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Many feature films that deal with elderhood and aging wallow in stereotypical and outdated views of the experience of elderhood. Not only do these films miss the mark of being an authentic representation of elderhood, but they are also often overbearing and artistically weak. Thankfully, there are several notable exceptions to this. Here is my list of twelve exceptional films from 2012 to 2022 that deal with elderhood and aging in an authentic and artistically creative way.

Criterion for selecting these Top Twelve Films

I love finding and recommending films that reach beyond the typical and formulaic stories told over and over about various facets of experiencing later life. I look for exceptionally creative films that present a balanced view of aging—neither syrupy sweet nor gloom and doom. Because of this, many of the more popularized films about aging are not included on this list; you may find films here that you have not heard of before.

The films are arranged here in alphabetical order.

Happy viewing!

As an editorial board member for The Gerontologist, I have reviewed in print approximately 60 documentary films focusing on aging-related themes and older persons.  I recommend here a dozen films from this group – a tough task.  I have never reviewed a documentary film I considered poor or unworthy. This is a list of my personal and professional favorites.

Criteria for Selecting This Exceptional Dozen

Both professional and personal factors influenced the films on this list.  Professionally, all of these documentaries have relevance for trainers and educators, researchers, applied professionals, and advocates of adulthood, later adulthood, and old age.  They do not focus on facts and figures; rather, most share a wide range of life scenarios – that personally inspired their talented videographers.  To my mind, these films serve as case studies, showing us either “possible” or “probable” life situations involving aging and aged people.  On the personal level, I have selected many on this list because of their emotional or empathic impact.  They evoke surprise, curiosity, pride, shame, wonder, incredulity, amazement, and awe.  I have shared many of them in my classes.

The films are arranged in chronological order, with release dates ranging from 2009 up to the present.  They deal with issues that are currently both timely and relevant.

So many films that portray romance between two aging individuals focus on new relationships, as opposed to seasoned long-term relationships. It’s difficult to find anything filmically dramatic in a long-lived and stable relationship. 45 Years manages to have it both ways. It tells the story of a dramatic disruption in the comfortable relationship of an older couple when a frozen body is found in the Alps. The film presents a subtle exploration of what distinguishes mature love from earlier romantic love. Read full review.

This is one of the more creative films ever made that deals with all the material stuff left behind when a parent/grandparent dies. Two loving grandchildren review the many hours of conversations with their grandmother that they had videotaped during the last ten years of her life. They also take several months to sort through all of the belongings in their grandma’s house. The film sparkles with creativity and humor as they conduct this “excavation” and reflect on the meaning and memories of her life. Read full review.

This is one of the more controversial films ever made about the emotional toll of tending to a physically and mentally deteriorating spouse. It is difficult to summarize the story of this film without making it seem like a film to avoid watching. So, I will simply recommend that you see this multiple-award-winning film (including an Oscar for Best Foreign Film) and be prepared to discuss it with someone after you’ve seen it. Read full review.

With a title like that, along with the film’s brief description on IMDb and other movie databases, I was dubious about what kind of film this would be. But when I watched it, I was deeply drawn in from the very first scenes. The film presents a wonderful and balanced combination of whimsical humor and emotional depth as a daughter and father come to terms with the father’s cognitive decline.

Dick Johnson Is Dead has won several awards including the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Innovation in Nonfiction Storytelling from the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Read full review.

This sensitively done film features Emma Thompson as a widow who wants to explore a deeper sexuality that she never experienced in her marriage. To do so, she contracts with a young sex-worker. But the film presents a story that is much deeper and multi-layered than simply transactional sex; it reveals how the lives of both characters are changed during their more-than-sex meetings. Beautifully acted and acutely scripted, the film is a bold exploration of one older woman’s willingness to challenge her personal boundaries around sexual expression and fulfillment.

This bold film presents us with a futuristic story where a computer-generated holographic replication of a deceased loved one (called a “prime”) brings some companionship to a person who is losing her memory. The film is a provocative look at the meaning of memories and whether at some future time bodily mortality might be replaced with a different kind of human essence. It also raises the question of whether, if that happens, that digitally replicated essence will also be able to carry and express human emotion. Read full review.

The two things that make this film worthy of being in the Top Twelve list are the chemistry between the two lead actors, and the way that their relationship is framed. Rarely do films present viewers with a seasoned and intimate relationship that has lasted into later life. Ordinary Love does just that. The film portrays a year in the life of Joan (Lesley Manville) and Tom (Liam Neeson) Thompson, during which they deal with the discovery and treatment of Joan’s breast cancer.

Both the scripting and the acting in this film have a deeply engaging quality. As I watched the film, I quickly identified with Tom and Joan as a real-life couple struggling with a painful experience—a struggle that is sometimes punctuated by intense conflict in their relationship.

Ordinary Love won the Best Film 2020 Award from the Irish Film and Television Academy. Read full review.

If you want a story that deals with meaningful issues in a way that is not dark and depressing, then give this film a try. Visually, the film is open and bright, and it’s characters are open-hearted and honest—even when they disagree with each other. The film tells the story of an older couple finding a way to maintain an independent living arrangement when one of them begins to experience memory loss. It presents a rich example of balancing personal vitality with the acceptance of the changes that older age can bring. Still Mine is also a much-needed counterpoint to the film, Amour (referenced earlier in this list). Read full review.

This film is on the Top Twelve list, but with a huge caveat. The film is exceptionally well acted and the storyline boldly creates an inside look into how the memory loss of dementia may be experienced by some individuals. The film fails, however, to rise above the all too familiar representation of the downward spiral into fear and anger that dementia can trigger in those who experience it.

The Father has won numerous awards, including two Oscars. Read full review.

This unusual film is in my Top Twelve list because, despite a partial flaw in its tone, it reveals something that few films have been able to do. It manages to give us a long look at life inside a residential care facility. Very few films have been able to do this, mostly because residential care homes will not allow any kind of filming inside the facility. The film, set in a small city near Santiago, Chile, shows the experience of an older man, Sergio Chamy, who has been recruited by a detective agency to go undercover in a local nursing home to find out who might be stealing from one of the residents. The agency equips Sergio with a smartphone and with special glasses that contain a video recording device. The opening scenes of Sergio being schooled in how to use these tools for his undercover work are presented with an underlying tone of humor and with an underlying spy-genre music score. The film is dangerously close here to using humor that is grounded in the denigration of older adults. Fortunately, this tone is soon replaced by one of empathy when Sergio moves into the facility and begins to engage with its residents.

The Mole Agent was nominated for an Academy Award in 2021. Read full review.

Music is often a restorative element for persons experiencing dementia. This wonderful film movingly tells the story of how a music composer came to create a choral/orchestral piece that would give musical expression to the experience of living with dementia.

The Story of Shadow and Light is brilliantly edited. It uses generous portions of the finished composition as an underlying music track throughout much of the film and often lets the music come into full sound and view during short glimpses into the performance of the piece. This serves to create a unifying and deeply emotive thread that effectively holds the viewer in the satisfying thrall of both the story of the music’s creation and of the music itself. For me, the result was an incredibly moving viewing experience. Music has the power to reach deep into one’s empathy, and I found myself in tears—not sad tears, but simply deep-feeling tears–at several points through the viewing of the film. (from the film review)

The film can be viewed here at no charge. (https://aofilms.com/films/shadow-and-light/) Read full review.

This film presents a nuanced and relatable story of family tension over how to keep an ailing parent/spouse safe while respecting her personal dignity. What makes this film stand out is the way it gets it just right—allowing the inherent drama of the situation to play out without pushing it into the overly dramatic or sentimental.  The film also carries within it a sense of lightness and occasional humor in the face of the challenges the family must cope with. Read full review.

These two films, released, respectively, in 2009 and 2010, deal with driving, arguably the most single important activity of daily life that validates one’s sense of autonomy across the adult life span.  OLD PEOPLE DRIVING contrasts driving desires of two very old cognitively intact, healthy men.  One, at 96, fully intends to keep driving.  The other, at 99, decides to turn in his keys.  The film deals with the implications of their decisions for them, their families, and the larger public. INTO THE OTHER LANE: DRIVING AND DEMENTIA deals with involuntarily imposed driving restrictions affecting those with dementia as well as their care providers and loved ones.  My review shares helpful sources for professionals, families, and older drivers. Given the marked contrasts in health and driver competencies, I recommend using the films together in educational settings. Read full review.

My first impression of this 2013 film still stands: it should be seen by every serious student of gerontology.  It is advertised on its homepage as a cute film about the antics of an amusing group of elders living in a continuing care retirement community in Texas.  This is an unfortunate description.  While it does have humorous moments, it is a much more serious film about adaptation to personal aging and continuous needs of residents to satisfy their needs for meaningful relationships.  While environmental gerontologists tend to focus on service- and design-features of group living, THE MAYOR – through the eyes and experiences of its residential “host” – 88 year-old-Sam Berger – deals with the informal social structure constructed by the residents of a Texas retirement community. They are high-functioning residents who almost daily deal with death, romance, sexuality, chronic sorrow, physical aging, loneliness and close relationships with friends and family members. The last moments of THE MAYOR contains one of the most courageous teachable moments I have ever seen in a documentary film.  Videographer Jared Scheib shares a wordless, totally honest, and astonishing view of Sam’s early morning rising as he prepares to face his day.  He struggles to near exhaustion with personal tasks of grooming, blood pressure check, pill management, and – most challenging – dressing himself.  We witness the mundane fortitude required to face each day.  Read full review.

We have reviewed several excellent films over the years devoted specifically to dementia and family caregivers.  THE GENIUS OF MARIAN is certainly among the best.  It shares the enormous challenges of families who opt to provide primary care for a loved one with Alzheimer’s Disease in the home setting.  Pam White, beloved mother of videographer Banker White, was diagnosed with early onset AD while working on a book about her own mother, Marian, who died of the disease at age 89.  However, Alzheimer’s is not the primary focus of his beautifully produced film.  Rather, it illustrates its associated “illness” – defined by psychiatrist Arthur Kleinman as “the private inner world of experiences that accompany the disease” — including its meanings for Pam and her family members (including Ed, her husband, and her adult children).  The film celebrates who she was through family-reviewed home videos. In a courageous and poignant concluding commentary, Pam introduces herself to the camera and tells us who she still is.  The film can usefully inform both professionals and family members who are care providers.  Read full review.

Released in 2009, this remarkable film offers an intimate glimpse into the private lives of three frail elderly people who voluntarily greet young soldiers returning and/or deploying for war at the Bangor Maine airport.   The film does not champion war.  Rather, it focuses quietly on the mutual and joint efforts of two generations – young and old – to come to terms with purpose of life and coping with personal death. I maintain in my review that THE WAY WE GET BY is a psychologically layered film, illustrating major components of “terror management” theory (of death).  The airport setting hosts both reunion and separation,  a powerful literal and metaphoric example of place meaning. Read full review.

Videographer Liz Cane discovered that her grandfather, Bill Cane, was still sexually active at age 95.  Curious about this seemingly rare late life occurrence and, wishing to know her grandfather better, she produced this entertaining, respectful, and sensitive portrait of Bill.  With the help of modern medicine, her grandfather, Bill Cane has achieved renewed sexual desire and physical sexual capability.  The film documents how the benefits of this intervention extend far beyond his sexual functioning, recharging his musical capacity for performing and writing songs.  This film is a “must see” for students of sexual gerontology. Are Bill’s sexual needs unusual?  Is his sexual awakening exceptional?  How does his example enhance our understanding of sexual functioning as an important component of life quality in later life?  A fascinating, fun, and touching tribute. Read full review.

“Successful aging” refers to the largest paradigm shift occurring in gerontology over the past 40 years.  It supplanted “the misery perspective” of aging that falsely assumed that age-related changes are inevitable, universal, and irreversible.  One of the earliest champions of this positive aging viewpoint was the late Marian Diamond, professor of neuroanatomy at University of California, Berkeley.  In my view, she is the metaphoric Mitochrondrial Eve of positive aging.  This six-episode production captures her at age 88 — a passionate scientist, educator, mentor, and foremost, an open, authentic human being who personally modeled successful aging.  Episodes document her ground-breaking research on brain plasticity, showing how experiences in enriched environments can enlarge cortical cells in the brain across the entire life span. Two generations of research has validated her work on the “enrichment paradigm” – showing the impact of enriching and stimulating environments on brain cell growth..  Terrific video with episodes (6 to 15 min) easily adapted to audience settings.  Read full review.

An unusual film which may produce discomfort for some viewers.  With the exception of highly restrictive medical model nursing homes, gerontologists have generally avoided studying aging among residents of total institutions – especially prisons.  Why spend our time and attention viewing these exceptional environments?  At a minimum we stand to learn something about intended and unintended effects of extreme environmental constrictions on adaptive aging and end-of-life transitions.  Aging of prison populations currently poses significant and immediate problems at state and federal levels in the US.

This film focuses on 82-year-old convicted murderer Jack Hall, serving the last days of his life sentence at the Iowa State Penitentiary.  Jack is dying of chronic pulmonary disease.  We learn who he is and follow him into the prison hospice.  Throughout, viewers will find their preconceptions of prison and prisoners challenged by what they see.  Jack’s son was hooked on drugs and “finally hanged himself.”  Jack was imprisoned for killing a drug dealer following this event. Jack enters the prison hospice that was created by private donations and prisoner contributions.  Its rooms are staffed by volunteers — Jack’s fellow lifers.  We witness the care he receives for his pain and his spiritual needs until his death, which we also witness.  The film does not explicitly push a bias on behalf of Jack or the prisoner population.  It is an excellent catalyst for discussions regarding targeting of understudied populations. Does aging among prison populations deserve more attention than it has received to date?  Should aging prisoners comprise a larger part of the inclusion and diversity considerations within gerontology?  How are research directions in gerontology affected by pre-existing societal values held by the researchers? Read full review.

This 2013 video offers a fascinating, in-depth look at Doris Payne, an 84-year-old black American woman who achieved fame and notoriety over a 64-year career as a world-class jewel thief.  Doris violates almost all of the stereotypes connected with older women. Doris shares her motives, the evolution and methods of her major “campaigns” of thievery, her views of her own notoriety, and how her own aging has affected her life of crime.  Legal and behavioral experts discuss the historical attraction of the “trickster” role and the romanticism associated with her stealthy acts.  Her life can inform discussions of moral and cultural values defining productive aging.  In my review, I offer my own explanations for her persistent participation in a life of crime. This film is worth watching simply because of its inherent interest.  Doris is a phenomenon in herself.  Read full review.

ALIVE INSIDE may be the most important film on this list.  It perhaps the most revealing documentary produced about aging and dementia. The film shows what happens when social worker Dan Cohen plays personalized iPod music into the ears of long-term care residents diagnosed with dementia.  The effects are immediate and stunning.  Dementia-affected elders awaken almost instantly from states of agitation, depression, and  morbidity.  They sing, snap their fingers in time to the music, sway, and dance.  They are happy and smiling and tearful. singing, finger snapping, swaying, and dancing.  Happy and smiling, they seem like different persons.  Moribund residents who had retreated to a solitary place within themselves (e.g., “slumpers”) had come alive, revealing their personhood.  The film follows Dan as he tries to convince nursing homes to adopt this intervention – to distribute iPods to residents of every nursing home in the nation. (The effect was discovered decades earlier by Linda A. Gerdner of the Stanford Geriatric Education Center).  Though he found resistance among some resident managers, Dan received strong support for the intervention among advocates within the “personhood” paradigm (e.g., Culture Change movement in long-term care).  We learn from neuropsychiatrists that music operates through different neuronal pathways than Alzheimer’s.  It “outfoxes” dementia.  The individualized music intervention serves as both an alternative medical treatment (Gerdner’s paradigm) as well as a vehicle for sustaining (Cohen’s paradigm) personhood.  A must-see film. Read full review.

This is an important and neat film that purposely “thinks out of the box”.   Its premise — the demography of aging shows that current age-related population projections are barrel-shaped as opposed to the pyramid shape of the 20^th century. Many more older folks are living much longer and fewer younger ones are being born. The argument: These age projections require our immediate attention. We need to begin now to reconfigure our thinking about our major social institutions to meet 21^st century multi-generational needs. This requires rethinking our ingrained 20^th century views of the life course.  Some solutions: Examples of innovative thinking currently in use are illustrated.  They include models of intergenerational housing and age-integrated life-long communities.  Blue sky proposals include shaking up our usual education-work-leisure sequence to allow more leisure time to young and middle age adults, including young parents of children and middle age children caring for parents.  Restructured economic policies to assure greater equity across the life course would allow younger and middle-aged adults to withdraw money prior to retirement to defray costs of education or provide investment in a small business.  COMING OF AGE has instant relevance for life course educators, students, researchers, advocates, community planners, practitioners, policy makers, and everyday citizens.  Join the crowd!  Read full review.

One of my favorite documentaries about aging.  In my review of this 2015 film, I called it “a watershed for gerontologists”.  It deals with the impact of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant explosion, focusing on four remarkable older women who returned to their homes in the “exclusion zone” (declared forever uninhabitable due to its killing level of radiation). Why would they return after being forcibly relocated beyond the zone? What is their life like?  We see them going about their everyday tasks and, accompanied by government officials, visit with personally.  This rich film directly informs discussions of successful aging, notions about aging in “good” places, the importance of cultural context on aging, subjective experiences of place meaning and place attachment, and “person-environment” fit.  It is a rare look at environmental adaptation in extremis – an unintended instance of “the forbidden experiment.”  Read full review.

Among the very best documentary films on this list.  Released in 2018, it is certainly the most enchanting.  Director James Chan explores the remarkable embodiment of “sense of place” exuded by the artistic creations of 81-year-old artist Frank Wong. His art consists of several miniature 3D dioramas of rooms evoked by memories of his youth as a resident of San Francisco, Chinatown.  They include his living room at Christmas, the herb store, the laundry, an SRO room, dining room, and mail room.  With exquisite realism, the dioramas preserve and evoke memories in Frank and friends of places now threatened or destroyed by urban “revitalization”.  The film is a tribute not only to his art, but to Frank Wong, the artist as a person.  It becomes apparent that Frank Wong is a gentle, sensitive, ingenuous, and decent man – who “embodies the wit and wisdom of Chinatown.” Most striking, prepare yourself to shrink for an unparalleled microcosmic experience as Director Chan takes us on a photographic tour inside of the dioramas.  Read full review.