Films more likely to star a ‘Chris’ or a talking animal than a woman over 60, study reveals

By David Mouriquand Published on 25/05/2026 - 11:25 GMT+2 Share Comments Share Facebook Twitter Flipboard Send Reddit Linkedin Messenger Telegram VK Bluesky Threads Whatsapp

An anti-ageism campaign in the UK has uncovered that top-grossing films over past three years are more likely to star an actor named 'Chris' or a talking animal rather than a female lead over the age of 60. What gives?

Ever noticed how a disproportionate amount of Hollywood stars and blockbuster heartthrobs are called Chris?

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Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pine, Chris Pratt...

It’s even become dubbed "The Battle of the Chrises", with social media users ranking their favourite Chris.

Spoiler: It’s rarely Pratt, and it should always be Walken. And don’t stare into Pine’s blue peepers for too long. Many sailors have drowned in that ocean.

However, the “Which Chris is the best Chris?” line of enquiry may hide something significantly more alarming than just cursing genetically blessed actors. According to data from the UK’s Ageing Better’s Age Without Limits campaign, if you want to succeed on the big screen, you are better off being a man named Chris than a woman over the age of 60.

The campaign, which challenges ageism and supports people to change the way people think about ageing, has studied the 100 highest performing films released in the UK in 2023, 2024 and 2025. They found that just five of the 100 highest-grossing films of the past three years starred a woman over 60 as the lead character.

By contrast, six films featured a Chris as the lead actor – half of which were Chris Pratt (The Super Mario Bros Movie; Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3, The Garfield Movie).

In case you were wondering, the top-grossing UK films featuring a female lead over the age of 60 in the past three years are: Allelujah (2023), starring Jennifer Saunders; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023), starring Nia Vardalos; Book Club: The Next Chapter (2023), starring Diane Keaton; The Substance (2024), starring Demi Moore; and Freakier Friday (2025), starring Jamie Lee Curtis.

Before you cry foul, the second highest-grossing film of 2025 in the UK, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, did not make the cut, as Renée Zellweger still has three years left before turning 60.

But wait, it gets worse. Age Without Limits’ research has revealed that films are also four times more likely to have a talking animal as the lead character than a female actor over the age of 60.

Kung Fu Panda ’s Po and Paddington are probably feeling very sheepish right about now.

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Now, the Age Without Limits campaign is calling on the film industry to have better representation of older women in film – and the call has been heard by 67-year-old Oscar-winning British actress Dame Emma Thompson.

“Women are half the population and we get older,” said Thompson in a statement. “So where are the stories about us? The older we get, the more interesting we are. I want to see more films centre ageing women, we are compelling, relatable, and overdue for centre stage.”

She added: “Older women don’t need permission to exist on screen. They already exist in the world, cinema just needs to catch up.”

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Dr Carole Easton OBE, Chief Executive at the Centre for Ageing Better, said: “It is absolutely ludicrous to think so few films have been made in recent years that have an older woman at the front and centre. Up to one in five UK cinema attendees are aged 55 and above, this age group spends hundreds of millions of pounds every year on cinema.”

“The representation of older actors in major film roles is so disproportionate to the proportion of older women in the cinema-going audience, the lack of representation is insulting frankly,” she continued. “Sadly, it is not just in cinema where this happens. In many forms of media, in many different employment sectors and parts of public life, the input of older women is minimised, marginalised and ignored.”

Dr Easton added: “We must all push back against ageism, and its intersection with sexism, by telling the cultural gatekeepers that we want all aspects and stages of life represented in the things we watch, listen to and read.”

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The Centre for Ageing Better also polled 4,000 members of the UK public to gauge audience appetite for more stories led by women over the age of 60.

One in three people (33%) say there are not enough films being made that feature female leads over 60 – compared to around one in 30 people (3%) who say there are too many films being made that feature female actors over 60 as a lead character.

The proportion of people who think there are not enough films being made that feature female actors over 60 as a lead character rose to almost two in five (39%) when surveying just women.

The study, authored by academics at the University of West London School of Film, Media and Design, found that female characters aged 65 years and over were more than three times less likely than men of the same age to be featured in British films over the last decade.

Women characters over 50 were also found to speak 14% less than older men in the sample of films studied by researchers.

Researchers also found that empowered, active and rounded older female characters were rare, with older women much more commonly portrayed as “passive, pitiable, ridiculed for failing to act their age and often irrelevant to the main plot”.

“By failing to properly represent older people, and older women in particular, the film industry is actively participating in the pushing of older people to the margins of society,” said Harriet Bailiss, co-lead of the Age Without Limits campaign.

“For many older people who have come to question their value through internalising the ageism they see around them every day in society, this lack of representation will reinforce the idea that older people matter less as they get older. No wonder so many women talk about feeling invisible as they get older when they don’t see themselves reflected back in popular culture or advertising.”

Bailiss added: “Ageism is the most common form of discrimination but is still not taken seriously enough. Ageism limits work, health, relationships, ambition and confidence -and ultimately whose lives are seen as worth investing in. Ageism affects all of us but we can also all play our part to stamp it out. Questioning it and challenging it starts with each of us.”

Any progress so far this year?

Well, 76-year-old Meryl Streep’s sequel to The Devil Wears Prada has crossed the $600m box office milestone globally, cementing the sequel as one of 2026’s breakout hits. However, both Project Hail Mary and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie are ahead, with current worldwide box office intakes of $670m and $800m respectively.

The first stars a talking alien rock. The second stars Chris Pratt.

Chris-cross your fingers that things change and that Hollywood stops pratting around.

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