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The kind of Hollywood feature films that appeal to viewers age 50 and older are having a hard time lately, as budgets shrink and the industry struggles with a changing market. But the good news is, for documentaries it’s a golden age. And many of the year’s docs are squarely aimed at the AARP audience. Here’s the best of what to watch now and what’s coming right up.
My Mom Jayne
Law & Order: SVU’s Mariska Hargitay, 61, makes her film-directing debut with My Mom Jayne (on Max June 27), her deeply moving investigation of the life of the mother she can't remember, sex-symbol movie star Jayne Mansfield. In 1967, Mansfield died in a car crash that left Hargitay, then three years old, seriously injured in the back seat. It’s a totally fascinating story about a smart, ambitious star, with some eyebrow-raising news — she reveals (spoiler alert!) that the beloved parent who raised her, Mickey Hargitay, wasn’t her biological dad, and she finds Jayne’s long-lost 1956 Golden Globe, an award Mariska won 49 years later.
Watch it: on Max
Caregiving
Bradley Cooper, 50, a nominee for 12 Oscars (for best actor, supporting actor, screenplay and best picture) was the caregiver for his late father, Charles, who had lung cancer. The experience inspired him to produce this absorbing PBS documentary about family caregivers. It’s narrated by triple Emmy winner Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black), who was the caregiver for her late mother, who also had cancer.
Watch it: on PBS.org
Don’t miss this: Bradley Cooper tells AARP about his documentary: ‘We need to care for caregivers better.’
Titan: The OceanGate Disaster
Few fictional movie villains can hold a candle to Stockton Rush, the arrogant rule- and reality-defying plutocrat CEO of OceanGate, who fired or vindictively sued the experts he employed who warned him that his submarine Titan’s hull was dangerously cracking. He recklessly took four customers to view the Titanic wreck in the sub; it imploded in 2023 and killed all of them, including him. This doc shows how the calamity happened.
Watch it: on Netflix
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