Every year since 2007, a team of scholars from the University of Southern California has tracked the gender identity, race and ethnicity, and age of lead and co-lead actors of the year’s top 100 highest-earning scripted films in North America.
By tracking trends across the entire study’s history, this year’s report includes an analysis of 1,800 total films from the study’s first iteration through 2024. Among last year’s top films, the study authors counted 82 movies with a single-lead performance and 15 with two-person co-leads. The remaining three films were categorized as ensemble performances.
According to their analysis, the authors found that 54 of the top 100 films of 2024 featured a women protagonist. This is the highest percentage of women lead actors in the study’s history. In comparison, the share of films with women lead characters was 30 percent in 2023 and 20 percent in 2007. Women of color were found to be the lead or co-lead in 13 of 2024’s top 100 films. In 2007, only one of the year’s top 100 films was led by a nonwhite woman.
However, women leads and co-leads were underrepresented among older actors. In 2024, eight of the top 100 films featured a woman protagonist over the age of 45. Similarly-aged men were the lead actors in 21 of last year’s 100 highest-grossing movies. Among older women of color, just one film featured a nonwhite woman protagonist.