Once upon a time, according to this empowering documentary, older women were so revered that even the terms “crone” and “hag” were positive. So what happened? Growing older became taboo, “like everybody’s supposed to be artificial flowers,” as a Buddhist monk comments in Get Real! Wise Women Speak. Chiming in with random thoughts and precise observations, an impressive panel of women (Jane Fonda, Della Reese and Nikki Giovanni among them) offer encouragement (“Your body is a suitcase. It’s what’s inside that’s important”) and humor (a 50-year marriage? That shows “lack of imagination,” scoffs one).

Get Real! Wise Women Speak (DVD), $19.95. For purchase information, click here.

For fans of Downton Abbey, here's a quick between-seasons fix: A tour of five of the grandest English houses, including Blenheim Palace, built by Queen Anne for Winston Churchill's ancestor, the first Duke of Marlborough, in gratitude for his victory over the French. British journalist Selina Scott is an engaging guide on this ultimate house tour, which also incorporates Burghley House, Chatsworth, Hokham Hall and Boughton House ("the English Versailles"). 

Treasure Houses of Britain, 2-Vol. Boxed Set, $49.99. Buy it here.

This 1989 blockbuster based on the play follows the lives of several women in a small Louisiana town. Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, Olympia Dukakis and Shirley MacLaine provide tears and laughs—and some of film's most memorable dialogue. Buy it here.

The always-fabulous Claudette Colbert stars in this 1944  classic about a woman who deals with family traumas on the homefront while her husband is fighting WWII. Buy it here.

Cher deservedly won the Oscar for her pitch-perfect portrayal of a Brooklyn widow who’s cheating on her fiancé with his hotter younger brother (played by Nicolas Cage, who was never better). This quirky 1987 comedy is just as delightful today. Buy it here.