It has been nearly two years since Greta Gerwig’s Barbie became the highest-grossing film of 2023 but looking ahead to 2025, studios have yet to invest in female filmmakers.
Almost every year, the film website Indiewire runs a list of upcoming studio films by female directors. I love making lists (yes, I’m a nerd) and as someone who likes to look towards the future- I enjoy seeing what movies there are to look forward to. So as the new year rolled around, I began looking into the projects of 2025 and what films might make Indiewire’s next list. What began as a casual googling session quickly led to disappointment. 2025’s list was likely to be one thing. Sparse.
On my first cursory search, I only found a handful of studio movies. Elio (Pixar) – directed by Domee Shi and Madeline Sharafian, Freakier Friday (Walt Disney Pictures) – directed by Nisha Ganatra, The Bride! (Warner Brothers) – directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (Universal) directed by Emma Tammi. Oof. Now this is not an exhaustive list, further digging found I had missed the I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot, (Sony) directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, so there could definitely be more out there.
If we expand out into distribution only, there are films like Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet which seems to be funded by a collection of small production companies and distributed by Universal Pictures. Indie distribution arms such as Sony Pictures Classic, which pick up completed films from festivals, widen the pool further with films such as Eleanor the Great, directed by Scarlett Johansson, or Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, directed by Laura Piani, set for 2025.
When we move out into independent projects the pool expands again with films like On Becoming a Guinea Fowl directed by Rungano Nyoni. But in terms of big investments in female directors, the top studios are simply not interested, just look at the biggest releases on the horizon. Superhero movies like Superman, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Thunderbolts, Captain America: Brave New World, live action remakes like Lilo and Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon, action films like Mission Impossible, Ballerina, Jurassic World, Tron Ares, hell even female lead musicals like Snow White and Wicked: For Good. Women are conspicuously absent from the director’s chair.
Why is this so disheartening? Well, while there have been more opportunities for female directors in independent films, which have traditionally been more welcoming than studios, studios still hold some of the biggest opportunities in the film industry. As Indiewire said in their 2023/2024 list “studios are still the home of the big blockbusters, the major moneymakers, and the kind of opportunities that continue to elude the vast majority of female filmmakers working in the contemporary era”.
Despite female directors having been present since the beginning of cinema – Alice Guy-Blaché, Alla Nazimova, Lois Weber – to name a few, women have been historically underrepresented behind the scenes and especially in the director’s chair. This has been consistently reported on by two institutions; the ‘Celluloid Ceiling’ Project at San Diego State University and ‘Director’s Chair’ Report at USC Annenberg. In this year’s annual ‘Director’s Chair’ report, USC Annenberg found that analysing the top 100 grossing fictional films of 2024, of the 112 directors analysed, only 13.4 percent (15) were women. Only a tiny improvement from 2023’s 12.1 percent.
Dr. Stacy L. Smith and her team have been analysing the top 100 grossing films since 2007, and in the 18 years the study has been running, only an average of 6.5 percent of directors were women. The study also found that within the 2024 pool, 5.3 percent (6) of directors were women of colour, with only 1.7 percent of all top-grossing film directors in 18 years being directed by women of colour. The study also included an examination of critical review scores across 18 years, which found that while films with male directors had higher critics’ scores than films by women directors in 2024, across all 18 years, “the averages and medians of films directed by males and females do not differ”. In fact, they found that across 18 years, women of colour received the highest median and average critics score when compared to white women, underrepresented men and white men. However, “Women of color continue to receive the fewest opportunities to work behind the camera in Hollywood”.
In a statement to Indiewire Dr. Smith said “The film industry has demonstrated that it can increase the percentage of women directors and hold that progress.Yet, there is much more room to improve. Women directors are still significantly outnumbered and rarely get multiple opportunities behind the camera. Hollywood cannot be satisfied with the change that has occurred when there is still work to be done.” She also went on to say “Even with the progress made, there are too few opportunities and too few repeat chances for skilled, talented, and qualified directors to work on some of the most globally recognizable entertainment content today. If we are to say that real change has occurred, we must see continued increases across the board on these metrics.”
There are some indicators of progress in 2025, like Pixar’s Elio. The film features a three-way split for director credit, as the film was initially directed by Adrian Molina, and then Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi. Elio is Sharafian’s feature debut but Shi directed the Oscar winning Bao, and became the first woman to direct a Pixar film solo with 2022’s Turning Red. That Shi can build up directing credits with Pixar does feel like some progress for a studio that has previously been so hostile for women and people of colour. In 2017, after Pixar and Disney animation chief John Lasseter took a leave of absence following a “pattern of alleged misconduct”, actress and writer Rashida Jones denied she had left Toy Story 4 because of “unwanted advances” from Lasseter but because of a “culture where women and people of colour do not have an equal creative voice”.
In a 2018 column titled “How Pixar’s Open Sexism Ruined My Dream Job”, former employee Cassandra Smolcic wrote “At Pixar, my female-ness was an undeniable impediment to my value, professional mobility, and sense of security within the company”. That Sharafian is getting a shot at directing her first feature and Shi is directing her second feature suggests some improvement in the culture at Pixar, although its working conditions have still been subject to criticism.
But as Martha Lauzen, author of ‘Celluloid Ceiling’ study told Variety, “The stunning successes enjoyed by high-profile women in the last few years — including Greta Gerwig, Jane Campion and Chloé Zhao — have not translated into opportunities for greater numbers of women. Visibility for a few has not generated employment for many”. Barbie was the highest grossing movie of 2023 but going on two years we have yet to see the returns. In fact many of these handful of successes were hard fought for. As reported by Indiewire when it came to Barbie “greenlighting the film was seen as a “risk” by Warner Bros., with the studio concerned about backing a “‘lady director’ and a lady thing.”
Women are 50% of the population but consistently underrepresented in the directing chair. Just one of the many reminders that our creative visions and voices still do not have equal weight in Hollywood. As a woman drawn to traditionally male dominated genres like science fiction and action, I’m used to waiting for a modicum of representation in front of or behind the camera in the film industry. But as someone who’s spent so long looking ahead, it’s startling to look back and realise we’ve barely moved at all. It’s disheartening to look at that tiny pool of 15 directors in USC Annenberg’s study, look at 2025’s line up and realise that that pool is unlikely to be expanding significantly anytime soon. That bright, shiny, inclusive future that the HR departments promise, and the culture warriors rage over still hasn’t arrived. The status quo is still firmly in place, and looking out onto 2025, it doesn’t seem like anything is changing anytime soon.
Another year. Another wait.
Maybe 2026?
Words by Louise Eve Leigh
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