In this article from humanhealthmag, we are going to introduce the best movies about the elderly. In general, the most powerful movies are those that come from the heart of human nature. What it truly means to be human and allow their audience to connect with characters and lives that are very different from their own. One of the most effective ways to endear film characters to the audience is to use common emotions to create mutual understanding. These emotions include love, fear, sadness, and anger, which many audiences understand. This is because many people have experienced these emotions themselves.
By highlighting the character’s experience of facing these pervasive emotions, filmmakers effectively build a strong connection and a strong sense of mutual understanding between the audience and the characters in the film. As we mentioned in retirement home movies, there are many movies about old age and retirement that have a large audience. Now, we will introduce the best movies about older people.
10 Movies About the Elderly
The experiences of older people are often overlooked, and the representation of older characters in mainstream cinema has sometimes been problematic, but despite all this, there are a large number of films that explore the lives of older people in all their complexities and variations, focusing on long-term marriages, daring journeys, the illnesses of old age, and the fundamental existential questions that come with old age. Here are the top 10 movies about the elderly.
1- Make Way for Tomorrow
- Production: 1937
- Running time: 91 minutes
- Director: Leo McCarey
- Cast: Victor Moore, Bula Bundy, Faye Binter
- IMDb user rating: 8.2 out of 10
Make Way for Tomorrow is one of the best movies about the elderly. Bula Bundy and Victor Moore play an elderly couple struggling with financial problems. They lose their home to foreclosure and are eventually separated by their indifferent and uncomprehending children who refuse to take care of their parents.
Paying special attention to family dynamics and class differences, Making Way for Tomorrow does not approach these complex and difficult issues as smoothly as Hollywood films do, nor does it present a simple picture. Orson Welles said of the film: “It would make a stone weep”. McCray’s film is undoubtedly one of Hollywood’s greatest and most genuine tearjerkers.
2- Ikiru
- Production: 1952
- Running time: 143 minutes
- Director: Akira Kurosawa
- Cast: Takashi Shimura, Miki Odagiri, Nobu Nakamura, and…
- IMDb user rating for the film: 8.3 out of 10
The second best movie about the elderly is Ikiru. If the plot of Making a Way to Tomorrow sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because of its connection and closeness to Yasujiro Ozu’s “Tokyo Story.” Japanese cinema has always shown remarkable intelligence and sensitivity in presenting elderly characters. The film “Living,” which was released just 1 year before Tokyo Story, is a beautiful drama by Akira Kurosawa inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s long story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.”
Takashi Shimura plays Kanji Watanabe, a widowed civil servant who discovers he has cancer and doesn’t have long to live. Watanabe lives with his daughter-in-law and son, who are more concerned with his health than his legacy. While he’s trying to fight death, he decides to turn a piece of urban wasteland into a children’s playground. Living with that unique image of Shimura singing on a park swing under the falling snow is still a living memory, as evidenced by the new British remake starring Bill Nighy and directed by Oliver Hermanus.
3- Umberto D
- Production: 1952
- Running time: 91 minutes
- Director: Vittorio De Sica
- Cast: Maria Pia Casillo, Lina Gennari, Carlo Battisti and…
- IMDb users’ rating for the film: 8.2 out of 10
The third movie about the elderly belongs to Umberto D. After the successful films “Waxy” and “Bicycle Thief”, Vittorio De Sica now considered it the turn of a film whose protagonist would be an older character. This is how Umberto D was created. Ingmar Bergman says about this film: “This is the film that I probably love most of all films.” That is, the film that tells the story of the life of Umberto D, a retired government employee and his dog, who are trying to survive in the face of poverty and alienation resulting from modern Rome.
Umberto Domenico’s challenges, in addition to trying to keep his rented room from a greedy landlord, are his own stubbornness and pride. Like his 70-year-old co-star, Carlo Battisti, a former university professor, Umberto commands our respect and admiration. The film eschews the sentimentalism and emotionalism common in films of its subject matter in favor of a realistic portrayal. As a social critique that highlights the older generation left behind by post-war Italy, the film is full of compassion and humanity, expressing what the film’s writer, Cesare Zavattini, describes as “the love of reality.”
4- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane
- Production: 1962
- Running time: 134 minutes
- Director: Robert Aldrich
- Cast: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Bono, etc.
- IMDb user rating for the film: 8 out of 10
Robert Aldrich’s “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” is one of the best movies about the elderly and represents a new genre of horror cinema in the 70s and 80s that uses the face of aging in women as a source of horror, pity, and comedy. Joan Crawford and Bette Davis are two sisters who occupy the same mansion, and one of them torments the other. The challenges and conflicts between the two depict contemporary anxieties and concerns about the social status of older women. Much of the film’s enduring appeal is its use of real-life situations and published stories from retired TV and film stars.
5- The Trip to Bountiful
- Production: 1985
- Running time: 108 minutes
- Director: Peter Masterson
- Cast: Geraldine Page, Carlene Glynn, John Hurd, etc.
- IMDb user rating: 7.4 out of 10
The fifth best movie about the elderly is The Trip to Bountiful. Adapted from the play by Horton Foote, Peter Masterson’s “The Trip to Bountiful” avoids falling into the trap of stereotypical elderly characters. This avoidance occurs with the help of Geraldine Page’s brilliant performance as Carrie Watts. In this film, Carrie Watts plays the role of a widow who escapes her cramped Houston apartment that she shares with her son and daughter-in-law and begins an adventure to her childhood home near the Texas Gulf Coast. Along the way, she forms a friendship with her traveling companion, Rebecca De Mornay. A television version of the film was produced in 2014, starring Cecily Tyson as Carrie, which was equally impressive.
6- Prospero’s Books
- Production: 1991
- Running time: 124 minutes
- Director: Peter Greenaway
- Cast: Jean Gielgud, Mark Rylance, Michael Clarke and…
- IMDb user rating for the film: 6.8 out of 10
The sixth place in movies about the elderly is given to Prospero’s Books. “Prospero’s Books” is based on 24 texts that were exiled by Prospero. He uses them to use magic to take revenge on those who wronged him. Prospero’s Books portrays a portrait of the power of old age, in which Jean Gielgud, as a Shakespearean character, delivers all the dialogue from Shakespeare’s text, so that in addition to witnessing an interesting sequel to Shakespeare’s play, we also watch a tribute to one of the greatest actors of our time.
unhook the stars
7- Unhook the Stars
- Release: 1996
- Running time: 106 minutes
- Director: Nick Cassavetes
- Cast: Marisa Tomei, Gena Rowlands, Gerard Depardieu, etc.
- IMDb user rating: 6.5 out of 10
The seventh best movie about the elderly belongs to Unhook the Stars. In his directorial debut, Nick Cassavetes gave a role to his mother, Gena Rowlands. Cassavetes’ film may lack the experimental aspects of his father, John, but it makes up for it with its human insight. Rowlands plays Mildred, a widow with two adult children. The arrival of Monica, an unstable neighbor, brings new excitement and purpose to Mildred’s life, especially when she is tasked with caring for Monica’s son, J.J. (Jake Lloyd), with whom she has formed a strong bond. But when J.J.’s absent father unexpectedly returns to the family, Mildred finds herself ostracized and challenged to imagine a life beyond the caring roles that have always defined her.
8- The Straight Story
- Production: 1999
- Running time: 112 minutes
- Director: David Lynch
- Cast: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton, etc.
- IMDb user rating: 8 out of 10
The other movies about the elderly is The Straight Story. Richard Farnsworth, who plays a man named Alvin Straight, goes on a 240-mile trip from Iowa to Wisconsin to visit his sick and outcast brother, Harry. Since Alvin’s physical problems prevent him from having a license, he uses his lawnmower to make the trip!
This film is considered an alien and different work in Lynch’s filmography. In a way, it can be argued that The Straight Story is even stranger than Gaspar Noé’s Vortex. A tribute to slow travel in the slow lane of the highway, the film is remarkable for its emotional intimacy and beauty, and for Farnsworth’s beautiful and profound performance.
9- Up
- Production: 2009
- Running time: 96 minutes
- Director: Pete Docter
- Cast: Pete Docter, Edward Asner, Bob Peterson and…
- IMDb user rating for the film: 8.3 out of 10
The ninth place Of Best movies about the elderly belongs to Up. One of the most shocking associations of aging in cinema can be found in the introduction to the Pixar animated film “Up”. This introduction, in a sequence without dialogue, outlines the history of 1 marriage for the audience. The main character of the film Pete Docter, voiced by Edward Asner, is an old man named Carl Fredrickson. His character, inspired by Spencer Tracy, is a retired balloon salesman who saves his old house from its fate.
He does this by turning his house into a giant flying balloon and leaving the city for Paradise Falls, the place he and his late wife always dreamed of visiting but never got to. Carl does this with the unsolicited help of a mischievous 8-year-old scout named Russell, who is eager to earn his “Helping the Elderly” badge, and on his journey he encounters colorful birds, talking dogs, and a disillusioned child hero. The journey is full of excitement and laughter, but its depth lies in the “spirit of adventure” found in everyday life and human relationships.
10- Radiator
- Production: 2014
- Running time: 93 minutes
- Director: Tom Fisher
- Cast: Richard Johnson, Gemma Jones, Julia Ford, etc.
- IMDb user rating: 8.2 out of 10
The tenth best movie about the elderly is Radiator. It stars Gemma Jones and Richard Johnson as an elderly couple in declining health. Filmed in the director’s own parents’ home, Radiator is a deeply personal project that gently tugs at the heartstrings, drawing the viewer into intimacy with its three protagonists through a series of intimate but richly textured domestic scenes. Jones and Johnson are wonderful together. With every look, hurtful remark, or joke, they reflect their complex shared history.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Movie Ranks Highest In the List Of Movies About the Elderly?
Make Way for Tomorrow is at the top of the list and is considered one of the best movies about the elderly.
Who Is Suitable for Watching Movies About Aging and Elderhood?
Everyone, young and old, can watch these movies. Older people will definitely enjoy watching them more.