Since 2007, the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative has consistently published annual data on the demographics of those working in front of the camera and behind the scenes of each year’s top 100-grossing films. Recently, the team from USC released new information regarding the gender and racial representation of the top directors in 2025, allowing them to analyze director representation among 1,900 films over 19 years.
In 2025, 24.3 percent of the 111 directors who made the 100 top-performing films were made by directors of an underrepresented racial background. This is a significant improvement from their 12.5 percent representation in 2007, lower than their peak representation of 28.6 percent in 2021, and on par with their representation over the past three years. Across the entire study period, non-White directors represent 16.7 percent of all directors of the 1,900 top-performing movies.
Notably, top-performing films by underrepresented directors are slightly more well-received than top-performing films by White directors. Of the 1,900 films included in the study, films by White directors have an average score of 55, while films by underrepresented directors have an average score of 57 on the website Metacritic. Among different film distributors, top-performing non-White directors are most represented among films from Lionsgate, Universal Pictures, and smaller, less-known companies. They are the least represented among Paramount Pictures films.
When examining race-gender differences, White men are the vast majority (78.5 percent) of directors of the study’s 1,900 analyzed films, followed by underrepresented men (14.8 percent), White women (4.8 percent), and underrepresented women (1.9 percent). For every one top-performing underrepresented woman director, there have been 41.4 top-performing White male directors.
For the 1,900 films included in the study, 116 have been made by Black directors. Of those Black directors are 43 individual Black men and 11 individual Black women. Despite their significant underrepresentation, films by Black women and women from other underrepresented racial backgrounds are better received, on average, than films by White directors and underrepresented male directors. The study’s 38 films directed by underrepresented women have an average Metacritic score of 62.5, compared to a score of 56 for both White and underrepresented men and a score of 54 for White women directors.
