Earlier this year, the University of Southern California published a report tracking diversity among the protagonists of the top 100 films of 2024. Now, the university has released a new report that expands on these findings to include diversity among all speaking characters, as well as the professionals working behind the camera.
Although women achieved a record-high share of 2024’s protagonists (55 out of 100 films), they remain significantly underrepresented in their overall on-screen presence. Of the 4,401 speaking or named characters appearing across the 100 top-grossing movies of 2024, 66.2 percent were male, 33.6 percent were woman, and 0.18 percent were non-binary. This equates to a gender ratio of roughly 2 men for every 1 woman character. Notably, women’s representation among on-screen characters has only increased by 3.7 percentage points from the report’s first edition in 2007.
In terms of speaking characters’ age, gender balance was found in 2024 with 0 to 12-year-olds and with 13 to 20-year-olds. Among characters aged 21 to 39, women accounted for just 37.6 percent of speaking roles. For those over the age of 40, women represented only 23.8 percent of older characters. Women’s representation among older characters has remained unchanged since 2007.
Women’s representation among speaking characters varied significantly by race and ethnicity. Among the top 100 films of 2024, only two featured American Indian/Alaskan Native women, 3 featured Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander women, 12 featured Middle Eastern/North African women, and 30 featured Latinas. More than half of 2024’s top films featured Asian (52) and Black women (62), while slightly less than half featured women characters who were multi-racial (44). In contrast, White women speaking characters appeared in 92 of the top 100 movies in 2024.
Among the 1,669 directors, writers, and producers working across 2024’s top films, only 21.7 percent were women. In terms of top directors in 2024, 85.7 percent were men and 14.3 percent were woman. This is roughly on par with 2023 (12.1 percent), but significantly more than in 2007 (2.7 percent). Across USC’s entire 18-year study period, the top performing women directors were Lana Wachowski and Anne Fletcher, both directing four movies, followed by Greta Gerwig, who has directed three top-performing films over the same time period. Women directors were twice as likely as men to helm stories about girls or women, and were more likely to have gender equality across all speaking roles in their films.
Only 12.9 percent of screenwriters were women in 2024 – a small decrease from 2023 (15.2 percent) and on par with 2007 (11.2 percent). The representation of women producers in 2024 (27 percent) was slightly higher than in 2023 (24.4 percent), but significantly higher than in 2007 (19.7 percent). For composers, only 10 women worked on the top 100 films of 2024. While women composers remain significantly underrepresented, recent years have seen major progress from 2007, when there were no women working across the 100 most popular movies. Conversely, women casting directors are overrepresented in their field, representing 78.4 percent of casters in 2024. However, the percentage of women casting directors has decreased from 2007 (86.1 percent).