It’s time to reconsider the Movie MILF. Codified by Anne Bancroft, satirized by Jennifer Coolidge, outrageously Australianized by Naomi Watts , she is now, in 2024, exploding into the mainstream rom-com, these days as a normie protagonist just going about her life until she’s confronted with the undeniable cock of a man at least one decade her junior. This calendar year alone has seen at least four films about mothers (divorced, widowed, and married) climbing atop a youthful stud, (mostly) within the bounds of the law and (mostly) running off into the sunset, happily ever after: The Idea of You , A Family Affair , Last Summer , and Between the Temples.
And the mommy-and-me kink shows no signs of slowing down — in October, Netflix drops the Laura Dern–Liam Hemsworth vehicle Lonely Planet , and a slate of erotic thrillers on the way featuring potential Empowered MILF protagonists includes I Want Your Sex , wherein Olivia Wilde bones Cooper Hoffman, and Babygirl , wherein Nicole Kidman does the very same to Harris Dickinson. Historically, the MILF has been the object of a film, rarely the subject — or, when she was the subject, she often found herself trapped in a grave drama or punished for her age-defying crimes. To wit: Previous mainstays in the MILF Canon include All that Heaven Allows (the ’50s version: MILF as pariah), The Graduate (the ’70s version: MILF as existential-crisis-generator), American Pie (the ’90s version: MILF as gag), Birth (Kidman is not te.