Movies

Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen play four lifelong friends in their late 60s and 70s whose love lives are upended after reading Fifty Shades of Grey. Affirming of older women’s desires and romantic lives.

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.

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.

Meryl Streep plays a successful bakery owner in her 50s who begins an affair with her ex-husband. A glossy, funny rom-com that centers an older woman’s desire, confusion, and capacity for joy — and notably portrays her as the pursued rather than the pursuer.

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.

An aging father believes he has won a million-dollar prize and insists on traveling to claim it. June Squibb’s Oscar-nominated portrayal of his sharp-tongued, sexually frank wife is a revelation — an older woman of ferocious honesty and humor.

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.