Overview
- Women accounted for 8.1% of the 111 directors on 2025’s top-grossing films, down from 13.4% in 2024 and the lowest share since 2018.
- Walt Disney Studios attached three women directors in the 2025 sample, while Paramount, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate had none.
- Women of color comprised 5.4% of directors (six) compared with 2.7% who were white women (three), marking the first year women of color outnumbered white women; all six were Asian.
- The seventh “Inclusion in the Director’s Chair” study spans 1,900 films from 2007–2025, finding women represent 6.6% of directors overall and no average quality gap by gender, with women of color posting the highest median Metacritic scores.
- The analysis excludes streaming-only releases, where women’s representation is higher, including 20.5% of Netflix movie directors in 2024.