Talent doesn’t always skip a generation. In Hollywood, it sometimes runs straight through three of them, from a black-and-white era grandparent to a grandchild who just landed a Netflix series. These family lines are rare enough to be genuinely interesting, since acting success is unpredictable and nepotism alone rarely explains a career that lasts decades.
What follows are nine real acting and filmmaking families where the surname has meant something on screen for three consecutive generations, sometimes more. Some are still active today, with members working on projects released just last year.
The Barrymore family
Long before Drew Barrymore became a household name, her great-grandparents, grandaunt, and grandfather had already built one of the most respected acting dynasties in American stage and film history. Lionel, Ethel, and John Barrymore were known collectively as the first family of American theater in the early twentieth century, each carving out a distinct reputation in silent film and early talkies. John Barrymore in particular became a matinee idol whose looks and stage training set a standard for the era.
His son, John Drew Barrymore, kept the family name in film through the mid-twentieth century, though with a far less steady career than his father’s. That instability didn’t stop the next generation. Drew Barrymore, John Drew’s daughter, broke through as a child actor in the early 1980s and has remained a fixture of American pop culture ever since, proving the family’s staying power across nearly a full century of entertainment.
The Fonda family
Henry Fonda’s career stretched from the 1930s through the early 1980s, earning him a reputation as one of the most trusted leading men in American film. His children, Peter Fonda and Jane Fonda, took very different paths but both became defining figures of 1960s and 1970s cinema, Peter through counterculture films and Jane through a mix of political activism and acclaimed dramatic roles. The three actually shared the screen together in 1981’s On Golden Pond, a rare moment of two generations working side by side.
The family’s third generation includes Bridget Fonda, Peter’s daughter, who built a solid film career through the 1990s before stepping away from acting. Jane’s son, Troy Garity, has also worked steadily in film and television under a name he adopted partly to build his own identity apart from the family legacy. Even without the same level of fame as their grandparents, both represent a lineage that has quietly continued for close to a century.
The Douglas family
Kirk Douglas built a career defined by intensity and physical presence, starring in films like Spartacus while also becoming one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood during the studio era’s decline. His son Michael Douglas followed a somewhat different path, finding his biggest success as a producer before becoming a leading man himself, eventually winning an Academy Award and building a career that has lasted into the 2020s. Father and son were both associated with prestige dramas, though Michael leaned harder into thrillers and corporate antihero roles.
Michael’s son Cameron Douglas represents the third generation, having appeared in a handful of films including a role opposite his father in a Wall Street sequel. His career has been shaped as much by personal struggles as by acting work, but the family name has continued to appear on Hollywood credits across three distinct eras of American filmmaking.
The Huston family
Walter Huston was already an established stage and screen actor by the 1930s, eventually winning an Academy Award for his role in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a film directed by his own son. That son, John Huston, became one of the defining directors of classic Hollywood, shaping films across nearly five decades behind the camera. The father-son collaboration on Sierra Madre remains one of the more notable instances of a director working with his own parent in a major studio release.
John’s children extended the family’s reach even further. Anjelica Huston won an Academy Award for Prizzi’s Honor, a film directed by her father, echoing the family’s earlier generational collaboration almost exactly. Her half-brother Danny Huston has built a long career as both an actor and director, keeping the Huston name active in film well into the current decade.
The Coppola family
Francis Ford Coppola’s influence on American cinema through The Godfather films and Apocalypse Now hardly needs restating, but his family’s reach into the industry runs deeper than most people realize. The Coppola family, spanning three generations, has a rich history of artistic creativity and filmmaking, with multiple family members making significant contributions to the industry. His son Roman Coppola and daughter Sofia Coppola both moved into filmmaking, with Roman Coppola and daughter Sofia Coppola, who followed their Oscar-winning father into filmmaking.
The third generation is represented by Gia Coppola, daughter of Francis’s late son Gian-Carlo, who made her feature film directorial debut with Palo Alto in 2013, and has since directed Mainstream and The Last Showgirl in 2024. The family’s reach extends laterally too, since his nephews Jason Schwartzman and Nicolas Cage are actors, making the Coppola tree one of the most sprawling creative dynasties in modern Hollywood.
The Redgrave family
Michael Redgrave was among the most respected British stage and film actors of the mid-twentieth century, known for a career that balanced serious theater with steady screen work. His children Vanessa Redgrave, Lynn Redgrave, and Corin Redgrave all became accomplished actors in their own right, with Vanessa in particular earning international acclaim across film, television, and stage for decades. The three siblings rarely worked in each other’s shadow, each building distinct reputations in British and American productions.
The next generation kept the tradition going through Vanessa’s daughters, Natasha Richardson and Joely Richardson, both of whom built substantial screen careers, and through Corin’s daughter Jemma Redgrave, a familiar face in British television. Natasha’s death in 2009 was a significant loss for the family and for British acting more broadly, but the Redgrave name has continued through Joely and Jemma’s ongoing work.
The Carradine family
John Carradine appeared in more than two hundred films across a career built largely on collaborations with director John Ford, including classics like Stagecoach and The Grapes of Wrath. His grandson, the actor John Carradine, had five sons, four of whom also became actors. David Carradine became internationally known for the television series Kung Fu and later for his role in Kill Bill, while his brothers Keith and Robert built long careers of their own, with Keith known for Pretty Baby and Robert for Revenge of the Nerds.
The third generation includes Ever Carradine, Robert’s daughter, who has appeared in The Handmaid’s Tale and other prominent television series, and Martha Plimpton, Keith’s daughter, an Emmy-nominated actress with a substantial stage and screen resume. Robert Carradine, the Lizzie McGuire actor, died in February 2026 at the age of 71, a reminder of how much history this family has spanned. Even now, the Carradine name continues through its third generation of working actors.
The Bridges family
Lloyd Bridges spent decades as a familiar face in American film and television, best known for the series Sea Hunt before finding a late-career second life in comedies like Airplane!. His sons Beau Bridges and Jeff Bridges both became accomplished actors, with Jeff eventually winning an Academy Award for Crazy Heart and earning multiple nominations across a career spanning from the 1970s into the 2020s. The brothers occasionally shared the screen together, most memorably in The Fabulous Baker Boys.
The third generation arrived through Beau’s son Jordan Bridges, described in family profiles as the third generation of actors in the Bridges family, who has worked steadily in television including a long run on Rizzoli & Isles. In one especially notable moment of family overlap, Lloyd Bridges, his son Beau Bridges, and his grandson Dylan Bridges played three generations of the Kress family in a 1995 episode of The Outer Limits, a rare instance of three real-life generations playing three generations of the same fictional family on screen.
The Sutherland family
Donald Sutherland built a career across more than five decades, moving from M*A*S*H and Animal House to later prominence in the Hunger Games franchise before his death in 2024. His son Kiefer Sutherland became one of television’s most recognizable actors through 24 and a long list of film roles, describing himself in family profiles as part of the third generation of one of Canada’s most prominent families, the son of actors Donald Sutherland and Shirley Douglas, since Kiefer’s maternal grandfather, Tommy Douglas, was a major Canadian political figure rather than an entertainer.
Kiefer’s daughter, Sarah Sutherland, extended the acting line into a fourth generation of the broader family and a third generation of screen actors specifically, becoming known for her role as Catherine Meyer in the political comedy Veep. Sarah Jude Sutherland, born February 18, 1988, is an American actress known for her role in Veep. Even with a lower public profile than her father and grandfather, her career reflects a family whose connection to acting has now spanned three working generations without interruption.
These nine families show that Hollywood’s longest lasting dynasties are rarely built on name recognition alone. Each generation, in its own way, had to prove itself in front of a camera or on a stage, and most of these lines include at least one member who stepped away from the family trade or struggled against comparisons to a famous parent or grandparent. What ties them together isn’t just a shared surname, but a repeated willingness across generations to take on a notoriously unstable profession and, more often than not, make something lasting out of it.
