Every year since 2007, a team of scholars from the University of Southern California has tracked the gender identity, race and ethnicity, and age of lead and co-lead actors of the year’s top 100 highest-earning scripted films in North America.
By tracking trends across the entire study’s history, this year’s report includes an analysis of 1,800 total films from the study’s first iteration through 2024. Among last year’s top films, the study authors counted 82 movies with a single-lead performance and 15 with two-person co-leads. The remaining three films were categorized as ensemble performances.
Out of 2024’s top 100 films, only one quarter featured a non-White protagonist. These films consisted of 26 unique main characters, 10 of whom were Black or African American. This is a significant decrease from 2023, when 37 out of the top 100 grossing films featured a non-White lead. In 2007, 13 movies out of the top 100 films had a non-White protagonist.
When examining intersectional subgroups among the top 100 movies in 2024, the authors found 13 films that featured a woman of color as the lead character, compared to 14 films in 2023 and 1 film in 2007. Among older actors, only one of last-year’s highest-earning films featured a woman of color over the age of 45. In comparison, 16 of these films had a White male character over the age of 45, meaning older White men are 16 times more likely to be a lead actor than similarly-aged women of color.
