Hollywood: Women Directors as Successful as Never Before

There’s hopeful news for female filmmakers: of the top 100 highest-earning movies of 2019, 10.6% of the directors were women – more than double the previous year and an all-time high since research began on the issue in 2007.

Across the 13 years of study by professor Stacy L. Smith of the University of Southern California in the United States, and her Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, only 4.8% of directors of the top 100 highest-grossing films were female.

Compared to merely three female directors making it on the list of the 2007 top-grossing films, the number quadrupled last year. Though still a ways to go, the latest findings show a promising increase in the prevalence of women directors over the years.

The report – which also proves movies directed by women rank just as well as those by men, according to data from the movie review website Metacritic – urges major film festivals, studios and production companies to look at the numbers and keep pushing harder in including more women directors in the industry.