Chick Flicks
38 years ago Allison Bechdel's comic strip 'The Rule' introduced us to a simple metric for judging female representation in movies and media. The Bechdel Movie List is a crowd-sourced assessment of more than 9,000 films, rating them on whether they meet the three criteria of 'The Rule', that they should have at least two female characters, talking to each other, about something other than a man.
Use the buttons below or scroll on to learn about The Rule, the movie list, and why female representation in film matters.
What is the Bechdel Test?
The Bechdel Test has entered popular culture as a defining metric for assessing female representation in media. The Bechdel test or rule comes from a 1985 comic strip by American cartoonist and graphic novelist Allison Bechdel where a female character outlines her criteria for the types of movies she’s willing to watch. The movies must: have at least two female characters, who talk to each other, about something other than a man.
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The Bechdel Test highlights the lack of films that center women in the narrative and portray women as something more than a romantic or sexual foil to other (male) characters. The rule’s popularity endures due to its relatively low requirements that, when applied to much of popular media, demonstrate how little of it represents women.
Click the image above to see the original comic strip from 1985
The Results are In
The Bechdel Movie List is a crowd-sourced assessment of more than 9,000 films rated on a scale from zero to three, with zero meaning the film does not have any (named) female characters (waitress #1, for example, doesn't count). A rating of one means there is only one female character, two indicates two female characters - but they either do not talk to each other or only talk to each other about a male character. A rating of three means the film meets all criteria and passes the Bechdel Test.
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Of the 9,374 films on the list, 56% pass the Bechdel Test. It should be noted, however, that this dataset is not exhaustive and is crowd-sourced. It's possible that those who contribute ratings are more drawn to films that feature women, or are more harshly critical of whether or not a film passes. Some films that pass also do so only marginally - a mother having a brief conversation with her daughter in one scene of the film, for example. As a metric, the Bechdel Test is an easy-to-apply shorthand, not a robust quantitative analysis.
Distribution of Bechdel Test Scores
does not contain any female characters
does not contain more than one
female character
contains more than one female character, but they do not talk to each other or only talk to each other about a man
meets all criteria
Trend Over Time
The chart at right shows the distribution of Bechdel Test Scores by decade. It indicates that, on the whole, female representation in movies has been increasing over time.
Note: films in the dataset that occurred before 1920 or after 2020 were not included as too few films from those time periods have been rated to be statistically representative.
Year
Number of Films
Pass/Fail Ratios of Famous Franchises
Hollywood loves a sequel, and franchises are often big box-office earners attracting millions of viewers. Below is an analysis of seven major franchises and whether they pass the test when taken as a whole.
FILMS IN SERIES THAT PASS
FILMS IN SERIES THAT FAIL
Does Hollywood Hate Women?
According to a 2013 analysis by the site Five Thirty Eight, films that pass the Bechdel Test have a lower median budget than those that don't
Median Budget for Films 1990 - 2013
Of the 9,481 films on the list
1,057
No Girls Allowed!
Contain no named female characters
Of the top 100 grossing films on the list women accounted for
4%
of directors
of writers
of producers
of actors
with speaking roles
12%
20%
28%
Return on Investment
A commonly held belief is that female-led films aren't profitable, yet analysis of films on the list shows that films that pass the test have a higher median return on investment than those that don't .
$2.68
$2.45
Median Gross Return on Investment
FILMS THAT PASS
FILMS THAT FAIL
Highest Grossing Hollywood Films and Their Bechdel Test Results
PASS
Avatar
$2,923,706,026
FAIL
PASS
Avengers: Endgame
$2,799,439,100
Avatar: The Way of Water
PASS
Titanic
$2,254,299,136
$2,269,116,443
PASS
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
$2,071,310,218
FAIL
Avengers: Infinity War
$2,052,415,039
PASS
Spider-Man: No Way Home
$1,921,847,111
PASS
Jurassic World
$1,671,537,444
FAIL
The Lion King
$1,663,075,401
FAIL
The Avengers
$1,520,538,536
PASS
PASS
Furious 7
$1,515,341,399
Top Gun: Maverick
$1,493,491,858
Source: Box Office Mojo
Female Representation in Film Matters
Women make up 49.7% of the global population , but you wouldn't know it in Hollywood. Films that fail to portray women as more than set dressing perpetuate damaging gender-based stereotypes and are a bad business model. The data reflects that films that portray meaningful interactions between women do better than those that don't. Audiences want to see themselves reflected in the films they watch, and female-led films can appeal to all audiences. Want to know if your favorite film passes? Use the list below to find out!
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