Female Roles In Top-Grossing Films Decreased Last Year After 2022 Gains, Report Finds

After a year of slight gains, the percentage of female characters portrayed in the 100 top-grossing films domestically fell in 2023, a new study finds.

Titled “It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World,” a report from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University also found that only 18% of the top films featured more female than male characters, 5% featured equal numbers of female and male characters, and more than three-quarters of the films featured more male than female characters in speaking roles.

The percentage of females in speaking roles declined from 37% to 35% ear-over-year, and the number of female characters in major roles remained the same at 38%. The percentage of films with sole female protagonists shrank from 33% in 2022 to 28% last year.

Read the report in full here.

“Because Barbie claimed so much of our cultural space in 2023, female characters may have seemed more abundant in films last year,” the report’s author Dr. Martha Lauzin said. “But the overall percentage of female characters in speaking roles contracted, as did the percentage of female protagonists.”  

Female characters also were younger than their male counterparts, experiencing a precipitous drop from their 30s to their 40s. Fully one-third of female characters were in their 30s, but only 15% were in their 40s. The percentage of male characters in their 30s and 40s remained steady at 28%, and men didn’t experience a decline until they reached their 50s. The percentage of female characters in their 40s actually was lower in 2023 (15%) than in 2015 (20%).  

“The population of female characters contracts significantly at about the age of 40,” said Lauzen, founder an SDSU professor and founder/executive director of its Center for the Study of Women in TV and Film. “Moreover, while we can celebrate the performances of Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Rita Moreno and a handful of other actresses over 60 last year, this age cohort comprised only 7% of all females in the top grossing films of 2023, well below their representation in the U.S. population. Limiting the age of female characters also limits their ability to age into positions of personal, political and professional power.”

Regarding race and ethnicity, Black females comprised 15.3% of all female characters in speaking roles in 2023, down from 18% in 2022. The percentage of Latina characters decreased from 6.9% to 6.3%, but the percentage of Asian and Asian American females increased from 8.1% to 9.2%.

This year’s study covered more than 2,200 characters appearing in the top 100 films of 2023. Overall, the long-running project has considered the representation of more than 29,000 characters appearing in 1,300-plus films released from 2002-23.