17th Annual Movies for Grownups Awards
Gary Oldman and Annette Bening Among 2018 Movies for Grownups Winners
by Tim Appelo, AARP, February 6, 2018
En español | Annette Bening, Gary Oldman, Guillermo del Toro and Helen Mirren were among the stars honored for their work in 2017 films at AARP's Movies for Grownups Awards on Monday. Hosted by Alan Cumming, the show also featured Mark Hamill, Saoirse Ronan, Willem Dafoe and other celebrity presenters. The awards ceremony premieres Friday, Feb. 23 at 9 p.m. (8 p.m. Central) on PBS’ Great Performances (check your local listings), pbs.org/gperf and PBS apps. Here is the full list of winners.
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PHOTO BY: Christopher Jue/Getty Images
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” director Rian Johnson
Best Movie for Grownups: Star Wars: The Last Jedi
For 40 years, Star Wars has been the movie of our generations — the generations 50 and older — and The Last Jedi is the episode that honors them all. In an industry that's too often preoccupied with youth, the film respects the past, taking us back to fond memories — yet it is also of the moment, innovative, vital and in touch with a vast public. And speaking of touch, Mark Hamill has just the right one as an older and wiser Luke Skywalker. In Jedi, the actor and his character passed the baton to a new generation. Hamill and costar Kelly Marie Tran presented director Rian Johnson with our top film award. Also nominated: Get Out, Lady Bird, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
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PHOTO BY: Sony Pictures Classics
Annette Bening as Gloria Grahame in “Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool”
Best Actress: Annette Bening in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
Bening based her first Oscar-nominated role in 1990's The Grifters on Gloria Grahame, the age-defying noir star whose movies included It's a Wonderful Life. She began developing this movie in 1994, waited 23 years until she was grown up enough to play Grahame, and delivered an exhilaratingly definitive performance. Also nominated: Judi Dench, Salma Hayek, Frances McDormand and Meryl Streep.
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PHOTO BY: Jack English/Focus Features
Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour”
Best Actor: Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour
He invested blood, toil, tears, sweat and more than 220 hours in Oscar-nominated prosthetics and makeup to become Winston Churchill. Like Churchill, Oldman "mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.” Also nominated: Steve Carell, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington.
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PHOTO BY: Miller Mobley
Helen Mirren at a 2016 photo shoot for "AARP The Magazine"
Career Achievement Award: Helen Mirren
Superstar Helen Mirren is clearly the prime suspect for an award honoring an actress whose success grows with age: Ninety-three percent of her movies' $1.5 billion total earnings arrived after she turned 50, along with most of her top acting honors, including an Oscar for The Queen. Presented with the award by her Winchester costar Jason Clarke, Mirren joins previous AARP career achievement winners Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas, Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Sharon Stone, Robert Redford and Robert De Niro.
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PHOTO BY: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Guillermo del Toro (center) directs Richard Jenkins and Sally Hawkins on the set of “The Shape of Water”
Best Director: Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water
Del Toro spent decades struggling to make his romantic monster movie, which he calls “an antidote to cynicism — a movie that wears its heart on its sleeve.” Finally, at 53, his masterpiece has earned more Oscar nominations than any rival, as well as AARP's directing prize. Also nominated: Reginald Hudlin, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg and Kenneth Branagh.
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PHOTO BY: A24
Willem Dafoe and Brooklynn Prince in "The Florida Project"
Best Intergenerational Movie: The Florida Project
The superb acting of Willem Dafoe and a cast of young unknown actors makes you feel as if you are part of this Florida community that's just getting by in a run-down motel. The Oscar-nominated Dafoe presented Florida Project director Sean Baker and youthful scene-stealers Christopher Rivera and Valeria Cotto with the award for a film that truly bridges the generation gap in cinema. Also nominated: The Big Sick, Lady Bird, Marjorie Prime
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PHOTO BY: Merice Wallace/A24
Laurie Metcalf as Marion McPherson in “Lady Bird”
Best Supporting Actress: Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird
Saoirse Ronan presented Laurie Metcalf an award for playing her impossible, devoted mother in what was once the best-reviewed film in Rotten Tomatoes history. As director Greta Gerwig told AARP: "I wanted it to be unexpectedly more emotional, and more about the older generation than people think it will be. It’s a double story because one person’s coming of age is another person’s letting go." Also nominated: Holly Hunter, Allison Janney, Melissa Leo and Lesley Manville.
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PHOTO BY: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Richard Jenkins as Giles in the “The Shape of Water”
Best Supporting Actor: Richard Jenkins in The Shape of Water
Jenkins started in film at age 38, made dozens of movies before his breakout role in the 2001 HBO series Six Feet Under, got one Oscar nomination at 60 for The Visitor, and now has earned a second one at 70 as Sally Hawkins’ best land-dwelling friend in this lovely fantasy film. Also nominated: Willem Dafoe, Laurence Fishburne, Woody Harrelson and Christopher Plummer.
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PHOTO BY: STXfilms
Aaron Sorkin (center) directs Jessica Chastain and Chris O'Dowd on the set of “Molly’s Game”
Best Screenwriter: Aaron Sorkin for Molly's Game
Writer-director Sorkin was presented the award by his film's heroine, Molly Bloom, the real-life creator of high-stakes underground poker games. Ever since Sorkin's smart TV series The West Wing, nobody has written better lines — or more of them, as they are often uttered at top speed by the best actors on earth. Also nominated: James Ivory, Anthony McCarten, Steven Rogers and Guillermo del Toro.
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PHOTO BY: Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection
“Get Out” actors (from left): Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford, Allison Williams, Betty Gabriel and Daniel Kaluuya
Best Ensemble: Get Out
Sometimes a movie is all about one star. But often a great film works because the players are as finely tuned as a concert hall piano. In Get Out, director Jordan Peele mixes grownup talents (Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford) and youthful stars (Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams) as masterfully as he blends the horror and satirical comedy genres. Also nominated: Girls Trip, Last Flag Flying, Mudbound and Murder on the Orient Express.
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PHOTO BY: Niko Tavernise/Twentieth Century Fox
Keala Settle as Lettie Lutz in “The Greatest Showman”
Best Grownup Love Story: The Greatest Showman
There are several love stories in this festival of a movie, but perhaps none so great as P.T. Barnum's love and appreciation of the invisible folks who live in the shadows. The award was accepted by Keala Settle, who plays Lettie, the bearded lady, in this musical and leads the cast in singing "This Is Me," the hit tune that celebrates the mutual love of society's outsiders. Also nominated:
Breathe , Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, The Leisure Seeker and Our Souls at Night. -
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PHOTO BY: Melinda Sue Gordon/Warner Bros
Director Christopher Nolan on the set of “Dunkirk”
Best Time Capsule: Dunkirk
"Period" movies are most successful when they evoke for us another time and place. This World War II epic made more money than the $482 million-grossing film Saving Private Ryan, in part thanks to its incredibly thorough details of the battle. We saw actual 1940s-era Spitfire fighter planes and boats from museums, and 1,400 replica uniforms made of vintage wool "perfect down to the buttonholes," according to historian Andy Lewis. Also nominated: Battle of the Sexes, Darkest Hour, The Post and I, Tonya.
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PHOTO BY: Todd Williamson/Getty Images
Raoul Peck (left), director of “I Am Not Your Negro” and his brother, producer Hébert Peck
Best Documentary: I Am Not Your Negro
Actress Shari Belafonte presented Hébert Peck the award for his dazzling film that fulfills the promise of an unfinished book by 20th-century intellectual James Baldwin about his friends Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Also nominated: Dolores, Harold
and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story, Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold and Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo. -
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PHOTO BY: Clay Enos/Warner Bros
Gal Gadot stars in “Wonder Woman”
Readers’ Choice: Wonder Woman
It’s not surprising that in a year when women seized Hollywood’s spotlight, a powerful woman in an $820 million hit appealed to AARP readers, too.