Hollywood’s Top-Grossing Films of 2025 Show Limited Progress Toward Inclusion, Study Says: ‘The Pace of Change Has Been Slow’
A new Annenberg Inclusion Initiative study finds that Hollywood made only limited progress on representation in its 100 top-grossing films of 2025, with many long-standing inequalities remaining both on screen and behind the scenes. The researchers say the findings matter because, despite nearly two decades of measurement and advocacy, improvements have been incremental rather than sustained across gender, race, LGBTQ+ inclusion and disability representation.
Women and girls accounted for 33.6% of speaking or named characters, compared with 29.9% in 2007, while 38 films had a female lead or co-lead, down from a 19-year high of 55 in 2024. LGBTQ+ characters represented fewer than 1% of speaking roles, with no transgender characters identified; characters with disabilities made up 2.8%. Behind the camera, only nine of the 111 directors of 2025’s top-grossing films were women.
- Inclusion in major 2025 films improved slowly, not consistently.
- Women remained underrepresented in speaking roles and directing.
- LGBTQ+ and disability representation stayed particularly limited.
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The study examines who appears in major Hollywood films and who gets to make them. Researchers count speaking or named characters and look at whether women, people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, LGBTQ+ people and disabled people are represented, as well as the gender of directors.
The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative is a research group at the University of Southern California that has tracked these issues in popular films for many years. Its work is often used to compare the film industry’s stated commitments to diversity with measurable patterns in casting and hiring.
Representation in films can affect whose experiences audiences see on screen and which actors and creators receive opportunities. The findings also matter to studios, investors and campaigners because the biggest box-office releases have wide cultural reach and can influence industry decisions.