New study suggests women in film are seen and not heard
Women remain central to box office calculations, yet their voices still occupy less screen time than men across the biggest releases. A fresh look at the numbers shows that the pattern first documented years ago has not disappeared, even as individual titles occasionally push the conversation forward.
Recent Fluctuations in Female Protagonists
The 2024 release slate marked a high point with 54 of the top 100 films featuring a woman in a lead or co-lead role. That surge reversed sharply the following year. Female protagonists fell to 29 percent in 2025, down from 42 percent in 2024. The swing underscores how temporary gains can vanish when studio priorities shift toward established franchises and cost-cutting measures.
Behind-the-Scenes Director Trends Since 2018
Women directed only 8.1 percent of the top 100 films in 2025, a seven-year low that followed a modest 13.4 percent mark in 2024. The figure echoes the earlier finding that just 43 female directors worked across more than a thousand titles from 2007 to 2017. Recent Annenberg reports confirm that single-digit representation has remained the norm rather than the exception.
LGBTQ+ and Transgender Representation Updates
Only 1.2 percent of speaking characters in 2023 top films identified as LGBTQ+. GLAAD’s 2025 Studio Responsibility Index found just two releases with transgender characters, and both leaned on familiar stereotypes. The single transgender appearance noted in the original study period has not expanded into sustained, multifaceted visibility on the largest screens.
Broader Industry Contraction Effects on Inclusion
Post-pandemic budget cuts and streaming recalibrations have slowed hiring across departments. USC researchers link these pressures directly to stalled or reversed inclusion metrics. Speaking roles for women hovered near 32 percent in 2023, only a couple of points above the 30 percent recorded in 2007, showing how economic contraction can blunt earlier momentum.
Independent vs. Mainstream Representation Patterns
Indie titles continue to deliver wider casts and more balanced dialogue. Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird remains a benchmark, with its focus on the exchanges between Saoirse Ronan’s title character, Laurie Metcalf’s Marion, and Beanie Feldstein’s Julie. In contrast, mainstream data shows limited sustained gains after 2018, even when individual franchises introduce stronger female supporting players.
Speaking characters reached 38 percent women in 2025 according to the San Diego State University Celluloid Ceiling report, a modest one-point rise from the prior year. The slight uptick sits alongside persistent gaps for women of color and minimal change in overall dialogue share. Dialogue dominance by male characters still holds in most Disney, superhero, and franchise entries, mirroring the 2016 survey that found similar imbalances even in films built around female leads.
The 2018 USC Annenberg study documented that men spoke roughly twice as often as women across the decade ending in 2017. Updated Annenberg figures from 2023 place female speaking characters at 32 percent, nearly identical to the earlier range. The NY Times coverage of that original report captured the industry’s slow response: heightened scrutiny after #OscarsSoWhite and the #MeToo movement produced little immediate structural shift.
Other findings from the 2017 top 100 films noted that 43 titles lacked a Black female character and 65 lacked an Asian or Asian-American female character. Recent Annenberg releases indicate that underrepresentation for women of color has remained a steady concern rather than a solved problem. The single transgender character in Hot Pursuit, criticized by GLAAD for its punchline treatment, still stands as an outlier rather than the start of a larger wave.
The 2016 dialogue study highlighted how even acclaimed titles such as The Little Mermaid and Tangled gave male supporting characters more lines than the female leads they ostensibly served. That pattern repeated in later entries including The Hunger Games, where Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss shared screen time with a larger male ensemble. Similar dynamics appeared in Avengers: Infinity War, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and The Fate of the Furious.
Superhero releases have introduced more complex female characters since the original pipeline mentions of Wonder Woman, Black Panther, and the then-upcoming Captain Marvel led by Brie Larson. Gal Gadot’s Diana, Lupita Nyong’o’s Nakia, Danai Gurira’s Okoye, and Letitia Wright’s Shuri expanded the visual language of female power. Yet overall speaking-role percentages and director counts have not moved in tandem with those individual gains.
Progress after the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements slowed or reversed after 2020. USC reports tie the reversal to industry contraction and risk-averse greenlighting. The original optimism that statistics would improve the following year has given way to a longer view: meaningful change requires consistent investment rather than cyclical peaks.
Tracy Letts’s Larry in Lady Bird still functions as a supporting figure whose presence never overtakes the central mother-daughter thread. That balance remains rare in wide-release fare. The contrast between indie and mainstream patterns continues to illustrate where sustained female voices find the most room.
