Women Lose Ground in Oscar Nominations for Non-Acting Honors As Hollywood Prepares for 2025 Academy Awards

Full report: WMC Investigation 2025: Gender and Non-Acting Oscar Nominations - Full Report

Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025

For Immediate Release

WASHINGTON — A new study finds a 5 percent drop in women nominated for Oscars in non-acting categories compared to last year. As speculation grows about winners of 2025 Academy Awards to be announced March 2, the report from the Women’s Media Center demonstrates that men continued their overall dominance and also gained ground in a majority of categories. If the percentage of women nominated declines, the chances of women winning Oscars in non-acting categories also drops.

Of this year’s 216 Oscar nominees in non-acting categories, only 59 (27%) are women, and the other 157 (73%) are men. This is a decrease from 2024, when women were 32% of non-acting Oscar nominees, compared to 64% men.

“Ten years ago, in 2015, the Women’s Media Center’s report on Gender and Non-Acting Oscar Nominations showed that only 19% of all nominees for non-acting Oscars were women; today, in 2025, 27% of all nominees for non-acting Oscars are women,” said Julie Burton, WMC’s President and CEO. “That is improvement, but nowhere near parity. Over the span of a decade, women garnered an average of only 26% of all non-acting Oscar nominations. At this rate, it will take 25 years before equal numbers of women are nominated for their skill, excellence, and artistry. The nominating guilds, and those bankrolling the industry, should do better. More women need to be hired for these jobs and given the opportunity to showcase their talents. This is painfully slow progress.”

There were only a few categories where the number of women increased compared to 2024: Best Documentary Short Film, Best Original Song, and Best Sound.

“Even when women produce, direct and edit Oscar-worthy films, they’re still overlooked for these prestigious awards,” said Jane Fonda, WMC’s Co-Founder. “While we commend the Academy for its efforts to be more equitable, fair and inclusive, it’s clear that more change needs to happen at a faster pace.”

Most categories saw decreases in the percentages of women nominees. The categories that have the biggest percentage downturns in women nominees are Best Animated Feature, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Costume Design, and Best Documentary Feature Film.

Gender inequality continued in several categories that have a long history of snubbing women: Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Cinematography, and Best Visual Effects. Only one woman was nominated for Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound. There were no women nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects.

This year, noteworthy numbers of French women filmmakers earned nominations in non-acting categories, mainly due to Netflix’s Emilia Pérez, a Spanish-language musical that takes place in Mexico. It has the most nominations for women in 2025, with four women (all of French nationality) receiving six Oscar nominations in five categories. The Substance garnered several non-acting nominations, including a Best Director nod for Coralie Fargeat.

Black women filmmakers were completely shut out of non-acting nominations this year. The previous year that Black women filmmakers were snubbed for Oscar nominations was in 2016, when there were no Black women nominated in any Oscar categories, including the categories for acting. It was the same year that the #OscarSoWhite and #OscarsSoMale protests in 2015 prompted the Academy to diversify its membership by inviting more women, more people of color, and more members who live outside the United States.

Julie Burton added, “It was good news to learn this week that in the top grossing films over the past year, women working in front of the camera finally reached parity. The bad news is that women working behind the camera lost ground. It is disappointing—and a step backwards—that some studios that previously moved to expand the talent pool have capitulated to the Trump backlash against women, people of color, LGBTQAI, and others, and are now ending their DEI programs. More than half the audience for the film industry consists of women. Don’t the studios want that business?”

“It appears that women are hitting a glass ceiling in non-acting Oscar nominations,” said WMC Board Chair Janet Dewart Bell. “They’re consistently delivering excellence in film but aren’t reaping the same rewards and awards available to their male peers. It’s up to the industry to level the playing field.”

The Report Highlighted Imbalances in Several Big Non-Acting Categories:

• Best Picture: The number of women nominees in this category remained the same from 2024 to 2025, but the percentage slightly increased. Nine women (31%) are among the 29 nominees, with 20 men (69%) comprising the remainder of the list. That’s compared to 2024, when there were nine women (29%) and 22 men (71%) out of 31 nominees.
  
• Best Director: In this category where only three women have won an Oscar, progress in gender representation remained stagnant among the nominees. Just as in 2024, there is only one woman (20%) out of this category’s five nominees in 2025: Fargeat is the ninth woman in Oscar history to be nominated.
  
• Film Editing: Only one woman (20%) is on the list of five nominees, with four men (80%) comprising the others. This represents a decrease from 2024, when two women (40%) and three men (60%) were on the list of five nominees. Juliette Welfling of Emilia Pérez is the only woman nominated in the category in 2025
  
• Documentary Feature: Women are only six (35%) of the nominees, and 11 (65%) are men. This is a sharp drop from 2024, when women were 50% of the nominees.
  
  

The Women’s Media Center is an inclusive and feminist organization that works to raise the visibility, viability, and decision-making power of women in media by ensuring that their stories get told and their voices are heard. We do this by researching and monitoring media; creating and modeling original online and on-air content; training women to be effective in media; and promoting women experts in all fields.

For more information, contact mediarelations@womensmediacentr.com.

Full report: WMC Investigation 2025: Gender and Non-Acting Oscar Nominations - Full Report

Infographic: WMC Investigation 2025: Gender and Non-Acting Oscar Nominations - Infographics