While Inside Out 2 took the mantle from Barbie as a female-centric megahit, overall industry progress on gender equity continued to stall in 2024.
That’s the main takeaway from the latest annual report from ReFrame, the initiative launched in 2017 by the Sundance Institute and WIF (formerly Women In Film Los Angeles). With IMDbPro also backing the effort, the report said 30 of the 100 most popular films of 2024 (judging by box office and streaming views) met the “ReFrame Stamp” criteria for gender-balanced production. Along with Inside Out 2, the roster of recognized titles included Oscar winners Wicked and Emelia Pérez and five-time nominee The Substance.
With global box office of almost $1.7 billion (including a record $1 billion-plus outside the U.S.), Inside Out 2 is the highest-grossing animated film in history. The sequel to Pixar’s 2014 film about the inner emotional life of Riley sees the protagonist navigating the complexities of high school.
The 2024 ReFrame Report on Gender and Hiring in Film, which examined hiring across key roles on all 100 top films based on IMDbPro data, reveals little improvement in gender-balanced hiring over the last five years. Notably, the projects also had significantly lower budgets in 2024.
Since an upswing between 2017 and 2019, progress for parity in feature films has stalled, the report said, with the number of “stamped” films remaining at or below 30% for the past five years.
Films with larger budgets are less inclusive, according to the report. Over the last three years, the proportion of films earning the stamp at the highest budget level ($100M or more) is about half that of the lowest budget level ($15M or less). The average budget for a “stamped” film declined by $18M (from $63M in 2023 to $45M in 2024) while budgets for non-“stamped” films decreased $8M (from $76M in 2023 to $68M in 2024).
What’s more, the number of women directors represented in the Top 100 fell from 20 in 2023 to 14 last year. There were no transgender or nonbinary directors and just five women of color, down from nine in 2023.
Despite these less-than-encouraging findings, the report noted that revenue for films earning the stamp was much higher than that for non-qualifying films. On average, theatrical releases in the Top 100 with the stamp collected more than double the grosses of non-stamped films at the worldwide box office ($293.9 million to $117.8 million).
Netflix, which lacks any material commitment to theatrical releasing, nonetheless fared well in the study. Half of the streaming giant’s total met ReFrame’s standards. Amazon joined Netflix in the 50% club, while Apple, Lionsgate and Paramount had zero qualified releases.
ReFrame issues a stamp to features hiring “qualifying candidates,” defined as “women or individuals of other underrepresented gender identities/expressions (including those who are transgender, nonbinary, or gender nonconforming)” in at least 50% of key roles. Those roles include writer, director, producer, lead, co-leads, cinematographer, production designer, costume designer, editor, composer, music supervisor, VFX supervisor, line producer, unit production manager, first assistant director, stunt coordinator and intimacy coordinator. Additional points are awarded to productions that hire qualifying candidates of color in these key positions, and to those with overall gender parity in their crews