Women’s employment in the top-grossing films of 2024 remained astonishingly low, according to a new report. In 2024, 70% of the top-grossing films had ten or more men in key behind-the-scenes roles, while only 8% featured the same level of involvement for women.
The report, authored by Martha Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, analyzed the top 250 highest-grossing films of 2024. Over the last 27 years, Lauzen has analyzed over 85,000 film credits to determine the proportion of women occupying key positions in the industry. The main takeaway from this year’s report is that women’s progress behind the scenes has stalled.
The data reflects a setback in key behind-the-scenes roles, including directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers. In 2021, women reached a high point, making up 25% of these behind-the-scenes roles in top-grossing films. But by 2024, that figure slipped to 23%. Particularly striking is the decline in women directors: while women helmed 18% of top-grossing films in 2018 and 2022, that figure dropped to just 16% in 2024. These numbers illustrate a disheartening stagnation in women’s progress.
Interestingly, several films last year featured fictional female directors as characters and offer striking evidence of the persistent stereotypes women face in this role. Their portrayals reveal assumptions about women’s ability to direct and lead on set, often framing female directors as less competent or overly fragile. “Signs of how we envision women who direct were on full display this summer when a number of films portrayed women in this role, including The Fall Guy, A Family Affair and MaXXXine. In these narratives, fictional female helmers needed to be saved, required help translating their direction for a male actor who literally spoke a different language, or were rendered so brittle by thoughts of future opportunities that they were perceived as being difficult to work with. Every one of these portrayals provided a Rorschach test of how we view women in these leadership positions,” Lauzen wrote in the report. All three of the films she mentioned were directed by men.
If there is any good news from the report, it’s the evidence that women are helping other women. Projects with at least one woman director had a dramatic boost in female participation across key creative roles compared to those led exclusively by men. In films with a woman director, 52% of writers were women—an impressive leap from the mere 12% in male-directed projects. Editing rooms followed a similar trend, with women making up 27% of editors on these sets, compared to just 17% under male leadership. And when it comes to cinematography—a field notoriously male-dominated—women comprised a remarkable 34% of cinematographers on films directed by women, far outpacing the meager 5% seen on male-directed productions.
The study also examined the role of women composers in 2024. While women represented only 9% of composers in the top 250 films and 7% of the top 100, movies directed by women showed a promising shift: Women made up 14% of composers, double the 7% in male-directed films.
Having women in the director’s chair clearly creates ripple effects that draw more women into key roles across the filmmaking process. In addition to helping other women in the business, female directors can bring women’s experiences, perspectives, and storytelling approaches to the world. This year, a handful of notable films were helmed by women.
“Women directed and wrote some of this year’s buzziest films, including The Substance and Babygirl. But their directors, Coralie Fargeat and Halina Reijn, remain exceptions, not the rule. The stunning successes enjoyed by high-profile women in the last few years—including Greta Gerwig, Jane Campion, and Chloé Zhao—have not translated into opportunities for greater numbers of women. Visibility for a few has not generated employment for many,” Lauzen stated in the report.