Produced by Touchstone Pictures, it features a screenplay by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi, based on a true story of a group of middle-aged Yorkshire women who produced a nude calendar to raise money for Leukaemia Research (subsequently Blood Cancer UK) under the auspices of the Women's Institutes in April 1999 after the husband of one of their members dies from cancer.

[3] The film stars an ensemble cast headed by Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, with Linda Bassett, Annette Crosbie, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Geraldine James, Harriet Thorpe and Philip Glenister playing key supporting roles.

She proposes producing a calendar featuring members of the Knapely branch of the Women's Institute discreetly posing nude while engaged in traditional WI activities, such as baking and knitting.

The publicity surrounding the calendar eventually takes a toll on their personal lives and, during a photo shoot, tension boils over, Chris and Annie angrily clash.

The film's fellow calendar girls include Georgie Glen, Angela Curran, Rosalind March, Lesley Staples and Janet Howd as Kathy, May, Truday, Julia and Jenny respectively.

[7] Calendar Girls also cast Graham Crowden as Jessie's husband Richard, Belinda Everett as Cora's daughter Maya, Marc Pickering as Jem Harper's friend Gaz and Harriet Thorpe as WI president Brenda Mooney.

[7] Gillian Wright appears as Eddie Reynoldson's lover, while John Sharian plays an American commercial director named Danny.

During his illness, Baker's friends began to raise money, initially with the aim of purchasing a sofa for the visitors' lounge in the hospital where John was treated.

Ten years on, they launched a 2010 calendar with a new set of full colour images and the aim of raising £2 million for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research.

[9][10] Six of the eleven women who were pictured in the original calendar sold the rights to their stories, including Angela Baker, Tricia Stewart, Beryl Bamforth, Lynda Logan, Christine Clancy and Ros Fawcett.

A first director was attached, but when he dropped out, so Nigel Cole, known for his screen debut Saving Grace starring Brenda Blethyn, was brought on board, quickly followed by screenwriter Tim Firth, who took over writing duties from Towhidi and worked on rewrites of the script up until production.

[17] Additional locations include Buckden, Burnsall, Conistone, Ilkley, Settle, Linton, Malham, Skipton, Westminster and Ealing in London, and the beach in Santa Monica, USA.

[16] According to Cole, the actors were struck by group spirit when they met their real-life counterparts from the Women's Institute and experienced the supportive atmosphere that had got them all through the embarrassment of taking their clothes off to make a calendar.

[16] Hollywood Records was announced as the distributor of the soundtrack album for Calendar Girls which featured sixteen songs, including "You Upset Me Baby" performed by B.B.

[21] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "A−" on scale of A to F.[22] Ruthe Stein, writing for The San Francisco Chronicle, said it is "A charming movie [that] should appeal to fans of The Full Monty and Waking Ned Devine – and not just because they also featured nudity that made you smile instead of smirk.

"[25] In his review for The New York Times, Elvis Mitchell called "minty-cool" Helen Mirren and "deft" Julie Walters "a graceful pair of troupers" and "a sunny, amusing team."

"[26] Manohla Dargis of the Los Angeles Times said the film "is closer in texture and consistency to individually wrapped American cheese than good, tangy English Cheddar.

She commented that "[It] is the first export from the light-comedy-steamroller division of the British film industry that avoids, for the most part, the kind of queasy class condescension such hell-bent charmers have relied on since unemployed steel-mill workers shook their groove thangs in The Full Monty.

"[29] In The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw rated the film three out of a possible five stars and added, "This genial comedy, directed by Nigel Cole, with an excellent, tightly constructed script by Tim Firth and Juliette Towhidi, accentuates the positive.

There's lots of wit and pluck and not much heartbreak,"[23] and Mark Kermode of The Observer said, "When the film succeeds, as it does magnificently in the first two-thirds, one can only marvel at the miracle of a world in which such plotlines could literally land on a producer's doorstep with the morning papers.