Study Says Female Filmmakers Made Major Gains in 2019

Lulu Wang, Lorene Scafaria, Melina Matsoukas and Greta Gerwig led Hollywood to a record year for women in film directing. In 2019, women directed more of the most popular movies than in any year before.

Women directed 12 of the top 100 most profitable films in 2019. That is the finding of a study released Thursday by USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. That percentage of female filmmakers, 10.6, is greater than researchers have recorded before. It suggests change is finally coming to a film industry where inequality in directing has remained common.

The past high in USC’s yearly study was eight percent, in 2008. In 2018, only 4.5 percent of the year’s top films were directed by women. “This is the first time we have seen a shift in hiring practices for female film directors in 13 years,” said Stacy L. Smith, a writer of the study. She noted that Universal Pictures alone had five films with women directors in the top 100 movies.