Greta Gerwig delivered Hollywood’s biggest movie of 2023 with Barbie, which amassed almost $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office. The Mattel toy–inspired Warner Bros. feature made history, becoming the highest-grossing film ever directed by a woman.
Despite the glorious accolades, the hard truth remains that Gerwig is an outlier. Women filmmakers are still scarce in the industry. Of the 250 top-grossing movies in the US last year, a mere 16% were directed by women, according to a recent report by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. Among the top 100, that share falls to 14%.
“It’s the ultimate illusion,” wrote study author Martha Lauzen, the center’s founder and executive director. “Greta Gerwig’s well-deserved triumph belies the inequality that pervades the mainstream film industry.”
In fact, behind-the-scenes female participation in America’s movie industry declined in 2023. Just 22% of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the 250 top-grossing films were women. That’s down from 24% in 2022, according to The Celluloid Ceiling, which has tracked women’s employment in the top 250 for 26 years.
Male-dominated Hollywood, by the digits
83%: Share of last year’s 250 top-grossing films in the US that had no women directors
94%: Share that had no women cinematographers
75%: Share that employed 10 or more men as directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers. In stark contrast, just 4% of the 250 top-grossing films employed 10 or more women