2015 Statistics

Women Onscreen

Of the 4,370 named, speaking characters from the top-grossing 100 films in 2015:

31.4% were women — a figure that’s remained consistent since 2007.
26.3% were underrepresented racial/ethnic groups.
Less than 1% were LGBT-identified.
Less than 2.4% were disabled and only 19% of those were women.
Only 18% of the movies had a gender-balanced cast.
49 films included no speaking or named Asian or Asian American characters. 17 featured no black/African American characters.
45 films did not include a character with a disability. 82 did not feature a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender character.
Only five of the films with female leads/co-leads in 2015 were over 45, compared to the 26 movies with males 45 years of age or older as leads/co-leads.

Top 100 grossing films:

Females comprised 22% of protagonists, 34% of major characters, and 33% of all speaking characters.
27% of black, Latina, Asian, and other women of color were major characters. 38% of white females were major characters.
76% of all female characters were white, 13% were black, 4% were Latina, 3% were Asian, 2% were otherworldly, and 2% were of another race or ethnicity.
Moviegoers were more likely to know the occupation of male characters and the marital status of females.
Moviegoers were much more likely to see male characters at work and actually working than female characters.
The majority of female characters were in their 20s (24%) and 30s (28%). The majority of male characters were in their 30s (27%) and 40s (30%).
Males 40 and over accounted for 54% of all male characters. Females 40 and over comprised 34% of all female characters.

Of the top 200 grossing films of 2015, women were underrepresented by nearly 2 to 1 among film leads. (Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies)

Of the 107 individual directors on the top 100 movies, there were only eight women (7.5%, all white). That’s a ratio of 12.4 men to every woman.
Only three black women and one Asian woman, have directed one of the top 100 films from 2007–2015.
5.5% of the 886 directors examined were black. 2.8% were Asian.
Out of the 800 top grossing films from 2007–2015 (excluding 2011), there were only 29 unique women directors (4.1%).
Of the 1,365 directors, writers, and producers on the top 100 top films of 2015, women comprised 11.8% of writers and 22% of producers. Of the 114 composers, only one was a woman.
The top-grossing films of 2015 with at least one female at the helm portrayed a higher percentage of female characters onscreen (41%) than those with only males at the helm (30.5%).
Movies with a female screenwriter attached featured more girls/women onscreen (36.9%) than movies with only male screenwriters (29.2%).

Top 250 grossing films:

Women directed 5% of the top grossing films.
Women wrote 14% of the top grossing films.
Women comprised 18% of all executive producers, 25% of producers, 20% of editors, and 4% of cinematographers.

Of 1,591 feature films released theatrically on at least one screen in the U.S. between 2010–2015:

Women directors are the most underrepresented major category, accounting for 8.8% of films. They are followed by women writers (13.2%), women producers (19.8%), and women acting leads (29.4%).
Regardless of role, women are afforded smaller budgets than their male counterparts.
Scripts from women writers achieve the highest ROI of any category but receive two-thirds of the average budgets given to male writers.
For films budgeted at more than $25 million, women writers achieve an industry-high ROI of 3.72 yet account for just 8.7% of theatrically released screenplays.

Of the top 25 highest-earning films each year from 2006 to mid-October 2015:

Hits with female protagonists grossed an average of $126.1 million, whereas hits with male protagonists made an average of $80.6 million.
That’s nearly $50 million in favor of women.

Top 200 grossing films:

Top 10 grossing movies:

45% of the opening weekend audience were people of color
Four of the 10 delivered opening weekend audiences that were more than 50 percent non-white
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was the best-performing “truly diverse” film