Last year, women made up just 13% of directors working on the top 250 films.
That level represents a 3-percentage-point decline from 2024, when women led 16% of the top-grossing movies, according to a San Diego State University study released Thursday.
The troubling tabulation comes as Hollywood seeks to turn the page from a gut-punching year that included the Los Angeles wildfires, ongoing declines of local film and television production 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 few notable exceptions.
The university’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film and its founder Martha M. Lauzen have tracked employment of women in behind-the-scenes decision-making jobs for nearly three decades. Roles included in the study are: directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors and cinematographers. Data from more than 3,500 credits on top-grossing films were used to compile the report.
Lauzen launched her effort in 1998, assuming that pointing out the imbalance would cause doors to swing open for women in Hollywood. But despite countless calls for action, and a high-profile but short-lived federal investigation, the picture has stayed largely the same.
“The numbers are remarkably stable,” Lauzen said in an interview. “They’ve been remarkably stable for more than a quarter of a century.”
Overall, women made up 23% of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors and directors of photography on the 250 top-grossing films in 2025, according to Lauzen’s report: “The Celluloid Ceiling: Employment of Behind-the-Scenes Women on Top Grossing U.S. Films.” In 2024 and 2020, the percentage was the same.
Her study found that, in 2025, women constituted 28% of film producers and 23% of the executive producers.
Among the ranks of screenwriters, only 20% were women.
Women also made up 20% of editors, matching the level in 1998, when Lauzen began her study.
“There’s been absolutely no change,” she said.
Among cinematographers, women occupied just 7% of those influential roles on the 250 top-grossing films.
The cinematographer serves as the director of photography, greatly shaping the look and the feel of a film. Last year marked a stark decline from 2024, when women constituted 12% of cinematographers.
There has been movement in the number of female directors since 1998. That year, only 7% of the top-grossing films were directed by women. Last year’s total represented a 6 percentage-point improvement.
Lauzen’s most recent report comes a decade after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began looking at alleged gender discrimination in Hollywood. But the 2015 review, which was sparked by a request from the American Civil Liberties Union, failed to get traction. A little more than a year later, President Obama left office and President Trump ushered in a sea change in attitudes.
Hollywood employment also has become more unstable in recent years because of a pullback in production by the major studios during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes.
Despite years of industry leaders vocalizing a need for greater diversity in executive suites and decision-making roles, and the chronic inequity remaining a punchline for award show jokes, the climate has changed.
Trump returned to office less than a year ago and immediately called for the end of diversity and inclusion programs.
Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, abolished diversity programs within his agency and launched investigations into Walt Disney Co.’s and Comcast’s internal hiring programs. Carr wants to end programs he sees as disadvantaging white people.
Paramount, led by tech scion David Ellison, agreed to dismantle all diversity and inclusion programs at the company, which includes CBS and Comedy Central, as a condition for winning FCC approval for the Ellison family’s takeover of Paramount. That merger was finalized in August.
Lauzen said she’s unsure what her future studies may find.
Corporate consolidation has added to the uncertainty.
Warner Bros., a signature Hollywood studio for more than a century, is on the auction block.
Last month, Warner Bros. Discovery’s board agreed to sell the film and television studios, HBO and HBO Max to Netflix in an $82.7-billion deal. However, the Ellisons’ Paramount is contesting Warner’s choice and has launched a hostile takeover bid, asking investors to tender their Warner shares to Paramount.
“Consolidation now hangs over the film industry like a guillotine, with job losses likely and the future of the theatrical movie-going experience in question,” Lauzen wrote in her report.
“Add the current political war on diversity, and women in the film industry now find themselves in uncharted territory,” Lauzen wrote. “Hollywood has never needed permission to exclude or diminish women, but the industry now has it.”