenplay to this magical movie, in which Celia Imrie plays the odious widow Selma Quickly. While she doesn’t actually succeed in becoming stepmother to Colin Firth's seven children, the cartoonishly oversexed Mrs Quickly is odious and terrifying, even snapping the children’s beloved rattle – their only memento of their mother. Luckily this evil stepmother flees after the cake fight and the beautiful and kind scullery maid is installed as loving stepmum. Awwwww. Trailer

10. The Sound of Music
The beautiful, materialistic and vain Baroness Schrader (Eleanor Parker) is the psychic twin of Disney stepmums, right down the wool she pulls over the eyes of her fiance Captain von Trapp. Once they’re hitched, she plans to pack away that adorable all-singing all-dancing brood to boarding school. Naturally she is eventually sent packing by a nun gone wild. Yet according to research for a play for BBC Radio 4, in reality it was the young nun who was pushy and manipulative, while the older Baroness was poorly treated by the Captain before being jilted. Score one for the other side. Trailer

Comments

[Maggie]

I would have to say that this is one of the worst rank lists that I have ever seen. I DID grow up with a wicked stepmother. Bren from Juno was an AMAZING stepmother, and was more of a mother than her biological one. And Julia Roberts? Yes she has a lot of growing up to do, but she was by no means "wicked." And yes, even the baroness was not that bad. I know this is revealing how young I am, but the remake of The Parents Trap, It Takes Two and Au Pair? Those women are all truly wicked stepmothers. I know this is supposed to be a fun little article, but I can't help but be bothered by either the poor research that went into it, the poor opinions of the author

[Maggie]

I would have to say that this is one of the worst rank lists that I have ever seen. I DID grow up with a wicked stepmother. Bren from Juno was an AMAZING stepmother, and was more of a mother than her biological one. And Julia Roberts? Yes she has a lot of growing up to do, but she was by no means "wicked." And yes, even the baroness was not that bad. I know this is revealing how young I am, but the remake of The Parents Trap, It Takes Two and Au Pair? Those women are all truly wicked stepmothers. I know this is supposed to be a fun little article, but I can't help but be bothered by either the poor research that went into it, the poor opinions of the author

[Whimsey]

By the way, Baronness Schrader was not materialistic - the film makes it clear she was very rich in her own right (or her dead husband's, possibly, not sure if she was a wealthy widow or not - Austrian women can use their father's title as a courtesy, so I believe, so she may have been Baronness Schrader, spinster, rather than widow.)

Also, surely the whole point of the story is that the children DID get a wonderful step-mum in the end.

[Whimsey]

It seems to me that, like it or not, parenthood is all about money - or, to put it another way, you just can't write money out of the equation.

The pro-divorce culture we live in now simply seems to wantonly ignore the fact that parenting costs money, children cost money to raise, and that if you run two homes, you have more costs involved. Islam does not muck about with this issue - it makes it quite clear that no man can take another wife unless he has the financial means to support her and their children. Yet in this country we seem to assume blithely that men, and women, can marry, sprog, split, remarry, resprog, split again, etc etc, with no financial downside at all.

As I say, the only way out of this impasse is to do what Supermother recommends, and for each adult to be financially independent and, ideally, capable of raising their own children without financial hardship or dependence on the other parent, wherever they are. BUT that inevitably means handing your children over to a third party to do the childcare. The moment one of the parents steps off the career ladder they become financially vulnerable and dependent on the other partner - and from the partner's point of view, they become a financial burden that they can never be rid of, however many times they remarry.

It seems to me that only the two extremes work - the Supermother model, or the one where parents don't divorce.

[Anon]

I'm a second wife, thus step-mum to wonderful children. It's sad that the role is so negatively portrayed in movies. My mother was married three times, and I enjoyed good relationships with both step-fathers... and extended step-families. Wouldn't it be great if Hollywood ocassionally portrayed positive, supportive families - no matter where the love came from?

Thankfully after leaving a cinema recently, our youngest commented that the step-mum was a bad person, but "it's ok, because you're a really nice step-mum"... it made my day.

What is irritating, however, is naive comments about inheritance. Not every second wife is a green-eyed monster!

[Whimsey]

Jo - I agree, a will, and a pre-nup!

That said, I believe in England/Wales (unlike Scotland?) children have no automatic right of inheritance, though I think a living wife/widow does.

But wills can be vicious things - I've known families where a parent cut one child (the very loyal, supportive son) out of her will, for spite. Luckily the two daughters thought better of him, and shared everything out equally. Also known of families where the daughter who was the parents' carer, effectively sacrificing her life and freedom, gets no more than the daughter who did bugger all for the parents.

[Whimsey]

"Seriously - your ex gets married and all you can think of is your kids' inheritance. No wonder he divorced you!!!!"

No, she got walked out on. They'd made a joint decision for her to give up paid work when they had children, while he went on to a highpowered, high stress career. Then he walked out on her when her children were toddlers, leaving her to it. Then she had to divorce him to get any kind of money to bring the children up with,and to live on while she did so.(The only alternative to this scenario is Supermother's where to avoid post-divorce financial dependence/ penury a mother has to keep on with her own career, dumping the children on nannies etc.)

And wanting to protect your children's inheritance seems a fairly bog-standard Darwinistic parental urge, doesn't it? Why should you want another woman's children to profit from your children's father?

[Jo]

I would assume that the parents would make proper provision for their children. My dad didn't leave a will anf though there were difficulties after he died his 2 children from his first marriage got the same as the thrid child, from his second relationship. The new women got her share too which ?I suppose is only fair, she was his partner then.
Just want to say to everyone make sure you have a will. The heart ache and issues (mostly to do with my Father's brothers) that his not having one caused still affect me now ten years later and have resulted in almost complete loss of contact with our father's family.

[Susan]

Seriously - your ex gets married and all you can think of is your kids' inheritance. No wonder he divorced you!!!!

I would be thrilled to see my ex remarried and happy - like I am.

BTW - his ex wife and daughters are thrilled to see their father so happy. And love having two brothers!

[Walter Lewkowski]

The Sound of Music. Go see the movie.

“Naturally she is eventually sent packing by a nun gone wild.”

Nun gone wild! Have you ever seen the play or movie?

And, “Yet according to research for a play for BBC Radio 4, in reality it was the young nun who was pushy and manipulative, while the older Baroness was poorly treated by the Captain before being jilted.”

The BBC Radio 4 research is work done by children book writer Annie Caulfield. According to some research Hitler was the good guy hounded by Jewish bankers. How about a remake of The Anne Frank Story with the pushy Anne menacing the Nazis?

If you hate Catholics, just say so. If you hate traditional marriage and family, just say so.

Plus, of course, it's even worse if the second wife brings children from another partner along, as they then can claim on HER estate when she's inherited her widows share, so the dad's own children lose out.

Mind you, in these days of high divorce rates, it may not be so much the 'evil stepmother' per se that's the problem, as the impact she has on her step-children's inheritance. A friend of mine's ex has just remarried and her immediate thought was 'great, bang goes my kids inheritance!' Now the second wife will have the widow's claim when the time comes. And she hasn't even had her own children yet.

Yes, I think Nero's mum bumped off his stepbrother, Britannicus, to get her own son on to the imperial throne. He gratefully repaid her by having her killed, as I recall. Well, wonder whether he got his kindly nature from....!

[Laurus Nobilis]

I vote for Snow White's stepmother!

[Jo]

Hi Gipsy - I'm Jo, don't post that often but read quite a lot. There is another Jo but I don't have kids.
Whimsey - I know that in the Ottomon Empire it was always the Kings mother who had the most power in the harem and the women lived quite separate lives so I am sure they would be very keen to get control. Livia is probably the worst example but there were a few other pretty nasty Roman women.

[Hol]

Re: Baroness Schrader - it's funny, when young I just blindly pegged her as the bad guy, as an adult I now find I have some sympathy for her!

[Whimsey]

I'd suspect that as well as Livia, in the Orient there were probably a whole lot more 'evil stepmothers' in palaces where multiple wives all gleefully conspired to kill each other off, plus their respective offspring, in order to ensure that their own son became the next emperor, sultan etc.

[Joey]

I agree re Snow White's stepmum. Scared me when I was small... In fact scares me a bit even now!

Luckily my real-life stepmum is lovely.

[lolobstersquad]

Baroness Schrader is the best character in The Sound of Music, by far!!!

[Benjamin]

How could you forget The Parent Trap?!!

[Gipsy]

I thought of Flowers in the Attic too, but then I think that is the biological mother, not a step mother?

To the person whose ID has fallen off - thank you, I hope I'm a lovely step mother too and not an evil one.

[Flowers]

Flowers in the Attic

[Music]

The plot for the movie Stepmom is really disturbing and weird.

[Steve]

These 'top 10' lists are supposed to count
D
O
W
N
!

[Chris]

That comment in Juno is actually made by her father, her mother agrees but does not say it.