There are more Hollywood films with talking animals than with women over 60!

“The representation of older actresses in leading roles is so disproportionate to the proportion of older women in the audience that this lack of representation is, frankly, insulting,” calls out a recent study.

In Hollywood, a CGI animal obviously has a better chance of being a star than an actress over 60.

This is the alarming finding of a new British study on casting trends in mainstream cinema. According to this survey carried out on the 100 most profitable films at the British box office between 2023 and 2025 (therefore very largely Hollywood films), the figures reveal a still very marked imbalance in representation. According to this study carried out by Age Without Limits, there are more films with a talking animal in the main role than feature films centered on a woman over 60!

To underline the absurdity of this age discrimination, the study underlines that there are even more films carried by actors named Chris than by a senior actress…

Actress Emma Thompson reacts by recalling that older women are largely underexploited on screen despite their central place in society:

“Women represent half the population, and they are getting older. So where are their stories?”she declares. “The older we get, the more interesting we become.”

As for aging specialists, the findings are just as severe. Dr Carol Easton OBE, director of the Center for Aging Better, speaks of an almost offensive imbalance between the demographic reality of the audience and what the studios offer:

“It is absolutely absurd that so few recent films feature an older woman in a leading role. In the UK, almost one in five moviegoers are aged 55 or over, and this age group spends hundreds of millions of pounds every year at the cinema. The representation of older actresses in leading roles is so disproportionate to the proportion of older women in audiences that this lack of representation is, frankly, insulting.”

Same story with Harriet Bailiss, co-responsible for the campaign, who believes that cinema actively participates in marginalizing older people, and in particular women.

And yet, a few recent exceptions show that another model is possible. Among the rare recent films to feature women over 60 in lead roles, we find in particular Hallelujah with Jennifer Saunders, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 with Nia Vardalos, Book Club: The Next Chapter with Diane Keaton, The Substance with Demi Moore, or even Freaky Friday 2 with Jamie Lee Curtis.

But these cases still remain largely in the minority.