Movies

Cate Blanchett plays Lydia Tár, the first female chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, whose life collapses under the weight of her own abuses of power. A complex film that refuses to simplify its female protagonist.

An Indian family opens a restaurant across the street from a Michelin-starred French establishment in a small French village. Helen Mirren is magnificent as the formidable restaurant owner whose rigidity gradually gives way to warmth. A lovely film about food, culture, and unexpected connection.

Diane Keaton plays a woman with a terminal diagnosis who moves to a retirement community and starts a cheerleading squad. Light and predictable but genuinely warm — a celebration of vitality, friendship, and refusing to go quietly.

Meryl Streep plays Florence Foster Jenkins, a real New York socialite who passionately believed she was a great opera singer — and performed Carnegie Hall at 76. A warm, bittersweet story about the courage to pursue your passion regardless of talent.

Jim Broadbent plays a 60-year-old taxi driver who steals a Goya painting from the National Gallery. Helen Mirren is magnificent as his long-suffering, devoted, fiercely practical wife. A warm, funny portrait of an older marriage full of love, exasperation, and shared history.

Holly Hunter plays a mute Scottish woman sent to colonial New Zealand in an arranged marriage, who uses her piano as the language of her inner life. A landmark feminist film about female desire, agency, and survival in a world that denies women voice.

Diane Keaton plays a playwright in her late 50s who falls in love with her daughter’s much older boyfriend. A witty, warm rom-com that centers an older woman’s desire, creativity, and right to a full romantic life.

A midlife woman in an unfulfilling marriage finds her sense of self through the stories of two women from 1930s Alabama told to her by an elderly nursing home resident. A landmark film about female friendship, courage, and reclaiming your life.

Judi Dench and Maggie Smith play two elderly sisters in 1930s Cornwall who find their quiet lives disrupted by a young Polish musician they rescue from the sea. A beautiful, melancholy film about desire, aging, and the loves that remain unexpressed.

The love story of philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, framing her life through the lens of Alzheimer’s. Judi Dench and Kate Winslet share the role. A heartbreaking, beautiful portrait of a brilliant woman’s decline and her husband’s devotion.

Retired opera singers — played by Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Billy Connolly, and Tom Courtenay — navigate friendship, romance, and aging at a home for musicians. A warm celebration of passion, creativity, and love persisting into old age.

Meryl Streep’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Margaret Thatcher — framed through Thatcher’s final years of dementia and grief. Whatever one thinks of her politics, the film raises profound questions about aging, legacy, identity loss, and the toll of a life in power.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph won the Oscar for her portrayal of Mary Lamb — a woman in midlife processing grief with devastating, funny, unvarnished authenticity. One of the best films of recent years.

Women in an isolated Mennonite community secretly debate whether to stay and fight or leave everything they know after years of assault. A rare film that takes women’s moral and political reasoning utterly seriously. Oscar winner for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Glenn Close gives a legendary performance as a woman who has spent decades suppressing her genius to support her Nobel Prize-winning husband. A film about what women sacrifice — and what it costs them.

An elderly Jewish widow in Atlanta and her Black driver form an unlikely friendship over 25 years. Jessica Tandy won the Oscar at 81 — the oldest Best Actress winner — in a film about aging, friendship, and the slow erosion of prejudice.

In late 18th-century France, a painter and her subject fall in love during the sittings. A luminous, sensual film about female gaze, desire, and the power of art to create and preserve love. One of the finest French films of recent years.

Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates, and Laura Linney play Irish women who win a trip to Lourdes, taking along a long-estranged friend. A warm, funny, moving film about old wounds, forgiveness, faith, and female friendship in later life.

The story of Charles Dickens’ secret relationship with young actress Nelly Ternan, seen through the eyes of an older Nelly looking back on the years she lost in invisible servitude to a great man. A quietly devastating portrait of women’s historical erasure.

Robin Wright directs and stars as a woman who retreats to a remote Wyoming cabin after a devastating loss. A quiet, gorgeous film about grief, solitude, and the slow work of finding the will to live again.

Tom Hanks plays Fred Rogers in a film about an Esquire journalist assigned to profile him, who is slowly changed by the encounter. A quiet meditation on kindness, anger, grief, and the courage to be emotionally vulnerable — relevant for women working through difficult family relationships.

Julia Roberts plays Elizabeth Gilbert traveling through Italy, India, and Bali after a devastating divorce. Whatever its flaws, the film touched millions of women who recognized the longing to leave an unsatisfying life and find yourself. Based on the bestselling memoir.

Robert De Niro plays a 70-year-old widower who becomes an intern at a startup run by a busy young woman (Anne Hathaway). A warm, funny film about intergenerational connection, aging, purpose, and what older people have to offer.

Four very different British women escape their dull lives by renting an Italian castle for a month. A gorgeous, gentle film about women’s friendship, marriage, self-discovery, and the transformative power of beauty and rest.