Not every story needs a car chase. The Sundance darling Thelma (2024) starring (94 years old) turned the "elderly scam victim" trope on its head. Squibb’s character rides a mobility scooter like a stunt driver, using her wits to get her money back. It is a heist film about dignity, proving that suspense and comedy are even richer when the protagonist has seventy years of life experience to draw from.

Today’s mature female characters are unrecognizable from the "Mrs. Doubtfire" era. We are witnessing the rise of four distinct genres of older female performance:

While she was always working, her roles in Mamma Mia! and The Devil Wears Prada (at 57) proved that a woman over 50 could be the absolute center of a cultural phenomenon, not the side note.