Women still face steep challenges securing top movie jobs

Last year, women made up conscionable 13% of directors moving connected the apical 250 films.

That level represents a 3-percentage-point diminution from 2024, erstwhile women led 16% of the top-grossing movies, according to a San Diego State University survey released Thursday.

The troubling tabulation comes arsenic Hollywood seeks to crook the leafage from a gut-punching twelvemonth that included the Los Angeles wildfires, ongoing declines of section movie and tv accumulation and the deaths of beloved filmmakers.

“Hamnet,” directed by Chloé Zhao; “Freakier Friday,” helmed by Nisha Ganatra; and “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” led by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, were among the fewer notable exceptions.

The university’s Center for the Study of Women successful Television and Film and its laminitis Martha M. Lauzen person tracked employment of women successful behind-the-scenes decision-making jobs for astir 3 decades. Roles included successful the survey are: directors, writers, enforcement producers, producers, editors and cinematographers. Data from much than 3,500 credits connected top-grossing films were utilized to compile the report.

Lauzen launched her effort successful 1998, assuming that pointing retired the imbalance would origin doors to plaything unfastened for women successful Hollywood. But contempt countless calls for action, and a high-profile but short-lived national investigation, the representation has stayed mostly the same.

“The numbers are remarkably stable,” Lauzen said successful an interview. “They’ve been remarkably unchangeable for much than a 4th of a century.”

Overall, women made up 23% of each directors, writers, producers, enforcement producers, editors and directors of photography connected the 250 top-grossing films successful 2025, according to Lauzen’s report: “The Celluloid Ceiling: Employment of Behind-the-Scenes Women connected Top Grossing U.S. Films.” In 2024 and 2020, the percent was the same.

Her survey recovered that, successful 2025, women constituted 28% of movie producers and 23% of the enforcement producers.

Among the ranks of screenwriters, lone 20% were women.

Women besides made up 20% of editors, matching the level successful 1998, erstwhile Lauzen began her study.

“There’s been perfectly nary change,” she said.

Among cinematographers, women occupied conscionable 7% of those influential roles connected the 250 top-grossing films.

The cinematographer serves arsenic the manager of photography, greatly shaping the look and the consciousness of a film. Last twelvemonth marked a stark diminution from 2024, erstwhile women constituted 12% of cinematographers.

There has been question successful the fig of pistillate directors since 1998. That year, lone 7% of the top-grossing films were directed by women. Last year’s full represented a 6 percentage-point improvement.

Lauzen’s astir caller study comes a decennary aft the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began looking astatine alleged sex favoritism successful Hollywood. But the 2015 review, which was sparked by a petition from the American Civil Liberties Union, failed to get traction. A small much than a twelvemonth later, President Obama near bureau and President Trump ushered successful a oversea alteration successful attitudes.

Hollywood employment besides has go much unstable successful caller years due to the fact that of a pullback successful accumulation by the large studios during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes.

Despite years of manufacture leaders vocalizing a request for greater diverseness successful enforcement suites and decision-making roles, and the chronic inequity remaining a punchline for grant amusement jokes, the clime has changed.

Trump returned to bureau little than a twelvemonth agone and instantly called for the extremity of diverseness and inclusion programs.

Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, abolished diverseness programs wrong his bureau and launched investigations into Walt Disney Co.’s and Comcast’s interior hiring programs. Carr wants to extremity programs helium sees arsenic disadvantaging achromatic people.

Paramount, led by tech scion David Ellison, agreed to dismantle each diverseness and inclusion programs astatine the company, which includes CBS and Comedy Central, arsenic a information for winning FCC support for the Ellison family’s takeover of Paramount. That merger was finalized successful August.

Lauzen said she’s unsure what her aboriginal studies whitethorn find.

Corporate consolidation has added to the uncertainty.

Warner Bros., a signature Hollywood workplace for much than a century, is connected the auction block.

Last month, Warner Bros. Discovery’s committee agreed to merchantability the movie and tv studios, HBO and HBO Max to Netflix successful an $82.7-billion deal. However, the Ellisons’ Paramount is contesting Warner’s prime and has launched a hostile takeover bid, asking investors to tender their Warner shares to Paramount.

“Consolidation present hangs implicit the movie manufacture similar a guillotine, with occupation losses apt and the aboriginal of the theatrical movie-going acquisition successful question,” Lauzen wrote successful her report.

“Add the existent governmental warfare connected diversity, and women successful the movie manufacture present find themselves successful uncharted territory,” Lauzen wrote. “Hollywood has ne'er needed support to exclude oregon diminish women, but the manufacture present has it.”