20th Century Women is a 2016 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Mike Mills and starring Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig, Lucas Jade Zumann, and Billy Crudup.

In 1979, 15-year-old Jamie Fields lives in Santa Barbara with his 55-year-old single mother, Dorothea, and their two tenants: Abbie Porter, a 24-year-old photographer being treated for cervical cancer, and William, a carpenter and mechanic.

Concerned she is having trouble connecting with her son, Dorothea asks Abbie and Julie to help raise him, but Jamie responds to this news by running away to Los Angeles with some friends to attend a rock concert.

Jamie accompanies Abbie to a doctor's appointment, where she learns she is cancer-free, but will likely be unable to have children, and he reads a magazine article about home pregnancy tests.

An epilogue reveals that Julie will go on the pill, attend NYU, lose touch with Jamie and Dorothea, fall in love, move to Paris, and choose to never have children.

Abbie will stay in Santa Barbara, get married, set up a photography studio in her garage, and successfully give birth to two sons.

William will live with Dorothea for another year, move to Sedona, open a pottery store, get married, get divorced, and remarry.

"[11] Mills has described the film as a "love letter" to the women who raised him,[12] and, although it is autobiographical, he also noted that it is fictionalized, explaining: "With all these characters, what guides me is the real person.

[18] Gerwig prepared for her role by taking photography lessons, learning how to use a camera, listening to records, reading books, and watching films, and she also spoke with Mills' sister, whom her character is based upon.

The website's consensus reads: "20th Century Women offers Annette Bening a too-rare opportunity to shine in a leading role -- and marks another assured step forward for writer-director Mike Mills.

[36] Owen Gleiberman of Variety gave the film a positive review, writing: "The best thing about the movie is Bening's performance as Dorothea Fields, who's portrayed as a very particular kind of contradictory free spirit.

[37] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter also gave the film a positive review, writing: "Mills uses some of the same devices as Beginners to illuminate his characters' cultural formation, notably historic montages of their birth years or backgrounds prior to coming together.

The script uses narrated flashbacks to tell each main character's unique story, bringing us further into their world and allowing us to care more deeply about them.