The Top 13 Movies About Midlife Crises

Watch your favorite stars go through classic grownup rites of passage in these comedies, dramas and, even, superhero movies!

Thelma M. Adams,

AARP

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En español

Published August 09, 2024

Steve Carell, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd and Romany Malco sitting together at a table drinking beer in the film The 40-Year-Old Virgin

(Left to right) Steve Carell, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd and Romany Malco in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

Universal/Everett Collection

Midlife movies, like coming-of-age films, hinge on age-related change, its impact and sense of universality. Who hasn’t had — or known someone who went through — a midlife crisis?

Rich terrain! Check out how midlife crises play out in everything from clear-eyed indies to massive blockbusters in these 13 movies, in theaters or streaming now.

Good One (R)

Here is a film that pits Gen Z against the follies of Gen X, unfolding during a weekend Catskills camping trip. Seventeen-year-old Sam (newcomer Lily Collias) observes human nature in the wild as her uptight dad (James LeGros, 62) and his sloppy best friend (Danny McCarthy) act out in men-behaving-badly ways to which she’s highly attuned. We see the dads through her eyes: stumbling on the rocky path through adulthood, unable to appreciate the beauty of the vistas for their inflated egos.

Watch it: Good One in theaters

The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005, R)

Steve Carell, 61, stars in the mortifying title role of this comedy. At 40, he still hasn’t copulated, which sends the late bloomer into a frenzy of chest-waxing, soul-searching and, at long last, love.

Watch it: The 40-Year-Old Virgin on Prime Video

How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998, R)

Angela Bassett, 65, and Taye Diggs, 53, star in this racy rom-com based on Terry McMillan’s semi-autobiographical bestseller. Bassett’s successful divorcée, Stella Payne, discovers on a spontaneous solo island vacation to Jamaica, that she’s got to stop searching for Mr. Right to rescue her — and save herself.

Watch it: How Stella Got Her Groove Back on YouTube

Everything Everywhere All at Once (R)

In a jam-packed, juicy sci-fi Oscar winner, Michelle Yeoh, 62, and Jamie Lee Curtis, 65, discover that earth age is just a number when they start exploring their alternate selves and relationships in the mysterious multiverse of time.

Watch it: Everything Everywhere All at Once on Netflix

The Big Chill (1983, R)

The ultimate college reunion movie overflows with talent (Glenn Close, 77, Jeff Goldblum, 71, Kevin Kline, 76, the late William Hurt). When the gang gets back together for a country house weekend after a friend’s funeral, they discover that they may be older, but not necessarily wiser. Their youthful dreams have bumped against the reality of workaday lives — but there’s still joy in this generation-defining ensemble comedy. Kevin Costner, 69, was cast as the deceased friend — a symbol of the lost spirit of the 1960s — whose wrists are glimpsed in the mortician’s office. But the youth-flashback scene where he prepares to slice a Thanksgiving turkey with the knife he’d later use to kill himself was cut from the film. Goldblum told Yahoo that Costner’s lost performance was “wonderful.”

Watch it: The Big Chill on Prime Video

City Slickers (1991, PG-13)

Manhattanite Mitch (Billy Crystal, 76), staring down 40, starts to panic. He’s already growing hair in places it never grew before. He’s aging and it freaks him out. The answer? A rejuvenating Western road trip on horseback, and a kick in the laugh track.

Watch it: City Slickers on Prime Video

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024, R)

There comes a time when every superhero must face hanging up the claws and entering civilian life. This isn’t an easy transition. Now, surfing the summer box office peaks, the latest Marvel is total midlife crisis: a regretful Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, 55) has become an unwelcome regular at a low-life watering hole. Meanwhile, the balding Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) has become the butt of toupee jokes, working at a used-car lot and covering that Hulk-sized hole in his heart with snark and sass. The dissonant duo takes a while longer to get moving, but they ultimately save the universe, giving their lives the required purpose to escape their malaise.

Watch it: Deadpool & Wolverine in theaters

The Descendants (2011, R)

George Clooney, 63, flashes his star power in a touching domestic comedy about coming to terms with what your life adds up to and thinking hard about your legacy. Playing a Honolulu attorney and landowner trying to reconnect with his two daughters — better late than never — following his wife’s near-fatal accident, the girls have a few lessons to teach him about family legacies and fatherhood.

Watch it: The Descendants on Prime Video

Friends With Money (2006, R)

In this sharp social comedy about four friends, Jennifer Aniston, 55, contemplates the meaning of midlife after she quits her job and becomes a maid for a living. Meanwhile, her besties Frances McDormand, 67, Joan Cusack, 61, and Catherine Keener, 65, are living the sweet L.A. life with fat wallets. The humor’s in the dissonance.

Watch it: Friends With Money on Prime Video

Lost in Translation (2003, R)

A lonely middle-aged movie star (Bill Murray, 73) meets a much younger newlywed (Scarlett Johansson) at a Tokyo hotel bar. Over 24 hours, they open up to each other and brush up against what might be a true connection that could lead to a lasting relationship. Or maybe not.

Watch it: Lost in Translation on Max

Moonstruck (1987, PG)

In an American romance classic, an Italian-American bookkeeper (Cher, 78, never better) is destined to marry a dullard (the late Danny Aiello) she doesn’t love. Then she meets his younger brother, the one-handed baker of her dreams (Nicolas Cage, 60). Sparks fly. Her predictable life takes an unpredictable and magical turn.

Watch it: Moonstruck on Prime Video

Opening Night (1977, PG-13)

The incandescent Gena Rowlands, 94, stars opposite her husband, director John Cassavetes, as a maturing actress on the verge of a nervous breakdown, who is questioning her entire life in the run-up to an important Broadway opening.

Watch it: Opening Night on Max

Sideways (2004, R)

Director Alexander Payne, 63, pairs odd-couple Paul Giamatti, 57, and Thomas Haden Church, 64, as arrested development cases. On the eve of the latter’s wedding, the aging buddies grouse, carouse and down wine in a comedic wine-country odyssey with Olympic-quality banter.

Watch it: Sideways on Prime Video

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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.