2017 Statistics

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Women Onscreen

Top-grossing 100 films:

Females comprised 24% of sole protagonists, 37% of major characters, and 34% of all speaking characters.
Overall, audiences were almost twice as likely to see male characters as female characters.
68% of all female characters were white. 16% were Black, 7% were Latina, 7% were Asian, and 2% were of another race or ethnicity.
74% of major female characters were white, 14% were Black, 6% were Latina, 4% were Asian, and 2% were of another race or ethnicity.
In films with at least one woman director and/or writer, females comprised 45% of protagonists, 48% of major characters, and 42% of all speaking characters.
In films with exclusively male directors and/or writers, females accounted for 20% of protagonists, 33% of major characters, and 32% of all speaking characters.
Sole female protagonists were much more likely to appear in independent features (65%) than studio features (35%).
Female protagonists were most likely to appear in comedies (30%) and dramas (30%), followed by action films (17%), horror films (13%), animated features (4%), and science fiction films (4%).
The majority of female characters were in their 20s (32%) and 30s (25%), while most male characters were in their 30s (31%) and 40s (27%).
53% of female characters had a known marital status, while 40% of male characters had one.
63% of female characters had an identifiable job or occupation as compared to 78% of male characters. A larger portion of male than female characters were seen in their work setting, actually working (69% vs. 55%).
Male characters were more likely than females to have work-related goals (42% vs. 34%). Female characters were more likely than males to have goals related to their personal lives (20% vs. 13%).

Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film

Top-grossing 100 films:

4,454 speaking characters appeared across the 100 top films of 2017, with 68.2% male and 31.8% female. This is a ratio of 2.15 males to every one female.
Only 19 stories were gender balanced (45% to 54.9% of the speaking roles with girls/women).
33 films depicted a female lead/co lead.
43% of all speaking characters were girls/women in female-directed content (8 movies). Only 30.9% of all on screen roles were filled with girls/women under male direction.
Only 4 movies were driven by a woman of color. All four of these women were from mixed racial/ethnic backgrounds.
The percentage of Black characters increased by 41.8 percent when a Black director was behind the camera.
Of the speaking characters with a Black director, 18.5% were Black females, compared to just 2.5% of the speaking characters in movies without a Black director.
30 movies featured a male 45 years of age or older at the time of theatrical release whereas only 5 films depicted a female in the same age bracket.
Only one movie was led by a woman of color 45 years of age or older.
Of characters with an ascertainable race/ethnicity, 70.7% were white, 12.1% Black, 4.8%
Asian, 6.2% Hispanic/Latino, 1.7% Middle Eastern, <1% American Indian/Alaskan Native, <1% Native Hawaiian, and 3.9% Mixed Race or Other.
29.3% of all speaking characters were from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group, in comparison to the U.S. population (38.7% underrepresented) and underrepresented movie ticket buyers (45%).
43 films were missing Black female characters, 64 did not include any Latinas, and 65 did not include one Asian female speaking character. Only 7 films were missing white females.
Underrepresented characters were least likely to be shown in action/adventure films (28.1%) compared to animated (34%) and comedy (35.6%) films.
Female characters (28.4%) were far more likely than male characters (7.5%) to be shown in tight or alluring apparel, and with some nudity (M=9.6%, F=25.4%). Females 13-20 years old were just as likely as females 21-39 years old to appear in sexy attire or with some nudity.
A total of 4,403 characters were evaluated for apparent sexuality. 0.7% (n=31) were
Lesbian, Gay, or Bisexual. Over half of the LGB characters were Gay (51.6%), while 29% were Lesbian and 19.4% were Bisexual. There was not one transgender character.
There has been no change over time in the depiction of LGBT characters on screen since 2014. Out of 400 popular films from 2014 to 2017, only one transgender character has appeared.
81 films did not include one LGBT speaking character. 94 movies were devoid of LGBT females.
58.1% of LGB characters were male and 41.9% were female. LGB characters were
predominantly white (67.7%), while 32.3% were underrepresented. Only 8 characters were LGB teens.
Of the 19 LGB characters who were shown with enough cues to evaluate this measure, only 1 was depicted as a parent or caregiver (5.3%).
Only 2.5% of all characters were depicted with a disability.
41 films did not feature one speaking character with a disability. 78 movies did not include one female character with a disability. Two films featured characters with disabilities in proportion to the U.S. population (18.7%).
14 movies featured a lead or co lead character with a disability at any point in the film.
Only 1 film revolved around an underrepresented leading character with a disability and 1 a leading character from the LGBT community.
Physical disabilities were depicted most often, with 61.6% of characters with a disability included in this category. Communicative disabilities occurred for 30.4%. 26.8% of characters with disabilities were classified in the mental domain.
69.6% of characters with disabilities were male while 30.4% were female. Nearly three-quarters of characters with disabilities were white, while 27% were underrepresented. Only 1 character shown with a disability was LGBT.

Inclusion Initiative

Top-grossing 200 films:

Women represented 32.9% of film leads.
People of color accounted for 19.8% of film leads.
Films with casts that were from 31-40% minority enjoyed the highest median global box office receipts, while those with majority-minority casts posted the highest median return on investment.

UCLA

Women Behind the Scenes

Top-grossing 250 films:

Women comprised 18% of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers.
Women comprised 11% of all directors. 88% of the films had no female directors.
Women accounted for 11% of writers. 83% of the films had no female writers.
Women comprised 19% of all executive producers. 45% of the films had no female EPs.
Women accounted for 25% of all producers. 28% of the films had no female producers.
Women comprised 16% of all editors. 80% of the films had no female editors.
Women accounted for 4% of all cinematographers. 96% of the films had no female cinematographers.
Women comprised 3% of composers. 98% of films had no female composers.
Women accounted for 8% of supervising sound editors. 92% of films had no female supervising sound editors.
Women comprised 5% of sound designers. 96% of films had no female sound designers.

Top-grossing 100 films:

Overall, women accounted for 16% of all directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors, and cinematographers.
Women comprised 8% percent of directors.
Women accounted for 10% of writers.
Women comprised 15% of executive producers.
Women accounted for 24% of producers.
Women comprised 14% of editors.
Women accounted for 2% of cinematographers.

Top-grossing 500 films:

Overall, women accounted for 21% of all directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors, and cinematographers.
By genre, the largest percentage of women, relative to men, worked in documentaries (30%), followed by comedies (23%), dramas (22%), sci-fi features (20%), animated features (19%), horror features (18%), and action features (13%).
Women comprised 18% of directors.
Women accounted for 16% of writers.
Women comprised 21% of EPs.
Women accounted for 28% of producers.
Women comprised 18% of editors.
Women accounted for 6% of cinematographers.
On films with at least one female director, women comprised 68% of writers. On films with exclusively male directors, women accounted for 8% of writers.
On films with at least one female director, women comprised 32% of editors. On films with exclusively male directors, women accounted for 14% of editors.
On films with at least one female director, women comprised 15% of cinematographers. On films with exclusively male directors, women accounted for 3% of cinematographers.
On films with at least one female director, women comprised 12% of composers. On films with exclusively male directors, women accounted for 2% of composers.

Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film

Of the top-grossing 1,100 films from 2007 to 2017:

95.7% of all directors were male and 4.3% were female. This translates to 22 male directors hired to every 1 female director.
There were only four Black female directors: Ava DuVernay, Gina Prince‐Bythewood, Sanaa Hamri, and Stella Meghie. Only three Asian female directors worked across the entire 11‐year sample. Only one Latina (Patricia Riggen) was hired to direct.
Male directors start their careers earlier (20s) than female directors and some continue working into their 70s and 80s. The latter is not the case for women directors.
There was a total of 665 individual or unique directors, with 622 males (93.5%) and 43 females (6.5%).
Males directed between one and 15 movies during the 11‐year time frame whereas females directed between one and four movies.
55% of the male directors only helmed one film whereas 84% of the female directors did. The “one and done” phenomenon is far more likely for females than males. Males were almost twice as likely as females to have directed two films (21.5% vs. 11.6%) and over five times as likely to have helmed three (12.1% vs. 2.3%).
97.6% of female directors had current agency representation. Creative Artists Agency (CAA) represents the highest number and percentage of female directors (41.5%), followed by William Morris Endeavor (WME, 24.4%) and United Talent Agency (UTA, 24.4%).
A “fiscal cliff” faces female directors, as they move from helming independent narrative competition movies at Sundance Film Festival (27.5%) and episodic television (17%) to top-grossing films (4.3%). Flipping the story, the opportunities for male directors only seem to increase from directing independent features (72.5%) to episodic television (83%) to top-grossing motion picture content (95.7%).
31 individual directors were Black (4.7%).
81% of the films with a Black director also had a Black actor attached as one of the two top-billed talent.
90.3% of Black directors had agency representation. CAA represents the most Black directors (42.9%) followed by WME (21.4%) and UTA (21.4%).
20 individual directors were Asian.
13 or 65% of the 20 Asian directors have an agent. Of those with representation, 38.5% are signed with CAA and 38.5% with WME. Only 15.4% are represented by UTA and 7.7% with Paradigm.
997 (90.6%) of the movies were distributed by 7 major media companies.
The company with the highest number of female directed movies was Warner Bros. Pictures (12) and the lowest were Paramount (three) and Lionsgate (three).
Films with Black directors were most likely to be distributed by Lionsgate. Walt Disney Studios has not attached a Black director to any of their top-grossing films in the sample. Universal Pictures was the most likely to distribute a movie with an Asian director (13) and Lionsgate was the least likely (one).

Of the films’ corporate decision makers:

95 individuals comprised the C‐suites across the 7 major media companies. 82.1% of prestigious C‐suite jobs were held by males and only 17.9% by females. Among these women, only 4 were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups.
Women comprised 18.8 of Boards of Directors seats. Only three seats were filled by women of color.
Among the executive film teams, only 2 of the chairs (25%) across the major media companies evaluated were women.
Females filled almost a quarter (23.9%) of the President and Chief positions on executive film teams and roughly 41.2% of all EVPs, SVPs, and VPs.

Of the top 100 films of 2017:

There was a total of 109 film directors. A full 92.7% were male and 7.3% were female.
Six or 5.5% of directors were Black. This overall percentage is 7.8% below the U.S. Census (13.3%). Of the Black directors, 5 were male and 1 female.
Five (4.6%) of the directors were Asian. All of these directors were men.

Inclusion Initiative

All films released theatrically in 2017:

Women only accounted for 16% of directors.
Of those features with a box office take of at least $250,000, just 12% of the directors were women and just 10% were people of color.
When data was broken down by box office tier (under $10M, and over $10M), as well as by DGA signatory, the percentage of women directors ranged from 0% to 16% in 2017.
Broken down by DGA signatory, directors of color ranged from 7% to 12% in 2017.
From 2013-2017 women directors ranged from a low of 6% to a high of just 12% on films with a minimum box office of $250,000. Directors of color ranged from a low of 10% to a high of 17%.

DGA

Top-grossing 100 films:

A total of 1,584 individuals worked above the line as directors, writers, and producers. 81.7% were male and 18.2% female.
Of 109 directors, only 7.3% were female. Only 10.1% of writers were female and 18.2% of producers.
Out of 111 composers, only 1 female worked.
5.5% of directors were Black or African American. Only one of the Black or African American directors working last year was female.
4 Asian directors helmed a top movie (3.7%)—all of these individuals were male.

Inclusion Initiative

Of the top-grossing 1,100 films from 2007 to 2017:

Only 4.3% of all directors were women. 2008 was the 11-year high mark.
43 women have helmed one or more top-grossing films in 11 years.
No more than two female composers have ever been employed per year during the 11 years studied. Only 1.3% of all composers across 1,100 movies were women.
Only 5.2% of the films have been helmed by a Black/African American director. Only 4 Black or African American women have worked in the top 100 movies in the years examined, less than 1% of all directors.
3.1% of all directors were Asian or Asian American. Asian female directors are nearly invisible in the sample—of the three slots held by Asian women, two represent the work of Jennifer Yuh Nelson on the “Kung Fu Panda” films.

Inclusion Initiative

Top-grossing 200 films:

Women represented 12.6% of directors and 12.6% of writers.
People of color accounted for 12.6% of directors and 7.8% of writers.

UCLA

Of the European films released 2003-2017:

Female directors represented 21% of all directors with at least one European feature film produced and released. About half of female directors directed only one single film and less than one-third worked on more than two films.
Only 5% of female directors shot six or more films, compared to 11% for male directors.
A total of 3,618 films exclusively directed by women were produced and released, or 17% of total films.
Women were involved in the direction of a total of 4,265 feature films (20% of total films), whether alone or in partnership with other directors.
The share of films by female directors only is growing slowly, reaching 19% of European films in 2017, up from 15% in 2003. This growth was mainly driven by an increase in the number of documentary films.
65% of films directed exclusively by female directors are works of fiction.
Documentary is the genre with the highest prevalence of female directors: between 2013 and 2017, 25% of documentary films were directed by women, compared to 15% for fiction and 11% for animation.
A total of 357 feature films by female directors were produced in 2017, compared to 118 in 2003.
In 2017, half of the films directed by women were presumably first features.
Films by female directors represent 21% of all presumed first features produced in 2017.
France is the country with the highest number of films by female directors, accounting for 18% of films directed by women.
307 films directed by women were produced in France. This is well above the European average of 44 films per year.
The Netherlands and Sweden were the top production countries based on the share of films by female directors.
Croatia and Norway were the production countries with the strongest growth both in terms of number of films and percentage share of films by female directors.
Films by female directors only generated 8% of total admissions. A plausible explanation for this discrepancy could be that women directors are less likely to be hired to direct high-budget films.

European Audiovisual Observatory