Baby Boomer 2020 Oscar Nominees

Turns out 2019 became a good year on the movies for forty somethings and beyond. In fact, one half of the actors receiving Oscar nominations in 2020, which has been announced the other day, are gone for good the age 50.

Baby boomer nominees include, the most popular, Tom Hanks, 63, in A Beautiful Day from the Neighborhood, in addition to Joe Pesci, 76, in The Irishman, Brad Pitt, 56, in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Jonathan Pryce, 72, in The Two Popes, Antonio Banderas, 59 in Pain and Glory, and Kathy Bates, 71, in Richard Jewell.

Add to people oldsters like Oscar nominated Anthony Hopkins, 82, in The Two Popes and Al Pacino, 79, in The Irishman together with 50-plus actresses Renée Zellweger, 50, in Judy and Laura Dern, 52, in Marriage Story.

All on the nominated directors will also be over this of 50, except for Todd Phillips, 49, director of Joker. The nominees include Martin Scorsese, 77, for The Irishman, Bong Joon Ho, 50, for Parasite, Sam Mendes, 54, for 1917, and Quentin Tarantino, 56, for Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.

The movie Knives Out was nominated for the most powerful original screenplay and featured a more mature cast that included Jame Lee Curtis, 61, Don Johnson, 70, Daniel Craig, 51, and Christopher Plummer, 90.

Cinema has often reflected society’s attitudes toward the 50-plus crowd who in the real world are often made fun of or ignored. If Hollywood ridiculed an ethnic group and the disabled in movies, people could be in an uproar. So why do people quietly tolerate how movies poke fun at older people? I keep hoping that Hollywood, and society in particular, hasn’t completely forgotten the value on the older crowd using knowledge, life experience, and insight. Maybe this is the step within the right direction.

Of course, there may be controversy that none on the directors were women in 2010 and there are a great deal more older men nominated within the acting categories than older women. While the median era of men nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor is 61.3, the median age in the women nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress is 39.8. Older women in Hollywood have invariably been judged more harshly than older men. Apparently, there’s more progress to produced in that regard.