Women's Lead Roles in Top Films Plummet to a 7-Year Low in 2025, Sparking Alarms Over Inclusion—But Here's Where It Gets Even More Troubling.
A startling new study from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative reveals that the number of women and girls in leading roles across the top 100 films of 2025 has dropped to its lowest point in seven years. Just 39 of these films featured a female lead or co-lead, a sharp decline from the record-breaking 55 films in 2024 and the lowest since 2018, when 40 films met this criterion. Dr. Stacy L. Smith, the study's author, highlights this as a significant step backward for gender representation in Hollywood.
And this is the part most people miss: underrepresented female leads—particularly women of color—faced even greater challenges. Only 15 films in 2025 featured an underrepresented female lead or co-lead, a number unchanged from 2024 and 2023. Shockingly, not a single film in 2025 featured a woman of color aged 45 or older in a leading role, while six films in the same year featured underrepresented male leads in that age bracket. This disparity raises critical questions about whose stories are being told—and who gets left out.
The study also shines a spotlight on major film distributors, calling out Paramount and Warner Bros. as the worst performers in terms of female representation. Paramount, with only 12.5% of its films featuring female leads, and Warner Bros., at 20%, lag far behind industry leaders like Universal (54.2%), Lionsgate (50%), and Disney (43.7%). When it comes to underrepresented actors, Paramount didn’t feature a single person of color in a leading role among the top 100 films—a statistic that’s hard to ignore.
But here's where it gets controversial: the study warns that a potential merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. could be “highly detrimental” to inclusion. Dr. Smith argues that such a merger would likely exacerbate the already dire situation for women and actors of color, given both companies’ poor track records. In contrast, a merger between Netflix and Warner Bros. could be a game-changer. Since 2019, at least half of Netflix’s films have featured women in leading roles, and the streaming giant has consistently achieved proportional representation for underrepresented leads—except for one year (2023).
This raises a thought-provoking question: Are mergers like Paramount/WB a step backward for diversity in Hollywood, or is there a way to turn this around? The study’s data suggests that the consequences of such corporate decisions extend far beyond boardrooms, shaping the stories we see on screen and the voices that get amplified. As Dr. Smith puts it, “Anyone who values inclusion should be considering the consequences.”
What do you think? Is a Paramount/WB merger a threat to diversity, or is there room for improvement? And could a Netflix/WB partnership set a new standard for inclusion in the film industry? Share your thoughts in the comments—this is a conversation we all need to be having. For a deeper dive into the findings, you can read the full report here.
