Photo: "She deserves to work, she is a wonderful actress and Hollywood is pretty cruel with women that cross 40." Antonio Banderas on Melanie Griffith.

Working Girl star Melanie Griffith, 48, is in the same boat. "She deserves to work. She is a wonderful actress and Hollywood is pretty cruel with women that cross 40," says Griffith's husband, Antonio Banderas. "Sometimes here you feel Hollywood just goes for fresh flesh. I know it's the economy and financial things but I feel bad for her because I feel they are misusing an actress who still has a lot of things to say." Hollywood men tend to fare better although George Clooney, 44, has decided that his days in front of the camera are numbered. "An acting career usually has about a shelf life of ten years before people get sick of seeing you," he explains. "It's a good thing to have a job to fall back on and I really do enjoy directing." Val Kilmer, 45, has plenty of work although he recognises Hollywood's "unforgiving" approach to ageing stars. "It's a tough business, even if you're talented. I used to think it was full of hypocrisy but now I see it as a very honest town."

Photo: Michelle Pfeiffer has found it harder to get roles in recent years.

It is a town in the business of putting bums on seats. Young stars attract younger audiences and they appeal to advertisers. "Most of the movie audiences are under 30 because older people have been discouraged from going to films," says Mr Parish. "A lot of the films aren't very appetising to see. It's not very comfortable to go to the theatre with everyone screaming and yelling and it's just much more convenient with home entertainment becoming so much more sophisticated to remain at home." Hollywood has always been biased towards youth. Ever since the early 1900s, with advancing years, A-list celebrities have seen their star power wane. "Before the film stock that they used in cameras and lighting were very sophisticated people looked much older on screen than they were and so an actress, literally by the time she was in her mid 20s, was considered nearly a has been," says Mr Parish. "Eventually it worked out that by the 1930s a woman could be a star into her mid 30s or even her mid-40s. As we progressed past World War II and up to the present time it got to be a pretty standard rule of thumb that once a movie actress got to be over 40 then supposedly, psychologically, America's young kids didn't want to see her playing leading roles so they wrote fewer parts for them." -By Peter Bows.

There are exceptions to the rule. At 59 Susan Sarandon's career does not appear to have been jinxed by being of a certain age. Four out of her five Oscar nominations came after the age of 40. She was named best actress for Dead Man Walking in 1996. "She still plays leading roles, she plays mature women and she's able to find enough quirky roles and dramatic roles so that she's not reduced to guest starring or fifth billing," says Mr Parish. Katharine Hepburn is also an example of an actress that bucked the trend. "Up to the end she had a very strong physical stamina. And she happened to be possessed with great cheekbones so even though when she got into her 50s and 60s, she was not spring chicken anymore, she certainly looked very striking and appealing and she had this great vitality," says Mr Parish.

Photo: Brokeback Mountain is leading the Golden Globe nominations.

Nominations for the Golden Globe awards gave the first indication of which movies are likely to fare well in Hollywood's annual horse race. Brokeback Mountain, The Constant Gardener and Good Night, and Good Luck are among the favourites. At this stage in the game, most actors tend to feign indifference towards the Oscars campaign as it rolls out during the winter months. "It's a real strange concept to me that films and actors can compete against each other," says Heath Ledger, a front-runner for his role as a gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. "We're not running the same race, we're not doing the same sports and we're all training differently. You can't really compare them," says the 26-year-old actor from Australia. "It really is manufactured for marketing reasons, but we can't help but get dragged into it. "Other peoples' opinions drag us as actors and filmmakers into this false sense of first, success, if they nominate you and then, secondly, a false sense of failure when you don't win." Ledger may have more reason than most to be playing it cool. Gay-themed films rarely do well in the best film category at the Oscars.

Photo: The Great Judi Dench.

The seemingly more liberal-minded voters of the Foreign Press Association, responsible for the Globes, tend to embrace films like Brokeback Mountain, more readily than their counterparts at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. When they are announced on 31 January, the nominations for the 78th Academy Awards are likely to feature the names of several British performers. Once again, the best actress category could be the most hotly contested. Dame Judi Dench is tipped to receive her fifth Oscar nomination for her performance in Mrs Henderson Presents. "Our job really is not to listen to speculation about that kind of thing but to say: 'Have we told this story properly?' If we've told it properly I'll be really pleased," says Dame Judi. Keira Knightly could prove to be hot competition for her performance as Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. It would be the actress's first Oscar nomination. "Lucky is the word," she says, modestly. "Really, really lucky. I'm very aware how fortunate I am, and very aware that this is a profession that comes and goes in a second. And that's what makes it beautiful. "That's what makes it really lovely, but you have to enjoy your moment - because it's only a moment and then it's gone. And that's fine." While one half of Hollywood is eagerly anticipating the Oscars, the other is trying to figure out why Americans are deserting cinemas in their droves. 2005 has seen the biggest drop in attendance in 20 years. Hollywood analysts put the slump down to a number of factors.

Photo: The Chronicles of Narnia is one of the year's high points for film.