Last year, women represented only 13% of directors working on the top 250 films.
That level represents a decline of 3 percentage points from 2024, when women led 16% of the highest-grossing films, according to a San Diego State University study released Thursday.
The troubling tabulation comes as Hollywood seeks to turn the page on a devastating year that included the Los Angeles wildfires, the continued decline of local film and television production and the deaths of beloved filmmakers.
“Hamnet,” directed by Chloé Zhao; “Freakier Friday,” directed by Nisha Ganatra; and “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” directed 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 the employment of women in behind-the-scenes decision-making positions for nearly three decades. The roles included in the study are: directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors and directors of photography. Data from more than 3,500 credits from top-grossing films was used to prepare the report.
Lauzen launched her effort in 1998, assuming that pointing out the imbalance would open doors for women in Hollywood. But despite countless calls to action and a high-profile but short-lived federal investigation, the picture has remained largely the same.
“The numbers are remarkably stable,” Lauzen said in an interview. “They have remained remarkably stable for more than a quarter of a century.”
Overall, women represented 23% of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers of the top 250 films in 2025, according to Lauzen's report, “The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women in Top-Grossing American Films.” In 2024 and 2020, the percentage was the same.
Their study found that, by 2025, women made up 28% of film producers and 23% of executive producers.
Among the screenwriters, only 20% were women.
Women also made up 20% of editors, matching the level in 1998, when Lauzen began her study.
“There has been absolutely no change,” he said.
Among cinematographers, women held only 7% of those influential roles in the top 250 grossing films.
The cinematographer acts as the cinematographer and largely shapes the look and feel of a film. Last year marked a sharp decline from 2024, when women made up 12% of cinematographers.
There has been a movement in the number of female directors since 1998. That year, only 7% of the highest-grossing films were directed by women. Last year's total represented an improvement of 6 percentage points.
Lauzen's most recent report comes a decade after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began investigating alleged gender discrimination in Hollywood. But the 2015 review, which was prompted by a request from the American Civil Liberties Union, failed to gain support. A little over a year later, President Obama left office and President Trump ushered in a sea change in attitudes.
Employment in Hollywood has also become more unstable in recent years due to a slowdown in production by major studios during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the 2023 writers and actors strikes.
Even though industry leaders have for years expressed the need for greater diversity in executive suites and decision-making roles, and chronic inequality remains a punchline at awards shows, the climate has changed.
Trump returned to office less than a year ago and immediately called for an end to diversity and inclusion programs.
Trump's Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr abolished diversity programs within his agency and launched investigations into internal hiring programs at Walt Disney Co. and Comcast. Carr wants to end programs he sees as unfavorable to whites.
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 of obtaining FCC approval for the Ellison family's acquisition of Paramount. That merger was finalized in August.
Lauzen said she's not sure what her future studies might find.
Business consolidation has added to the uncertainty.
Warner Bros., an iconic Hollywood studio for more than a century, is up for auction.
Last month, Warner Bros. Discovery's board of directors agreed to sell the HBO and HBO Max film and television studios 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 offer their Warner shares to Paramount.
“Consolidation now hangs over the film industry like a guillotine, with job losses likely and the future of the movie-going experience in doubt,” Lauzen wrote in his report.
“Add to this 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 disparage women, but now the industry has it.”
