Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

Feeling a bit nostalgic for the 80s and peckish for a change in scenery? Slip on your favorite dungarees, lace up your best tennis shoes and spend the day on the east coast of New Zealand before the 90s.

The 2010 film Boy, directed by Taika Waititi (director of Hunt for the Wilderpeople, 2016) follows a young preteen, called Boy, who lives in New Zealand and absolutely adores Michael Jackson. Boy’s father returns from prison, out of the blue, in search of a bag of money he buried years prior, when Boy’s grandmother happens to leave for a quick trip. Set in the 80’s, Boy is faced with the reality of his absent father who isn’t all he imagined him to be.

When most of us think about diversity and representation in film, we usually think about three things: race, gender, and disabilities. However, there is an often forgotten topic... age. When you truly think about it, most media is about young or middle-aged people and many films about elders are ignored or demonizing (such as using them in horror to be creepy). Statistically, the world population of people aged 65 or older is around 10% (around 788 million people), and the U.S. population of elders is around 19% (around 63 million people). Those numbers are projected to double or even triple by 2050. A study in 2016 found that out of all of the speaking or named characters (in American cinema), only 10% were above the age of 60. This number is lowering every year and it's suggested that only 5 in 100 movies have an elder protagonist.

After leaving several million people out of the film industry, you would think that you hear about this more often. However, not many are talking about it. Even so, there are still quite a few films out there with elderly protagonists that more people need to be aware of. Here are just 12!

(P.S. Sadly, much of elderly cinema is focused on Alzheimer's disease/physical difficulties of aging, so be aware that it may be harder to find films without it.)