A new study finds just nine women directors helmed top-grossing films at the domestic box office in 2025.
According to the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report, out of 111 directors who helmed the top 100-grossing films, only nine were women, representing 8.1%, a steep drop from 2024, when the percentage of women directors on those films was 13.4%.
The nine women directors who ranked at the top of 2025’s list were Nisha Ganatra (Freakier Friday), Emma Tammi (Five Nights at Freddy’s 2), Domee Shi (Elio), Madeline Sharafian (Elio), Celine Song (Materialists), Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (I Know What You Did Last Summer), Maggie Kang (KPop Demon Hunters), Hikari (Rental Family) and previous best director Oscar winner Chloé Zhao (Hamnet).
The lower number of female directors is not a product of a lack of talent, according to the report, and women of color received the highest praise.
“It is clear that when it comes to directors, hiring decisions are not made solely on the basis of performance,” said the study’s author Stacy L. Smith in a news release. “If that were the case, then women of color would receive significantly more opportunities to work behind the camera in film.”
Of the 111 directors, 5.4% or six were women of color across the 100 top-grossing films of 2025, marking the first time in the 19-year study where the number of women of color directors outnumber the number of white women directors, the report found.
Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate did not hire a single female director for the films included in the Annenberg study in 2025.