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Barbie Top Charts, but Studios Takes on Lesser Female Directors on 2023’s Top Films

With the resounding success of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, the project has swept away 2023’s highest box office victor and being a chronicle of the highest-grossing movie directed by a woman. By: Cassia Ling

Despite the film’s colossal success, major studios had given most of their biggest projects to male filmmakers. According to a study done by Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego University, they discovered that only a sole 16% of the directors were women amongst the 250 top-grossing films, which was a 2% decrease from 2022. Concomitantly, female filmmakers had also managed to be in helm amongst the 100 top films, a 3% increase from 2022.

The results have come from studying female directors including Gerwig, Salburn’s Emerald Fernell, Past Lives’ Celine Song, and Priscilla’s Sofia Coppola whom dropped some of 2023’s most lionised and renowned movies. Furthermore, the release of concert films from pop sensations Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have also swept away the box office.

“It’s the ultimate illusion, Greta Gerwig’s well-deserved triumph belies the inequality that pervades the mainstream film industry,” Dr. Martha Lauzen, the report’s author and the centre’s founder and executive director, said in a statement. “The numbers tell the story. Behind-the-scenes gender ratios in Hollywood remain dramatically skewed in favour of men.”

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