For decades, the math was brutally simple in Hollywood. A male actor’s career spanned forty years; a female actor’s spanned about half that. Once a woman crossed the invisible threshold of 40—or heaven forbid, 50—she was quietly shuffled into one of three boxes: the nagging mother, the eccentric witch, or the wistful grandmother in the background of a wedding scene.

As (who, at 74, shows no signs of slowing) once said during a speech accepting a lifetime achievement award: "An actress’s career does not end at 40. It just gets to the good part." The audience has finally started listening. And we are, for the first time, wildly excited to see what comes next.

This shift is seismic because it redefines the arc. A mature woman is not a post-sexual being. She is not "past her prime." She is a full human with the same appetites and anxieties she had at 30, seasoned with the wisdom (and scars) of time. It is impossible to discuss mature women in cinema without acknowledging the auteurs who frame them. The "male gaze" is aging, but the female gaze has come of age .