2024 saw a number of notable women in prominent leadership and cultural roles — Kamala Harris, Caitlin Clark, Claudia Scheinbaum, and even Taylor Swift drew headlines and notoriety for their accomplishments last year. But 2024 was a notable year for gender equality in film as well — a new report demonstrates that women made significant gains on screen.

The newest research brief from Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative examines 1,800 top-grossing films from 2007 to 2024. The report assesses gender, race/ethnicity, and age of the leading and co-leading actors for each movie.

Of the 100 top-grossing films in 2024, 54 featured a girl or woman in a lead/co-lead role. This is a significant increase from 2023, when only 30 movies featured a female-identified protagonist. 2024 was also 34 percentage points higher than 2007, the first year tracked by the report. Universal Pictures featured the highest percentage (66.7%) of female-identified leads/co leads, followed by Warner Bros. Pictures (55.6%), and Lionsgate (54.5%). Sony Pictures fared the worst, as 38.5% of its films across the 100 top movies last year featured a girl/woman in a leading role.

“This is the first time we can say that gender equality has been reached in top-grossing films,” said Smith. “In 2024, 3 of the top 5 films had a girl or woman in a leading role, as did 5 of the top 10 films — including the number 1 film of the year, Disney’s Inside Out 2. We have always known that female-identified leads would make money. This is not the result of an economic awakening, but is due to a number of different constituencies and efforts — at advocacy groups, at studios, through DEI initiatives — to assert the need for equality on screen.”

Though 2024 saw an increase for girls/women, underrepresented leads and co-leads declined significantly. Twenty-five of the top 100 films featured a lead/co lead from an underrepresented racial/ethnic group. This is a substantial decrease from 2023, when 37 leads/co leads were people of color. Not one of the distributors examined in the study released films with an underrepresented lead/co lead in proportion to the U.S. population.

“The progress we saw for female-identified leads was not matched by the findings for underrepresented leads,” said Smith. “This downturn signifies a lack of investment in storytelling that reflects the audience as a whole. The reality is that audiences want to see stories about women and people of color — studios and filmmakers do not have to choose between the two. As we see in other reports we have published, companies like Netflix have successfully reached proportional representation for gender and race/ethnicity.”

Despite the downturn for underrepresented leads, there was no significant drop for girls/women of color. Thirteen films in 2024 had an underrepresented female lead/co lead. This is similar to what the report found in 2023 (14) and substantially higher than 2007 (1).

“While this year’s findings mark a historic step towards proportional representation for women there is still work to be done for women of color,” said Katherine Neff, the study’s lead author. “Another 17 years would be too long to wait to see the full range of women, their stories, and their voices brought to the biggest screens.”

The study also investigated the number of leads/co leads by age. Eight of 2024’s most popular films featured a woman age 45 or older in a leading or co leading role. As was the case in 2023, only 1 of those 45+ leads was a woman of color. There were 5 films that featured an underrepresented man who was age 45+ in a lead/co lead role and 16 movies with an older white male protagonist. 

“The entertainment industry finally reached gender equality in leading roles this year,” said Smith. “But that equality is disproportionately accounted for by younger women. Men, however, do not face the same restriction in their career opportunities. This not only affects audiences but the ability of women in mid- and late-career to continue to work and earn a living. The consequences of a lack of representation do not only have cultural significance — they are an economic reality for women as well.”

The report is the latest from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative and can be found here.