In a youth-obsessed industry like Hollywood (and fashion) it’s easy to focus our attention on the hot young starlet of the week and forget about the women who, unlike these one week wonders, have dazzled us for years with their class, talent and looks.

Honestly, what’s sexier than a woman with talent, brains and looks? I don’t know about you but I would take any of the ladies in this list over Megan Fox any day (some of you may disagree, but believe me, there is nothing worse than a hot girl that can only babble about E! and her pet Chihuahua).

So here they are, our top 25 picks for women over 40 who are still smoking hot:

25. Catherine Bell (age 41)

Catherine Bell opens up our list with a bang. The British-born Iranian-American actress is known mostly for her role as Lt. Colonel Sarah MacKenzie of the television show JAG. She is a sports fanatic and correctly predicted that the New England Patriots would beat the St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI 20 to 17 (A woman who actually GETS sports is a plus in our book). Only reason she is last on our list is because she’s into Scientology, and nobody likes that.

24. Helena Christensen (age 40)

Helena is one of our young nominees. At age 40, besides being a total hottie, a beauty queen and a former Victoria’s Secret angel, she owns an antiques shop in Manhattan, she co-founded Nylon magazine and has her own clothing line. Sexy and a mind for business, Helena has the whole package (Besides, who can forget that Chris Isaak video?).

23. Naomi Watts (age 41)

Naomi is our other young nominee. The British-Australian actress, known as the ‘Queen of remakes,’ is best remembered for her role as Betty Elms, the psycho lesbian, on David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (haven’t seen it? Please go and rent it). Watts is also a special representative to the U.N. program for HIV/AIDS and a Buddhist.

22. Gina Gershon (age 47)

If anything good ever came out of the movie ‘Showgirls’ Gina must be it. Her sultry good looks and frequent nude appearances in films have gained her a substantial heterosexual male fan base (she was ranked #51 on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2004.) Gershon is also regarded as a gay icon because of her roles in movies such as Bound (in which she played a butch lesbian opposite Jennifer Tilly), Prey for Rock & Roll, and of course Showgirls.

21. Nicole Kidman (age 41)

Kudos to Nicole Kidman, who was able to escape Tom Cruise’s paws to finally make a name for herself. After the breakup, her career made a turn for the best when she starred in the acclaimed Moulin Rouge and The Others, a year later she won an Oscar for her role as Virginia Woolf in The Hours. Nicole also made #10 on our list of hottest redheads in Hollywood.

20. Marcia Cross (age 46)

Another pick on our hot redheads list, Marcia Cross is the sexiest of the Desperate Housewives (no, Terry Hatcher doesn’t even compare). You may also remember Cross as Dr. Kimberly Shaw from Melrose Place. Besides being hot, Marcia has a master’s degree in psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles.

19. Courtney Cox (age 45)

Many of you will be surprised to find out that Courtney is 45 years old. The American actress, film producer and former model, is best known for her role as Monica Geller on the sitcom Friends (for many of us, she was the hottest friend). She has also starred in Dirt and the Scream series and has guest starred on Scrubs. Besides, in real life she is best friends with Jennifer Aniston, which has to count for something.

18. Juliette Binoche (age 45)

Juliette is not just sexy, elle est très sexy, and her beauty has been appropriately described as “otherworldly”. The French actress gained international stardom when she won an Oscar for The English Patient; she then went to star on Chocolat (my personal favorite). Juliette is also a painter, her book “Juliette Binoche, Portraits In-Eyes” contains large full page portraits of each director she has worked with as well as self portraits of her as each character.

17. Lauren Graham (age 42)

Lauren Graham in on our list because 1. She is stunning, 2. Her fake daughter is played by Alexis Bledel, 3. She is the nominee who deserves the ‘Ultimate MILF’ award. Lauren’s first paid work was doing publicity appearances wearing the costume of Striker, the dog mascot of the US-based 1994 FIFA World Cup; so next time, check under the mascot’s costume before you throw that soda at it… it may be a really REALLY hot girl.

16. Vanessa Williams (age 46)

Vanessa Williams is probably known to the current generation as Wilhelmina Slater, from Ugly Betty. For us, who are a bit older, she will always be Miss America 1984, who resigned after news leaked that she posed for nude photographs that depicted mild overtones of simulated lesbian sex… HAWT.

15. Sophia Loren (age 74)

The Italian film actress is widely considered to be the most popular Italian actress of her time and is also famous for being a major international sex symbol. They don’t make women like this anymore. Loren, at the age of 72, appeared in the Pirelli Calendar entitled “A Bed and Five Stories” along with Hilary Swank, Penelope Cruz, Naomi Watts, and Lou Doillon (That’s the picture we posted of her, yes, she is 72 on that pic). Her famous eyes can be found on the Italian wine Fattoria Paradiso bottles and there is a street in the city of Etobicoke, Toronto, Ontario named for her.

14. Michelle Pfeiffer (age 51)

Ok, maybe not the prettiest of them all but she has aged gracefully enough to make our list, then, why is she so high on spot 14? One word people: Catwoman.

13. Kate Walsh (age 41)

Walsh is best known as Dr. Addison Montgomery in Grey’s Anatomy, and let me tell you, I liked her right away. Sure, Ellen Pompeo is cute, but Kate has that look in her eyes like she is picturing you naked all the time, and we totally dig that.

12. Raquel Welch (age 68)

Oh Raquel,Raquel,Raquel,Raquel,Raquel,Raquel… how we love you. Along with Sophia Loren, Welch became one of the leading sex symbols of the 1960s and 1970s. Her most memorable publicity still for One Million Years B.C. became a bestselling poster. Playboy called her the “Most Desired Woman” of the 1970s. I still have that poster… sigh.

11. Julianne Moore (age 48)

Julianne is our third pick that was also featured on our redheads list. She first caught our eye after her appearance in Boogie Nights (you all remember that, right?). She then appeared on big hits like: The End of the Affair, Magnolia and The Hours among others. She has a Bachelor’s degree at the College of Fine Arts at Boston University and (We’ll say it again) one of the greatest racks in human history.

10. Demi Moore (age 46)

Demi has been every man’s wet dream since her appearance in the movie Ghost. She has divorced twice, gave birth to 3 children and still has the body of a 20-year old. Proof of her utter hotness is the fact that we didn’t even notice Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu or Drew Barrymore when we watched Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. Besides, her real name is Demetria Gene Guynes, you gotta love her for that.

9. Halle Berry (age 43)

Halle is an actress, fashion model, and beauty queen. She was the first (and until this day the only) African American woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress, the award was for her performance in Monster’s Ball (yeah, the one with the very graphic sex scene). She gets extra credit for having a sense of humor: she personally picked up her Razzie Award back in 2005 for Catwoman.

8. Gong Li (age 43)

Li is a huge star in China, but we all know her from her role as the beautiful but vindictive Hatsumomo in Memoirs of a Geisha. Her other English-language roles to date include Chinese Box, Miami Vice and Hannibal Rising. In all three films, she learned her English lines phonetically. What can we say? We have a thing for hot Asians.

7. Famke Janssen (age 44)

Janssen is an actress and fashion model best know for her role as Dr. Dr. Jean Grey/Phoenix in the X-Men movies (remember? She plays the part of the angry-all-powerful-leather-clad-hottie). She is also a UNODC Goodwill Ambassador for Integrity, a spokesperson for PETA and speaks Dutch and French (besides English), très sexy.

6. Sophie Marceau (age 42)

Marceau achieved international recognition in 1995 as Princess Isabelle in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, she was also super hot as villainess Bond girl Elektra King. Our most cherished Sophie Marceau memory was during Cannes in 2005, when the shoulder strap on Marceau’s dress fell off, exposing what is still considered “the perfect bosom”. How we missed this for our list of celebrity nip slips we’ll never know, so here is the pic to redeem ourselves:

5. Elizabeth Hurley (age 44)

Best known as Hugh Grant’s former girlfriend, we like to remember Hurley as the bikini clad devil from Bedazzled (Satan never looked better). You may also remember her as Vanessa Kensington from the Austin Powers movies. Truth be told, she is hot and that English accent of hers melts us like butter.

4. Helen Mirren (age 64)

Helen Mirren is the epitome of classy. She is well known for playing the Queen. She has won an Academy Award, two SAG Awards, one BAFTA, three Golden Globes and four Emmy Awards during her career… talented indeed. Besides, that pic of hers with the bikini… that was this year, at 64… We have the hots for granny and we love it.

3. Salma Hayek (age 42)

Hayek is a Mexican/American actress, director, and television and film producer. Hayek’s charitable work includes increasing awareness on violence against women and discrimination against immigrants. Hayek is the first Mexican national to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress. Entertainment Weekly ranked her number 17 in their list of the “25 Smartest People in TV” … and on top all of that, have you seen her boobs?

2. Marisa Tomei (age 44)

Tomei is an Italian-American stage, film and television actress who shot to fame after she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in My Cousin Vinny. She is sexy and really funny, a combination we love. We decided she deserved the #2 spot after we saw her on The Wrestler, if you saw it, you will understand.

1. Monica Bellucci (age 45)

This Italian-French vixen began her film career in the early 1990s, appearing mainly in French films. In 1992 she made her first appearance in a major English-language film as one of Dracula’s brides in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. She is perhaps best known in the United States for her role as Persephone in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. She also appeared in the mega-hit The Passion of the Christ as Mary Magdalene. But like many on this list, she’s more famous for her hourglass body and jaw-dropping curves. She is simply God’s gift to men, and we thank him every day for her.

Stephen Frears never makes the same movie twice. What he does do though is make thoroughly professional and immensely entertaining stories that pay particular attention to characters, their flaws, emotions and deepest desires.

In “Cheri,” he has another dandy. Whether it will travel as far as his last film, “The Queen,” is hard to say, but with a radiant Michelle Pfeiffer as his heroine, “Cheri” could well be another breakout hit.

Frears and his “Dangerous Liaisons” screenwriter Christopher Hampton team up again for a French period piece although this time it’s La Belle Epoque — 1906 Paris to be precise. The story is by Colette, so naturally it’s about the demi-monde where courtesans are celebrated for their beauty and ability to please and ruin famous men in equal measure.

Our heroine is Pfeiffer’s Lea de Lonval, a breath-taking beauty who is seeing her career coming to a thankful end. As Cole Porter would say, she has known all kinds of love — except for true love. Then it hits her but good.

It all comes about when an old colleague and rival, Mme Peloux (a pitch-perfect Kathy Bates), whom she doesn’t very much like, invites her for lunch to pick her brain about her indolent 19-year-old son Fred, whom Lea long ago nicknamed Cheri (Rupert Friend). Cheri will soon need to be successfully married off, but his casual hedonism makes him a poor bridegroom.

Cheri has always admired Lea, if only because she is everything his mother is not — warm and wise and still a beauty. He flirtatiously demands a kiss from Lea. She consents. Both are staggered by the passion each senses in the other.

So the two run off for a fling that can only do the boy some good. Astonishingly, the fling lasts for six years. They playfully quarrel and make love and feel absurdly comfortable in each other’s company.

Then Mme Pelous arranges another lunch. She tells Lea she has found a suitable match for Cheri, Edme (Felicity Jones), the daughter of another old courtesan.

The wedding, set in a few weeks time, staggers the lovers. Cheri has to go through with it, of course, and Lea pretends to run off to Biarritz with a new lover. In fact, she goes only with her maid to seek consolation with whatever good-looking young man she can find.

What neither party has realized in those six years is that they love each other. Love has always been a commodity so neither has any familiarity with its sensations or sentiments. At least not until it’s taken from them.

How each reacts, how each longs to return to the other and what must finally happen between them, makes glorious and romantic melodrama. Amid all the worldly cynicism, decadence and dry wit — as exemplified by a droll narration running through the movie — love has come along to spoil everything.

The chemistry between Pfeiffer and Friend is positively combustible. One feels the hunger in each, the rising physical passion and emotional vulnerability in two people who, if asked, would scorn love as a human weakness. The film is in English, of course, but it can’t escape a certain Frenchness: Those who would mock love are done in by love.

Hampton has cherry-picked from two Colette novels that chart the doomed love of Lea and Cheri to deliver the juiciest parts, ending just before a world war is poised to sweep away the Belle Epoque forever.

Actors blossom under Frears’ direction. There is no false moment or off-key note in this movie. The artificiality of people’s behavior in the demi-monde makes a distinct contrast with the humbling neediness of the two lovers in private.

Darius Khondji’s mood-catching cinematography, Consolata Boyle’s eye-catching costumes and Alan MacDonald’s gorgeous sets are all entertainment in themselves. But the greatest contribution comes from composer Alexandre Desplat whose nostalgic, romantic, melancholy score evokes the period perfectly.