ReFrame, the initiative launched in 2017 by Sundance Institute and WIF (formerly Women In Film Los Angeles) to achieve gender equality in the screen industries, has reported what it called the first “significant” decline in gender-balanced projects in six years.
A new report published on Wednesday and based on the 100 most popular films of 2025 saw a 13.3% drop in the percentage of films that received ReFrame’s Stamp acknowledging gender-based hiring on narrative feature productions, from a five-year plateau of around 30% to 26%.
There were notable declines in representation of women and non-binary directors, only 11 of whom were among the IMDbPro Top 100 list of the films based on page views compared to 14 from films released in 2024 and a peak of 20 in 2023. The data shows a 45% drop since 2023.
Inclusion for lead roles fell 23.5% from 51 women and one transgender performer in 2024 to 39 last year, when there were no transgender or non-binary individuals as directors or in lead roles.
And ethnic diversity fell to the lowest level recorded in eight years with only seven women of colour in lead roles in 2025.
WIF CEO Kirsten Schaffer said the narrowing of the pipeline of opportunities for women and gender-diverse people could be addressed through positive practices. “By making intentional choices guided by the ReFrame Stamp criteria,” Schaffer said, “those with hiring power have a clear path to building a more equitable industry, one production at a time.”
ReFrame founders Cathy Schulman and Keri Putnam added, “The ReFrame Stamp was designed as a stepping stone, with moderate measures for substantive inclusion of women, nonbinary and trans people in key roles in front of and behind the camera to qualify as gender-balanced […] Instead of raising the bar, we’re now seeing productions falling below it. This is not progress. This is a reversal.”
The most recent features to earn a Stamp include Hamnet, which garnered a directing Oscar nomination for Chloe Zhao and the lead actress win for Jessie Buckley; double Oscar winner KPop Demon Hunters directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans; and Oscar animation nominee Elio.
The report also found that “Stamped” gender-balanced films budgeted at $100m or higher remained at the previous level of 26%.
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