Decline in Female Lead Roles in Major Films: A 14 Percentage Point Drop in 2023

A recent study from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism has revealed a troubling decline in female representation in leading roles in top films, with only 30% of lead roles in 2023 being held by women—a drop from the previous year and the lowest since 2010. This marks a 14 percentage point decrease from 2022, raising concerns about the ongoing struggle for gender equality in Hollywood.

This article originally appeared in Moonshot.

The study, which analyzed 1,700 top films from 2007 to 2023, found that progress for women on screen has stagnated. In 2023, just 32% of all speaking roles were filled by women, barely up from 30% in 2007. Even more concerning, only 11% of stories featured a balanced gender representation, where women held 45-54.9% of speaking roles. This lack of progress is evident despite the industry’s repeated commitments to diversity and inclusion.

Women of color also remain significantly underrepresented in leading roles. In 2023, only 14 movies featured a woman of color in a leading or co-leading role, a decrease from 18 in 2022, though still higher than the mere one film in 2007. The situation is even more dire for older women of color, with just one movie in 2023 starring a woman of color aged 45 or older in a leading role.

LGBTQ+ representation has also seen little to no meaningful change. Only 1.2% of speaking characters in the top films of 2023 were identified as members of the LGBTQ+ community, a figure that has remained virtually unchanged since 2014. Notably, no transgender characters appeared in the top 100 films of 2023, and 76 of those films featured no LGBTQ+ characters at all.

The study also highlighted a persistent lack of representation behind the camera. Women directors, although slightly more prevalent than in previous years, still directed only 12% of the top films in 2023. This is a slight increase from 9% in 2022 but shows minimal progress over the long term, with only 6.5% of directors being women across the 17-year span of the study. Similarly, women made up just 15% of credited writers in 2023, a figure that has barely changed from 16% in 2022 and 11% in 2007. Women producers held 24% of positions, and women composers, while reaching a 17-year high at 9%, still represent a small minority in the industry.

The findings suggest that the industry must take more aggressive steps to address these disparities if it hopes to keep pace with an increasingly diverse audience and workforce. Without meaningful change, women and other underrepresented groups will continue to be marginalized in the very medium that shapes so much of our culture and society.

Head over to Moonshot to see all the key findings and statistics.