Vasudha Pandit, Mirzapur (2018-)

Sheeba Chaddha plays a woman caught between her righteous husband and goon sons. But when Munna, the son of the guy who rules the town, pulls the gun on her husband and kids, she goes from pacifier to full-on gangster. She shoots Munna, overcomes his sidekicks, (gory spoiler alert) taking off one guy’s ear. Losing one son makes her more protective and assertive. But she’s always Mama Bear.

Savitri, Jaane Tu...Ya Jaane Na (2008)

It’s easy to be a savage mom in a thriller. But in a romcom? That’s why we love how Ratna Pathak Shah, mom to Imran Khan in the movie, plays it. She’s the queen of sarcastic comebacks, (her iconic eye roll, uff!) She chats with her dead, stuck-in-a-portrait husband. She banters with her son about who’ll make samosas and what to do with the local ill-tempered cop, all the while shielding him from her life of domestic violence.

Vartika Chaturvedi, Delhi Crime (2019-)

Fans have described Shefali Shah’s character as Mom-level Max. She plays the cop in a fictionalised retelling of the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape. So many battles: Cops against crime, women against misogyny, senior cop against juniors, internal and external politics. There’s bite in her berating, there’s vulnerability when she worries for her own teen daughter. Her victory as she catches the rapists seems like a win for every mom.

Joyce Byers, Stranger Things (2016-)

They’re taking forever to wrap the show up. But watching Winona Ryder as the unsettled-but-determined saviour mom has been worth it. She’s the only one in town who believes her son, Will, isn’t dead. She hangs up Christmas lights to send a message to him in the Upside Down. She looks frail but lifts him bodily out of the alternative universe. And that was just S1. She commandeers a plane to Siberia in a later season. Who is this woman?

Gloria Delgado Pritchett, Modern Family (2009-2020)

Motherhood is complicated when you look like a sex goddess, sound like a tornado, have a much older husband and an old soul for a young son. Sofia Vergara, in every scene of the 11-season show, stays dominating but devoted. She scares bullies away, squares off with Russian mafia, screens her son’s girlfriends, beheads rats, and shoots with scary accuracy. Do you even know how smart she is in Spanish?

Moira Rose, Schitt’s Creek (2015-2020)

It’s a show about a wealthy family fallen on hard (and ridiculous) times. Does Catherine O’Hara get the best lines? No, but she certainly delivers them with the most snark. It shows up in the first episode, when her character Moira is forced to move into a motel, and tells the clerk that all she needs in her room is a “bathtub and a long extension cord”. Ouch! She’s an awkward mother (she even forgets her daughter’s middle name) but there’s love there, under all that sarcasm.

Molly Weasley, the Harry Potter films (2001-2011)

Molly Weasley, wife to a Ministry of Magic official and mother to seven kids, doesn’t have much. But she shares what she has, giving Harry, her son’s troubled bestie, a safe place to stay, knitting him sweaters at Christmas. Who’d believe she’s a badass? That side emerges in the last film, when evil Bellatrix Lestrange comes for her daughter. Molly delivers a fatal curse, surprising us all. All together now: “Not my daughter, you b*tch!”

Neena Gupta, Masaba Masaba (2020-)

She’s playing herself, and frankly, she’s more interesting than the daughter after whom the show is named. Gupta addresses everything from ageism (via the item number Aunty Kisko Bola Re with Mithila Palkar) to raising a firebrand fashion-designer daughter as a single mother. Only she can be upfront and silly at the same time. This is why we love every role she’s played.

Aarya Sareen, Aarya (2020-2024)

Sushmita Sen’s comeback had to be memorable. And it was. Sen put her IRL mom energy into playing a grieving but naive widow who learns that her husband dealt in drugs, but ends up running his drug ring in Jaipur to avenge his murder. She’s fierce but also protective of her family – can she trust her stepdad and brother? Her claws come out when her kids are kidnapped. And they’re murderously sharp.

Wanda Maximoff, WandaVision (2021)

What happens to the Scarlet Witch when her superhero partner is killed in the fight between the Avengers and Thanos, shattering her dreams of her happily-ever-after? In the Marvel Universe, she uses her magic to create an idyllic fantasy world, trap people in it and play out the life she was denied. Elizabeth Olsen plays it eerie and sinister, anchored in the grief, whose protectiveness of her kids only makes sense in the end, when you find out that nothing is real.

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