ReFrame, the gender equity coalition founded in 2017 by Sundance Institute and WIF (formerly Women in Film), has issued a new study spotlighting a reversal of gender-balanced hiring in film in 2025.
After assessing the teams behind IMDbPro’s 100 most popular films of last year, only 26 titles qualified for the ReFrame Stamp, speaking to gender-balanced hiring — John Wick spin-off Ballerina, Final Destination Bloodlines, and The Housemaid being a few notable examples. This amounted to a 13% rollback, and the first major drop in gender-balanced projects in six years, following a five-year plateau, with around 30% of films awarded the Stamp annually from 2020-2024.
Progress for directors peaked in 2023, with 20 women and nonbinary directors represented in the Top 100 films. With regard to lead roles, inclusion peaked in 2024, when there were 51 women, including one transgender performer, cited. In 2025, only 11 women directors
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