Only one third of speaking roles in top films are women
Only 30.4% of all speaking roles were girls and women in action/adventure films, 28.6% in animation and 38.7% in comedies, according to a new study of 1,900 of the top-performing films in the US from 2007 to 2025.
The study was made by Dr Stacy L. Smith and the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, a think-tank at the University of Southern California. The study comprises top-performing theatrical films but no documentaries, music videos or episodic TV shows.
Key findings:
- Of the 4,333 speaking or named characters coded, two-thirds of these characters were men and boys (66.3%) and 33.6% were women and girls. This calculates into a gender ratio of 1.97 male characters to every 1 female character.
- The percentage of girls and women on screen has not changed over time. The percentage of girls and women on screen in 2025 was identical to 2024 (33.6%) and was not meaningfully different from 2007 (29.9%).
- Only 14% of the 100 top movies of 2025 were gender balanced – a non-significant decrease of 4 percentage points from 2024 (18%) and an increase of 2 percentage points from 2007.
- Roughly a quarter (24.2%) of all on screen roles for speaking or named characters 40 years of age or older were filled with women. This finding has not budged in 19 years.
- A total of 1,559 directors, writers, and producers were employed across the 100 top-grossing films of 2025. Only 21.7% of the workforce were women and 78.2% were men. Overall, this represents an above-the-line ratio of crew at 3.6 males to every 1 female.
The study shows that only 16% of credited screenwriters were women. This calculates to a gender ratio of 5.2 men working to every 1 woman. The percentage of women writers in 2025 (16%) was not significantly different (+5 percentage points) from 2024 (12.9%) or 2007 (11.2%).
Focusing on producers, 24.4% were women across the 100 top movies of 2025. There has been no meaningful change in the percentage of female producers from 2025 to 2024 (27%) or 2007 (19.7%), the study says.
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