Film

Baby Boom

Name: Baby Boom
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Released: 1987
Cast: Diane Keaton, Sam Shepard, Harold Ramis, Kristina Kennedy, Michelle Kennedy

Diane Keaton is J.C. Wiatt, a hard-charging NYC executive whose life gets rearranged when a distant relative's baby lands on her doorstep. It's a glossy 80s culture-clash comedy about ambition, motherhood, and reinventing yourself once the rules you built your life around stop applying. Funny, warm, occasionally corny — ideal comfort viewing for anyone who wants their happy ending signposted a mile off.

TMDb rating

6.4

If you liked this

Baby Mama2008

Tina Fey plays the same driven-executive-blindsided-by-a-baby premise as flat-out comedy, with Amy Poehler as the surrogate chaos agent — Baby Boom's DNA run through 2000s broad comedy.

But Broader and dumber than Keaton's version, with slapstick where Baby Boom had wit.

Working Girl1988

Same NYC, same decade, same question of what ambition costs a woman — Melanie Griffith claws up from secretary to dealmaker with Sigourney Weaver as the boss from hell.

But More romance-plot-driven and interested in office politics than domestic upheaval.

Private Benjamin1980

Goldie Hawn's pampered widow gets reinvented against her will, much like J.C. is reinvented by a baby — both are about women discovering competence they never asked for.

But The army-comedy setting is broader farce, further from Baby Boom's domestic realism.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Bachelor Mother1939no page yet

This is the film Baby Boom is quietly remaking — a career woman saddled with a baby she didn't choose, whose life and job get rearranged by it, decades before shoulder pads existed.

A department-store clerk is mistaken for an abandoned baby's mother and can't shake the rumor — the exact premise Baby Boom would borrow decades later, told as fizzy Depression-era screwball with Ginger Rogers at her sharpest.

But Black-and-white pacing and 1930s gender politics require patience if you're used to glossier modern comedy.

Mr. Mom1983no page yet

Flip the genders and you get Michael Keaton fumbling through parenthood after losing his job — the same thrown-into-a-role-you-didn't-train-for engine as Baby Boom.

But Some of the gender jokes have aged far more awkwardly than Baby Boom's have.

I Don't Know How She Does It2011no page yet

Sarah Jessica Parker juggles Wall Street and motherhood in a more contemporary, less magical version of J.C.'s daily scramble — a solid update on the logistics.

But Lighter stakes and a schmaltzier finish than Baby Boom manages to earn.

Sweet Home Alabama2002

A driven New York woman gets pulled back toward a slower, rural life and a version of herself she'd written off — the same city-to-country pivot as Baby Boom's Vermont chapter.

But It's a romance first and a career reckoning a distant second.

Nine to Five1980

Three women outmaneuver a sexist boss in a workplace comedy with real teeth — the corporate absurdity J.C. faces gets a much angrier, funnier treatment.

But An ensemble farce with a kidnapping plot, tonally wilder than Baby Boom.

The Proposal2009no page yet

Sandra Bullock's icy exec gets forced out of her controlled Manhattan life into something messier and warmer — the same arc, dressed as a fake-engagement rom-com.

But Professional stakes are backdrop to romance here, not the main event as in Baby Boom.

One Fine Day1996no page yet

Michelle Pfeiffer plays another overworked single parent trying to hold career and childcare together in one increasingly disastrous day — the exhaustion is very Baby Boom.

But More of a single-day rom-com than a life-overhaul story.

Toni Erdmann2016no page yet

Same question as Baby Boom — what does ambition cost, and what happens when family forces its way back into a life built to exclude it — asked in a completely different language and register.

A high-powered corporate consultant's careful professional identity gets dismantled — not by a baby, but by her own father's absurd, invasive pranks — in a German arthouse comedy as excruciating as it is moving.

But Nearly three hours long, subtitled, and its comedy is cringe rather than warm — a very different kind of funny.

Tully2018

It's the same woman-restructures-her-identity-around-a-child story, stripped of the gloss and the happy ending, asking what if the exhaustion doesn't resolve into a triumphant montage.

Charlize Theron plays a mother drowning in exhaustion who gets sent a night nurse who might be exactly what she needs, or something stranger — a clear-eyed look at what 'having it all' actually costs.

But Genuinely heavy where Baby Boom is buoyant; postpartum depression is treated with real weight, not comic uplift.