The 97th Academy Awards wrapped up the 2025 awards season on March 2, and just as in previous years, women walked away empty-handed in the Best Director category. In the Academy’s 97 years, only 10 women have been nominated for Best Director and only three have won.
Women made up about 5% of directors before the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1920s. After the emergence of the studio system, independent filmmakers became obsolete and women in director’s chairs were nearly nonexistent, according to Northwestern University.
Nearly a century later, only 16% of the top 250 movies of 2024 were directed by women, the lowest recorded percentage since 2019, according to a 2025 annual report by the University of San Diego.
Despite the Academy Awards’ lack of acclaim for women in cinema and limited female representation in the industry, students should make it a priority to continue supporting and watching women’s cinema to take in diverse perspectives and new stories.
Sydney Weiss believes the lack of award recognition for women can set a dangerous precedent for distributors to not pick up female-directed films. However, women’s stories should continue to be supported and told, she said.
“While in terms of art, [awards] can mean nothing, I think that it’s important to have those stories be told,” said Weiss, a senior marketing major. “Especially because the world is not about men anymore.”
Little research has been done to uncover the reasons behind the gender disparity in film, but hiring discrimination or women’s lack of interest in becoming directors could be affecting women’s involvement in the industry, according to USD’s report.
Students should continue seeking out female-directed movies to keep women’s films thriving. Steady support of these films through steady viewership is vital for studios and producers to continue hiring and supporting the visions of women filmmakers.
Patricia White, a scholar in feminist film from Swarthmore College, believes the recent shift to streaming platforms has helped some underrepresented directors. Despite this, nothing is as impactful as supporting movies in theaters, she said.
“The way that [women] capture relationships and the stickiness of daily life, and I think you get more of that,” White said. “There’s many male directors who do that as well, but I feel like that kind of letting it be [and] not being narcissistic is a thing.”
Keeping up with the fast pace of theatrical releases can be burdensome, but there are easy ways for students to track when women-directed films become available. While streaming is often more accessible, ticket sales are the most profitable. High ticket sales may also encourage studios to employ more women in the production process if their movies succeed financially.
Many independent filmmakers submit their works to the festival circuit, where distributors like A24 and NEON choose which films they want to add to their catalog. Two of the largest festivals, Festival de Cannes and Venice International Film Festival, take place later this year and will provide students with several titles to look forward to.
Philadelphia houses several theaters that screen independent films that may be difficult to find in large chains, like AMC or Regal. Landmark Ritz Five is located on Walnut Street near 3rd and almost exclusively shows independent and foreign films. The Philadelphia Film Society also owns three theaters in the city dedicated to showing diverse indie cinema.
Amaya Lam, an arts and entertainment writer for Temple’s chapter of Her Campus, a feminist college media outlet, finds something especially unique about films directed by women, she said.
“I think women are just, in general, so compelling and complex,” said Lam, a junior media studies and production major. “And obviously there’s kind of no better person to tell a story about complex and compelling women than a woman.”
In the pursuit of women-made films, it’s important for students to seek out diverse perspectives by watching movies made by queer women and women of color. Supporting movies by underrepresented groups allows marginalized people to tell their stories authentically.
Without women as directors, fan-favorite movies like “The Matrix” and “American Psycho” wouldn’t exist. Women are consistently pushing the boundaries of the medium, and engaging with their art should be a priority.
As the number of women in the director’s chair remains low, students need to continue supporting female directors to ensure the success of their projects. These movies will also expose students to new perspectives and a wide array of filmmaking talent they may never have discovered without women-directed films.
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