An annual study found that “progress has stalled” for female directors, with films helmed by women hitting a 7-year low in 2025.
Just nine women (8.1%) were behind the camera for 2025’s fictional films, compared to 102 men (91.9%), while a respective 15 women and 97 men helmed fictional films in 2024, according to USC Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative’s “Inclusion in the Director’s Chair: Analysis of Director Gender and Race/Ethnicity.”
“The percentage and number of women working as directors in 2025 was significantly lower than the percentage of women working as directors in 2024,” reads the key findings of the study, which explores the 1,900 “top films” from 2007 to present day.
This year’s percentage of woman directors is the lowest since 2018, when five female directors led just 4.5% of the year’s fictional films.
Both 2017’s #MeToo movement and 2018’s Time’s Up movement seem to have contributed to the increase in women directors since 2019, when there were 12. Despite 2020’s dip to 6, there were 9 in 2021, 10 in 2022, 14 in 2023 and 15 last year.
“Further, 2025 was practically the same as 2008 — 17 years ago. These findings represent a complete reversal of any progress that was achieved behind the camera over the last few years,” continued the findings.
Of the films helmed solely by women, just two of this year’s are wholly original works: Celine Song’s “Materialists” and Hikari’s “Rental Family.”
Nisha Ganatra’s “Freakier Friday,” Emma Tammi’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer” are all sequels. Chloe Zhao’s acclaimed “Hamnet” is adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s book of the same name.
Netflix smash hit “KPop Demon Hunters” and Pixar’s “Elio” are both original works, though all from co-directing teams. The latter was directed by a trio, including female filmmakers Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian, as well as Adrian Molina.
The study found that, since 2007, women have made up just 6.6% of the 2,002 total directors, with just 104 individual female directors during that time period. Of those female directors, 95 (4.8%) are white, while 38 (1.9%) are from underrepresented backgrounds.
