Just 7% of films had 10 or more women employed in pivotal, behind-the-scenes roles in this year's 250 top-grossing movies, while 75% of the same films featured 10 or more men in similar positions, according to a San Diego State University report released Friday.
The Celluloid Ceiling report found that in 2025, women "accounted for 23% of directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers working on the 250 top grossing films, even with 2024 and 2020."
Women made up 21% of those roles in the top 100 grossing films, up 1% from 2024 — but that number was still even with 2020, according to the report, now in its 28th year.
"It would not be a stretch to describe 2025 as an ominous moment for the film industry," wrote Dr. Martha Lauzen, founder and executive director of the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University.
"Consolidation hangs over the business like a guillotine, with job losses likely and the future of the theatrical movie-going experience in question," she wrote. "Add the current political war on diversity, and women in the film industry now find themselves in uncharted territory."
The report found that for the top 250 grossing movies in 2025, women accounted for:
— 28% of producers;
—23% of executive producers;
— 20% of editors;
—20% of writers; —13% of directors; and
—7% of cinematographers.
In the top 100 films, women represented:
—26% of producers;
—21% of executive producers;
—20% of editors;
—20% of writers;
—11% of directors; and
—7% of cinematographers.
Lauzen's report stated that while Hollywood "has never needed permission to exclude or diminish women, but the industry now has it.
"The question is to what extent this consolidation and backlash will impact the percentages of women working in key behind-the-scenes roles," according to the report. "Traditionally, the proportions of women working in film have been so stable and so low, even forces that might rock the business, may only cause a slight rumble for women."
Films with at least one woman director "employed substantially more women in other key behind-the-scenes roles than films with exclusively male directors," according to the report.
For example, women accounted for 71% of writers on a film project with at least one female director, compared to 11% of female writers on films with a male director, the report stated.
On films with at least one woman director, women made up 28% of editors. If the film had a male director, the number of female editors was 19%.
Female cinematographers were 22% of a crew led by a woman director, but 5% on productions with a male director, according the Celluloid Ceiling report.
Lauzen stated that in 1998 "women comprised 17% of all individuals working in the roles considered on the top 250 films.
In 2025, women accounted for 23% of these individuals, an increase of 6%.
"It's shameful as an industry, a culture and a human enterprise," Lauzen stated in the report.
