Box office hit films are four times more likely to star a talking animal than a woman over 60, according to a new survey by Age Without Limits.
The anti-ageism campaign studied the 100 highest performing films released in the UK in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and found that while five starred an older woman, about 20 featured creatures who chat.
Meanwhile six starred a male actor called Chris – of which Chris Pratt accounted for half.
However, while two of the remaining Chris instances (Pine and Hemsworth) headlined big budget blockbusters, the sixth – Christian Friedel – was co-lead in an acclaimed arthouse film: Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (2024). Friedel is known only to his friends as Chris.
The five films starring an older woman that made the top 100 chart in the UK over the three year period were Allelujah (2023), My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023), Book Club: The Next Chapter (2023), The Substance (2024) and Freakier Friday (2025).
That’s nothing, the most common letter in the titles of the 20 highest-grossing movies of the last decade is “A”, therefore a movie with nothing but "A"s in the title is a surefire moneymaker!
Not saying they’re wrong about the issue, but that seems like an almost deliberately small selection of films over a fairly short time frame in movie-making terms. Feels a bit like cooking the books.
Clickbait headline, then the article goes on:
Meanwhile six starred a male actor called Chris – of which Chris Pratt accounted for half.
However, while two of the remaining Chris instances (Pine and Hemsworth) headlined big budget blockbusters, the sixth – Christian Friedel – was co-lead in an acclaimed arthouse film: Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (2024). Friedel is known only to his friends as Chris.
The five films starring an older woman that made the top 100 chart in the UK over the three year period were Allelujah (2023), My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023), Book Club: The Next Chapter (2023), The Substance (2024) and Freakier Friday (2025).
Lower down on the box office chart, a number of titles starring older women – including Hard Truths, I’m Still Here and Thelma – further suggest that such movies can also be critical successes.
The second highest-grossing film of 2025 in the UK, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, would have made the cut had its star, Renée Zellweger, been three years older.
The time period also coincides with a period marked by the death or retirement of a number of popular female British actors, such as Maggie Smith, Joan Plowright and Glenda Jackson, as well as Judi Dench and Vanessa Redgrave.
Jackson’s final film, The Great Escaper, appears not to have made the cut as she was the co-star, opposite Michael Caine’s lead.
So first of all, the statistic is bullshit because the numbers are swayed by Chris Pratt, who is a superstar. And then in one of the 6 films, one of the Chris’s isn’t even a Chris, but a Christian.
Other films further down the list imply the reason why older women are less likely to be called to the screen - they don’t attract crowds. And giant movie production companies are in the business of making movies that sell lots of tickets, and then sprinking in artsy films that generate critical acclaim as a way to rub elbows with other film elites. The problem isn’t that producers don’t want to make movies about older women - it is that people don’t want to watch them. They wanna watch a 3d animated raccoon pilot a space ship.
And in this time period the number of A List actresses over 50 shrunk. And also there were films that would have made the cut but didn’t due to a technicality.
So to sum up, the problem is just moviegoers’ revealed preference, and it isn’t even as big as it is made out to be. Actresses over 50 are perfectly capable of getting together with female directors over 50 to create critically acclaimed indie films that become cult classics or achieve surprise box office success if it turns out that the general public actually is craving more older women in film. This appears to just be a special interest group whining and using the guise of social justice to gain additional wealth and influence for itself, which is, just, so last decade, grandma.
I feel like part of it is that you need scripts where there is enough spectacle to deserve seeing it in theaters. I can only think of two in the last few years involving an actress over 50 in a leading role to justify it: The Substance and Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. If you want to go for something smaller, there is also 80 for Brady.
Maybe some of the older women actors need to start working on writing, directing, and producing like a lot more millennial actors are of they want movies made that star them.
Sure, let’s introduce an old person into the film just so that the quota can be reached.