Women Directors Make Up 8% of This Year’s 100 Top-Grossing Filmmakers in a Steep Drop From 2024, Study Shows

A new study describes 2025 as a “Great Recession” for women directors, with just nine women directors attached to the 100 top-grossing films at the U.S. box office.

According to the latest report from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, of the 111 directors who helmed those films, nine of them were women: 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 2025 figure represents a steep drop from 2024, when the percentage of women directors on the 100 top-grossing films was 13.4% (15 directors), when the U.S. was in the throes of the financial Great Recession.

“The 2025 data reveals that progress for women directors has been fleeting,” stated Dr. Stacy L. Smith, the study’s author and…