Solely 16% of the 718 movies launched within the UK and Eire in 2025 had been directed or co-directed by ladies or non-binary filmmakers, down from 21% in 2024, in line with analysis from Reclaim The Body, the UK marketing campaign group for gender justice in cinema.
That is the bottom it has been since 2018, when 13.9% of movies had been directed or co-directed by ladies or non-binary filmmakers.
Moreover, in 2025, simply 7% of releases had been directed or co-directed by ladies or non-binary filmmakers of color, a 7.7% lower in comparison with 2024 and reversing an upward pattern.
The variety of movie releases written or co-written by ladies or non-binary screenwriters is barely increased at 19% of the entire, up from 18% in 2024. The common since 2018 is 20%, with little or no change over the previous few years. For girls or non-binary screenwriters of color, this determine drops to eight%, once more reversing a current upward pattern.
“It’s simple to imagine gender fairness is at all times shifting ahead, however our end-of-year assessment at Reclaim The Body exhibits that complacency shouldn’t be an choice,” mentioned Melanie Iredale, Reclaim The Body director. “Regardless of sector-wide efforts, movies directed by ladies now make up simply 16% of acquisitions – again to pre-2019 ranges – with solely 7% of movies directed by ladies of color.
“This not solely restricts filmmakers’ alternatives however severely limits viewers alternative. These findings demand motion: re-examining who holds decision-making energy throughout gross sales, distribution and circulation, and difficult slim concepts of ‘danger’ when our viewers engagement exhibits that under-served audiences constantly present as much as see themselves represented on display.”
Absence of UK feminine filmmakers
Male filmmakers directed 29 movies within the prime 30 for the 12 months on the UK-Eire field workplace, excluding holdovers and rereleases, in line with Field Workplace Mojo. Canadian-US filmmaker Nisha Ganatra’s Freakier Friday, which grossed £8.9m for Disney, was the highest-grossing movie to be directed by a feminine filmmaker and the twenty eighth highest-grossing movie of the 12 months.
Marianne Elliot’s The Salt Path grossed round £7.9m for Black Bear to turn out to be the highest-grossing movie directed by a UK feminine filmmaker on the UK-Eire field workplace in 2025.
Additional notable performers from feminine administrators had been Elio (£5.2m, Disney) co-directed by Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi; Emma Tammi’s 5 Nights At Freddy’s 2 (£5.3m, Common); Dutch filmmaker Halina Reijn’s Babygirl (£4.2m, EFD); Celine Tune’s Materialists (£4m, Sony); Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s I Know What You Did Final Summer season (£2.5m, Sony); and Gurinder Chadha’s Christmas Karma (£1.2m, True Brit).
It has not been a robust 12 months on the UK-Eire field workplace for UK feminine filmmakers, with a notable absence within the prime 100 in comparison with 2024. Final 12 months’s prime female-directed movies included Kelly Marcel for Venom: The Final Dance (£12.4m, Sony), Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Again To Black (£12.3m, Studiocanal), Thea Sharrock’s Depraved Little Letters (£9.7m, Studiocanal), SJ Clarkson’s Madame Net (£4.3m, Disney) and Rose Glass’ Love Lies Bleeding (£1m, Lionsgate).
Ute von Münchow-Pohl’s animation Tremendous Elfkins is the one movie directed by a lady nonetheless to be launched in 2025 within the UK and Eire.
