The annual UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report Continues to map the spaces where filmmaking remains unequal. 2025 report, which examined the top 100 English-speaking film Release on large streaming platforms (Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Disney+, Hulu, Max, Netflix, Paramount+and PeaCock) in 2024, found that while films with more racist casts performed better on streaming platforms, Female filmmakers are still under -represented in terms of large budget functions.
“We are pleased to see profits for diversity with streaming films, but the gap between film budgets for streaming and theater release becomes wider and wider,” said Michael Tran, a sociologist and co -authors to the report, in an official statement. “It is particularly worrying because only a few selected ones, especially men, are given the chance to dip in the upper echelons in financial support.”
That gap had an astonishing deviation: no woman or other sex person, regardless of race or ethnicity, had the opportunity to direct a streaming film with a budget of $ 100 million or more 2024. White women continue to be the most likely films with the smallest budgets; All their films had a budget less than $ 20 million, except for the animated ”Save the bikini bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie. ”
Ucla Hollywood Diversity Report began separating streaming films from theater release for analysis 2023. At that time, white men still directed “the superpower in large budget films”, with 56 percent of white female directors who have budgets less than $ 20 million.
Two years later, and the statistics are not much different.
In total, 65.5 percent of the best streaming films had budgets less than $ 20 million, compared with 34.6 percent for theater films. At the other end, only 4.4 percent of streaming films had budgets of $ 100 million or more, which is almost 6 times less than 26 percentage in top theater films. And male filmmakers were the “only directors with this level of resources”, which the study found.
Nevertheless, streaming is still more diverse than theatrical: directors for color accounted for four out of 10 directors for streaming released films, unlike just two out of ten for theatrical films. “Hollywood loves formulas, but they need more elements that reason with today’s audience,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, founder of the report and head of entertainment and media research initiatives at UCLA, in a statement. “You can’t expect an increasingly diverse population of eager film officers and ticket buyers to settle for a generic movie with little or no diversity that may have been a hit over ten years ago. In order for Hollywood to survive financially and remain relevant, it must invest in storytellers that give different perspectives and new ideas.”
Ramón added, “Streaming platforms are one of the few places where the stories and faces that reflect the people in this country can be found on and off the screen.”
The Hollywood Diversity Report Series is in its twelfth year. While there are still progress to be made for behind the camera’s equality, the study discovered a milestone for parity on the camera: in 2025, the report found that for the first time, 1 of 2 wires of streaming movies people in color, which is almost twice as much as the percentage for top theater films.
“Movies should reflect reality in this country in representation,” said Darnell Hunt, CEO and Provost at UCLA and co -founder of the report, in a statement. “We are past the point where we can let the wholesaler erase people’s identities, perspectives and experiences slip. Having different stories drives the limits of what we know and understand. Including stories are now needed more than ever.”
