The 10 Most Inspiring Filmmakers Over 50

​Nicole Kidman, 55

​Sure, the Australian actress boosted her American leading lady status on the arm of then-husband Tom Cruise, 60, in Far and Away (1992). But now, after a stellar run in movies, including one Oscar win for The Hours, and a turn as Lucille Ball in last year’s Being the Ricardos, she’s wisely gone the producing route. That choice, to take responsibility for her talents and her roles, has led to a string of cable successes like Big Little Lies, The Undoing and Nine Perfect Strangers.

Helen Mirren, recipient of the life achievement award, poses in the press room at the 28th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California.

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

​Helen Mirren, 77

​Mirren, always stunning, has become a global beauty icon in her 70s. While she had her first major role in A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream as Hermia opposite the late Diana Rigg’s Helena in 1968 (worth a rewatch), and scooped up her first best actress Oscar nearly 40 years later for The Queen in 2007, she also was ahead of the pack of actresses migrating from big screen to small with the BBC series Prime Suspect. Recently, she’s added action star to her résumé and only this month hit the gossip columns for celebrating the 55th birthday of her Fast X costar Vin Diesel in Rome. What a dame!

(Left to right) Jodie Comer, Ridley Scott and Matt Damon on the set of "The Last Duel."

Jessica Forde/20th Century Studios/Courtesy Everett Collection

​Ridley Scott, 84

​Wouldn’t it be enough to have directed Gladiator, Alien, The Martian, Blade Runner and Thelma & Louise? Four-time Academy Award nominee Scott in 2021 had not one but two Oscar contenders in the race: period piece House of Gucci and medieval actioner The Last Duel. Not busy enough? Scott’s currently wrapping up the biopic Napoleon starring Joaquin Phoenix in the title role.

​Maggie Smith, 87

​Smith has long been a major actress of stage and screen, scoring the first of two Oscars for her title role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie more than a half century ago, in 1969. But who could have predicted her television superstardom in the past decade as the dowager countess of Grantham, matriarch of the Crawleys, snagging three Emmys since 2011 for the PBS monster hit Downton Abbey?

Steven Spielberg attends the 40th Anniversary Screening of "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" during opening night at the 2022 TCM Classic Film Festival at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California.

Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for TCM

​Steven Spielberg, 75

​In the past quarter of a century, Spielberg has been prolific. And while there were times he resisted change — the transition from film to digital, for example — he’s still experimenting. Recently he shot his first music video — of Marcus Mumford — on an iPhone. To quote a tweet from Mumford, “On Sunday 3rd July in a high school gym in New York, Steven Spielberg directed his first music video, in one shot, on his phone. Kate Capshaw, 68, was the almighty dolly grip.” And his personal family portrait The Fabelmans will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the first time a Spielberg film will have its world premiere at the Canadian fest.

​Quentin Tarantino, 59

​The writer-director may claim that his next film will be his last. But the past few years have seen major lifestyle changes for the Oscar winner. He wed Israeli singer Daniella Pick in 2018 and moved to Tel Aviv, where the couple recently welcomed their second child.

Making The Hateful Eight, From Dusk to Dawn: The Series, and the reflectively elegiac Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood after turning 50 proved him more than an enfant terrible.

Denzel Washington in “The Tragedy of Macbeth.”

Alison Rosa/Apple TV+

​Denzel Washington, 67

​Washington landed on the TV star track with the popular ’80s medical show St. Elsewhere and soon crossed over into movie stardom, particularly in a series of movies directed by Spike Lee, 65. The double Oscar winner continues to be a towering presence, headlining The Tragedy of Macbeth last year, leading popcorn franchises like The Equalizer 3, and commanding Broadway most recently in The Iceman Cometh.

​Michelle Yeoh, 59

​I first saw Yeoh kicking butt in the 1993 Hong Kong action classic The Heroic Trio. She continued to make her international reputation in the 2001 best foreign language Oscar winner Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In English-language films she’s largely had supporting roles in such movies as Crazy Rich Asians, but she graciously takes the lead in this year’s English language breakout hit Everything Everywhere All at Once, which could score a best actress Oscar nom for the Malaysian native.

Thelma M. Adams, the former film critic for Us Weekly and the New York Post, is a novelist who writes on film for AARP, The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.