New Research Shows Persistent Limitations on Women’s Opportunities on Big Films

The movie industry is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic causing numerous productions and cinemas to shut down for most of 2020. But what hasn’t changed since before the pandemic is that there are still alarmingly low percentages of women filmmakers who are principal creatives — directors, producers, executive producers, writers, editors, and cinematographers — for the top-grossing theatrically released movies. Even though female filmmakers have made some progress in recent years in winning top prizes at major awards shows and at prestigious film festivals, the industry has been much slower to give female filmmakers a chance to work on theatrically released movies that are expected to make the most money from ticket sales.

San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film publishes the annual The Celluloid Ceiling report, which tracks female representation in these behind-the-camera jobs for the top-grossing movies at the U.S. box office. According to the 25th annual The Celluloid Ceiling report — published this month and whose most recent statistics are for 2022 — the percentage of women in these principal creative jobs still has not risen higher than 25% for the 250 top-grossing theatrically released movies each year at the U.S. box office. The percentages of women in these jobs were 20% in 2018; 21% in 2019; 23% in 2020; 25% in 2021; and 24% in 2022.

The University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative also published its sixth annual Inclusion in the Director’s Chair report this month. The report compiled data about gender and race/ethnicity representation for movie directors, by using a “longitudinal sample comprised [of] 1,600 films released theatrically from 2007 to 2022.” Dr. Stacy L. Smith, Dr. Katherine Pieper, and Sam Wheeler authored the report, which revealed: “A total of 111 directors were hired across the 100 top fictional films of 2022. Of these, 91% were men and 9% were women.” The Inclusion in the Director’s Chair report noted that women were 12% of the directors hired for the 100 top fictional films of 2021.

The representation for women directors also decreased from 2021 to 2022 for the top 20 highest-grossing movies of each year, in terms of U.S. box-office revenue. In 2022, there were no female-directed movies in the top 20, according to Box Office Mojo. That lack of female representation is in stark contrast to 2021, when three female-directed movies were in the top 20: Black Widow, directed by Cate Shortland (#4, $183.7 million); Eternals, directed by Chloé Zhao (#6, $164.5 million); and Candyman, directed by Nia DaCosta (#20, $62.2 million). (The totals listed for these three movies are for each movie’s gross in the calendar year 2021.)

Taking a closer look at the top 10 highest-grossing female-directed movies of 2022 (according to Box Office Mojo), all of these movies — with the exception of The Matrix Resurrections — are not sequels or remakes, and they each have a woman as the central character. Each movie also has at least one female producer or executive producer. All but one of the films has at least one female screenwriter. (The totals listed for these 10 movies are for each movie’s 2022 calendar year gross. The Matrix Resurrections was released in December 2021, the month in which the movie had most of its ticket sales.)

These 10 movies are:

• Where the Crawdads Sing, directed by Olivia Newman (#22, $90.2 million)
• The Woman King, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (#29, $67.2 million)
• Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Olivia Wilde (#37, $45.3 million)
• The Invitation, directed by Jessica M. Thompson (#47, $25.1 million)
• Marry Me, directed by Kat Coiro (#50, $22.4 million)
• Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody, directed by Kasi Lemmons (#63, $13.3 million)
• Bodies Bodies Bodies, directed by Halina Reijn (#70, $11.4 million)
• The Matrix Resurrections, directed by Lana Wachowski (#78, $9.5 million)
• Till, directed by Chinonye Chukwu (#84, $9.0 million)
• She Said, directed by Maria Schrader (#94, $5.8 million)

Female directors whose movies ranked in the top 250 highest-grossing films of 2022 in the United States come from diverse backgrounds, but the top 10 female directors with the highest-grossing films of 2022 have some things in common: Their movies almost always have leading characters who are female. These female directors tend to hire gender-diverse casts and crews. There’s usually at least one female screenwriter for each movie. And there’s usually at least one female producer (often a famous actress) who’s on the team that hired the director.

Dr. Martha Lauzen, who authors The Celluloid Ceiling reports, tells Women’s Media Center: “Given the number of panels, research reports, and attention to this issue, one would expect more substantial movement over more than two decades. Social change is almost always slow, difficult, and nonlinear. Without a widespread will to change or a push from a powerful external force, the rate of change is unlikely to accelerate. I do think it’s interesting that women’s numbers have historically been lowest in the most male-identified roles, such as directors or cinematographers. We can’t discount the power that the pictures inside our heads have on hiring decisions.”

Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Where the Crawdads Sing (a drama based on Delia Owens’ 2018 best-selling novel of the same name) is a rare movie from a major studio with women in the roles of director, screenwriter (Lucy Alibar), and editor (Polly Morgan). Sony-owned 3000 Pictures, led by president Elizabeth Gabler, was one of the production companies behind Where the Crawdads Sing. The movie’s producers are Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Levy Neustadter, who co-founded the production company Hello Sunshine, which sold for about $900 million in 2021.

In a Where the Crawdads Sing public video chat that was presented and livestreamed by Sony Pictures Entertainment in June 2022, director Newman commented on working with women in behind-the-scenes roles on the movie: “From the start, when I first pitched to get the job, a big incentive was working with Hello Sunshine and 3000 Pictures. … I felt that these were incredibly smart, passionate, creative women — which you don’t always find in producers and execs, but I certainly found in this [movie].”

Newman added, “And it just kept getting better. When we were putting together our team of creatives to do our production design and our costumes and cinematography, we interviewed so many people. The artists that really stood out as the best for the job just happened to be women. And I think that’s because … we connected so deeply and instinctively to [lead character] Kya — overcoming great obstacles, finding her sense of self-worth, being the hero of her own story.”

As important as these opportunities are for female filmmakers, it’s still very noticeable that male directors of the highest-grossing movies from major studios get to direct movies that center on male protagonists or female protagonists, while female directors who helm major-studio movies are almost always limited to making movies centered on female protagonists. “Male competence is assumed, whereas women have to prove their competence over and over,” says Lauzen. “In addition, our culture assumes that men can tell universal stories, and universal stories are male stories. Because women have been thought to be a niche, it is assumed that women are only able to tell female-oriented stories, or narratives in female-identified genres, such as gothic stories and romantic comedies, which are also valued less than male-identified genres, such as hard-boiled detective narratives. … The barriers to entry in independent film are lower than they are for studio or mainstream Hollywood films. And, once again, male competence is assumed, [while] female competence has to be demonstrated over and over.”

Within the minority of women directors directing the top-grossing movies of the year are even smaller percentages of directors who are women of color, as detailed in Inclusion in the Director’s Chair. For Black women, the movies they get to direct from major studios are usually centered on Black people, compared to directors of other races whose major-studio movies aren’t always centered on people who are of the same race as the director. (For example, Oscar-winning Nomadland director Zhao, who is originally from China, has helmed movies with protagonists of various races.) Candyman director DaCosta, The Woman King director Prince-Bythewood, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody director Lemmons, and Till director Chukwu are all African American, and most of their movies have Black people as the main characters. However, DaCosta and Prince-Bythewood have been able to go beyond Black-oriented subject matters for at least one movie. DaCosta is the director of 2023’s The Marvels, while Prince-Bythewood directed the 2020 Netflix hit The Old Guard. Coincidence or not, The Marvels, The Old Guard, and the Zhao-directed Eternals are all racially diverse superhero movies.

Prince-Bythewood and Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis (a star and producer of The Woman King) talked about the obstacles experienced by Black women filmmakers at a September 2022 public Q&A at the Toronto International Film Festival, where The Woman King (a history-based action drama film about an all-female African army in the 1800s) had its world premiere. Prince-Bythewood commented, “My fight has been: ‘How can I put Black women up on screen that we can be inspired by and aspire to be?’ But not only us, but [for] the world to see us in a different light. I just think about how many little white kids get to grow up — certainly white boys — and get to see themselves heroically in every single thing. … What we [as Black women] do is so powerful. Our hope with The Woman King was, ‘Let’s put women up on screen who are heroic, but not just put some badass sisters on screen kicking ass, but their humanity, their depth, and their vulnerability is their strength as well.’”

Prince-Bythewood said of typical filmmaker business meetings: “To go into a room, it’s almost always, 99% of the time … white men sitting across from you, and you’re trying to convince them that your story is worthy. … It is soul-crushing to get no after no after ‘I don’t get it’ after ‘It’s a love story, but can you cast the guy white?’ It’s a constant fight. There are so few of us [Black women]. If I’m not in the fight, if [Viola Davis] is not in the fight for The Woman King, these things do not get made.”

Davis added, “Most people don’t understand what it means to get a film made. They know you have the vision for the film. You pitch it or whatever. And they see it when it finally comes on the screen. But there’s no talking about the in-between. And it can get ugly. It really can. It’s like I said in one interview: I call that process The Fight … And there are so many internal battle scars from that fight. I’m telling you, sometimes your soul can die.”

As for what it takes to succeed in the movie industry, Prince-Bythewood offered this advice to women filmmakers, particularly Black women filmmakers who want to make movies about Black female characters: “Stamina, swagger, that absolute belief in yourself. … Black women and Black girls up on screen [are] absolutely worth the fight.” Prince-Bythewood also described getting a movie completed and released: “It’s like being in a battle and making it out, and you’ve survived.”

And sometimes, it helps to have a famous actress as a producer on the team for the fight to get a movie made. Where the Crawdads Sing had Witherspoon, who is not an actress in the movie. The Woman King had Davis. Don’t Worry Darling had director Wilde, Marry Me had Jennifer Lopez, and Till had Oscar winner Whoopi Goldberg, who all have starring roles in those respective movies. Similarly, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody star Naomi Ackie and Bodies Bodies Bodies star Amandla Stenberg are executive producers for those respective films.

Lauzen believes that the #MeToo movement that gained momentum in the late 2010s has had some effect on the movie industry, but it hasn’t been enough to make a massive impact resulting in significantly larger percentages of women getting hired as filmmakers for the top-grossing movies. Lauzen says, “While there is a greater generalized awareness of sexual harassment due to the #MeToo movement, until the behind-the-scenes gender disparities are addressed, we will not see significant movement on this issue.”

After researching these issues for 25 years for The Celluloid Ceiling, Lauzen has come to this conclusion about solutions to the ongoing gender imbalance problem in filmmaking: “Most of the suggestions out there may make people feel better but won't actually effect widespread and lasting change. Moreover, they fail to appreciate the magnitude of this problem that impacts individuals working in every corner of the business.”

Lauzen adds, “There is nothing stopping a prominent organization such as the Motion Picture Association [of America] from taking this issue on, perhaps creating an independent organization, ideally with the input and cooperation of the major studios, that would address this on an industry-wide basis. In the absence of such an effort, the only chance for widespread change would be an intervention by a powerful external organization, such as the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission], that could exert the necessary pressure to force change.”