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Film and television impact society by serving as influential mediums for entertainment, education, and social commentary. After 2023’s “Barbie” movie takeover and blockbusters like Inside Out 2, Wicked, The Substance, and Moana 2, it’s easy to think that most major films have starred female protagonists in leading roles.
However, the data tells a different story: for just the first time, the percentage of top-grossing films featuring female protagonists (the character from whose perspective the story is told) equaled the percentage of films with male leads.
To understand women’s representation in film, the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University analyzed 2,000 characters in 2024’s 100 top-grossing domestic films. What they found: 42% of the top films featured female protagonists, while 42% had male protagonists – the first time female protagonists had reached parity with males on screen. The percentage of female leads jumped up more than 10 percentage points from 2023 (28%) — and is nearly 4x higher than the lowest year studied, 2011, when a measly 11% of the year’s top-grossing films featured female protagonists.
Despite this progress, the study also found that, overall, just 21% of films had more female than male characters. These findings provide a mixed but promising outlook of the developing representation of women in mainstream cinema: while progress is being made, there is still an imbalance. As we celebrate Women’s History Month, with more films featuring female protagonists and diverse perspectives, there is hope that this trend will continue to grow.
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