Rise of the MBAs

Even foreign-language cinema is surfing the silver wave. Films such as Going South, Lemming, Strayed and Time to Leave - the first two starring Charlotte Rampling, as sexy at 60 as she was when the MBAs first discovered the cinema - have been selling tickets in a way no one would have dreamed of 10 years ago.

The new crop of grown-up films fall into three main groups. First, the "must-see" movie - which also includes the "must pretend" movie, because it's the sort of film you can't admit to not having seen. Russian Ark was an early example: who ever would have expected 100,000 Brits to turn out for a 90-minute lesson in Russian history?

More recently, Michael Haneke's Hidden fits the bill perfectly: a film no one understands but everyone wants to. On a recent stroll past New York's Lincoln Center, Barker says he saw as many people clustered around the enlarged reviews on the way out, trying to understand what they'd just seen, as were queuing to get in.

Second, the "organic produce" film, which is like a mainstream movie but more refined and better for you. At heart, for instance, ultrahip wine-buff film Sideways is essentially a road movie coupled with an acidic romantic comedy: it's When Harry Met Sally for oenophiles. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a Chinese martial-arts flick for an audience that grew up on westerns. And Brokeback Mountain, in case you forgot, was universally described as a "gay western" - nice, but a little bit naughty.

Finally, is the "what's up?" doc. Maybe it was Michael Moore. Maybe it was reality television revealing that non-fiction doesn't have to be boring. But documentaries with a tub to thump have recently been all the rage. Junk food (Super Size Me), gun control ( Bowling for Columbine), spelling bees ( Spellbound), French country schoolrooms (Etre et Avoir) and Arctic wildlife (The March of the Penguins) have all drawn surprisingly large, and noticeably older, audiences.

Not, of course, that Hollywood is about to break the mould entirely. "Tent-pole" movies - the films around which studios plan their entire season - will always be the big earners. Superman Returns, a decade in gestation, duly busted blocks when it opened in the US last week and will probably do the same here this weekend: if nothing else, Hollywood knows how to pull in the opening-weekend crowds. But it costs a lot - a minimum of $30 million - to do so, and not all this year's tent-pole movies have managed to hold up the roof, let alone go through it Mission: Impossible 3 took $100 million less than Mission: Impossible 1, Poseidon sank, and Cars, the latest animated tent-pole, recently became the first Disney/Pixar movie not to have a better opening than the Disney/Pixar movie that preceded it.

The alarm bells aren't ringing yet, but Hollywood is checking the connections. And one answer is to make less expensive movies with a clearly identifiable audience: those MBAs again.

If the studios are ringing in the old it's because they need to. Kids in the classic 18-25 demographic, who have dominated Tinseltown thinking for so long, are now so distracted by computer games, blogs and downloadable entertainment that they are more likely to spend time in MySpace than a multiplex.

Older audiences want to see a different kind of film. Maybe, as Norma Desmond once said, the movies have gotten smaller. But might not they be getting better, too? From Garfield 2 (due out next week), the only way is up.

Coming soon for grown-ups

The Death of Mr Lazarescu A Romanian film about a bad-tempered old man of uncertain hygiene slowly dying in front of our eyes. I can't think of a worse pitch, but it's one of the best films of the past year and has wowed every audience that has seen it. (Opens July 14)

Big Fish A grown-up Aussie drama starring Cate Blanchett as a woman who can't seem to escape the pricks however hard she kicks. It's gritty but finally uplifting, and Blanchett and Hugo Weaving are phenomenal. Above all, it trusts audiences to make up their own minds. (Opens next week)

The Notorious Bettie Page A biopic about the pin-up model (played by Gretchen Mol) who put the cheek into Fifties America before being investigated by the Senate for appearing in a series of bondage shots. A sort of sexual companion-piece (it's also in black-and-white) to Good Night, and Good Luck. (4 August)

Tideland Terry Gilliam's weirdest film in quite a while tells the story of a young girl growing up on the prairies surrounded by death and deviant behabiour. A dark fantasy, this should get the liberal bien-pensants really using their brains. (11 August)

Volver The latest from Pedro Almódovar: a vertiginous and hilarious tale of small-town prejudices, wrecked lives and popular songs. Less shocking than Bad Education, but much odder - and with a career-restoring performance by Penélope Cruz. (25 August)

An Inconvenient Truth A hit at Sundance and Cannes, this documentary charts former Democratic presidential hopeful Al Gore's energetic campaign to slow the pace of climate change. (8 September)

The Night Listener A movie version of an Armistead Maupin story about a gay talkshow host (Robin Williams) who is taken in by a damaged young man who seems to be a literary prodigy. Shades of JT LeRoy - but it actually happened to Maupin. (15 September)

Marie Antoinette History with lashings of extra cream. Kirsten Dunst stars as the funloving royal in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation follow-up. Frothy and fashionably shod in Manolo Blahnik shoes, but with impeccably serious undertones. (27 October)

Hoodwinked The Little Red Riding Hood story retold as an adult-oriented animation about a domestic disturbance at Granny's cottage involving a girl, a wolf and an axe. One of the first films from Harvey Weinstein since he sold Miramax. (October 13)

All the King's Men A remake of the classic 1949 movie based on the life of Louisiana Governor Huey Long, an unscrupulously political operator who made Silvio Berlusconi look like John Major. Sean Penn and Jude Law star. (3 November)

Babel The third film from the team that made Amores Perros - a complicated story of coincidences with an all-star cast (Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gael Garcia Bernal) that makes you feel smart for keeping up with it. (January 2007)