No list of the best Lifetime movies is complete without at least one Meredith Baxter-Birney flick. The popular "Family Ties" actress became synonymous with the Lifetime Network in the early 1990s, thanks to star turns in "based on a true story" movies such as "A Woman Scorned." Playing a devoted, self-sacrificing wife whose husband leaves her cold for a younger woman, Baxter-Birney takes bloody vengeance on her wayward spouse and his cheap mistress. The film touched a raw nerve for many women and set the template for Lifetime movies to come: Noble female lead is repeatedly mistreated and suddenly transforms into an avenging angel while also making sure that the kids get to soccer practice on time.
Starring Rita Wilson (Mrs. Tom Hanks), "Invisible Child" is one of Lifetime's most memorable "She was the perfect mother....but" movies. With a plot that echoes the darkest elements of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" ("Just don't start in on the bit about the kid"), "Invisible Child" is soap opera at its weirdest. Lifetime movies are infamous for bewildering tonal issues that attempt to fuse upbeat messages about empowerment with the sleaziest of exploitation fare, and nothing illustrates this better than watching an entire family aid and abet one poor woman's delusions about her imaginary third child. Even better, the film's entire third act is a supposedly inspirational underdog story that pits Rita Wilson and her family against seemingly the entire weight of the United States government, which wants to institutionalize the nice, crazy lady.
Earnest teen pregnancy dramas are a staple of the Lifetime Network, and "Mom at Sixteen" is the quintessential example of that subgenre. In classic Lifetime fashion, it's not enough that mom is a teenager trying to raise a kid and get through high school at the same time; she also has to pretend that her son is not really her son but rather her baby brother.