Hollywood’s Backslide Into White Male Directors Becomes Undeniable
How to chase away our future, one complacent decision at a time
Last week, I had the whim to take a look and see where things stood for female directors in Hollywood. I went into the count believing that after #MeToo, there may have been ups and downs, but overall things were in a much better place than they had been a decade ago.
To my shock, when I looked at the numbers, I found that not only are things not significantly better, 2025 has been worse than any moment in recent times; worse, in fact, than pre-#MeToo.
Having established that, many readers asked that I take a look at how this year stacks up for non-white filmmakers. So I went back to the spreadsheet. Having learned nothing from last week’s article, I resumed counting, thinking that things would be markedly better than a decade ago.
Why I thought that, I’m not quite sure. I think once again, as it was last week, I had the naive belief that the millions of hours of talk about how bad the situation had been, the promises of change, the commitments to all sorts of programs, mentorships, awareness, etc., could not have led to… nothing.
From this piece I wrote in 2020 to today, what has changed?
I think I fell for the fallacy that a small but prominent number of high-profile, massively successful individuals indicated a larger trend. This year, the success of Sinners ($366 million worldwide, no. 5 in North America) loomed so large that I think it suggested a general atmosphere of improvement in my mind. If things weren’t yet great, they were at least better, was my general instinct.
It’s nice to believe in things. Here, however, are the numbers for directors of color, dating back to 2018, before George Floyd’s murder sparked a national convulsion on the issue of race.
The Methodology
Repeating last week’s note on the data: When you get into this, you’ve got to make some somewhat arbitrary choices about where to draw the lines, what to include in your count and what to exclude. To see how things have evolved for official Hollywood — which encompasses the specialty divisions, without delving into the entire indie world — I decided to examine the 100 highest-grossing films in North America each year. The top 100 list, I found, includes almost all the studio releases, as well as the specialty films that found their way into the bigger pond.
And note the big caveat that 2025, of course, is not over yet, although with only two months to go, none of these charts will be flipped on their heads before Christmas.
These are the overall numbers for all non-white directors in the Top 100. Have a look at the overall numbers out of 100 of films directed by non-whites, then stand by for the breakdown and hold on to your hats:
Okay, not good. I mean, pretty terrible for only 17 percent to be directed by non-whites, given the makeup of the country, not to mention the world and the Hollywood history we’re supposedly overcoming. (For those keeping track, 56 percent of the U.S. population identifies as non-Hispanic white; Gen Z is 51 percent non-Hispanic white, and is expected to be the last majority white generation in America.) Anyway, if the numbers aren’t good, they are at least consistent with where we were before the global Black Lives Matter protests in 2020?
And that’s as good as the rationalizations get.
So let’s break that down further. Taking apart that overall figure, here’s where things stand for directors who are part of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Note that this includes international imports, such as the steady roster of anime films that Sony has released in North America through Crunchyroll, and the Netflix theatrical release of KPop Demon Hunters.
For directors of AAPI descent, bolstered by imports, this represents a slight improvement over the bleak state of affairs that previously existed. Here’s this year’s list from the group:
Freakier Friday (Nisha Ganatra)
Elio (Domee Shi, co-director)
The King of Kings (Jang Seong-Ho)
Mickey 17 (Bong Joon Ho)
Materialists (Celine Song)
Nobody 2 (Timo Tjahjanto)
Love Hurts (Jonathan Eusebio)
Good Fortune (Aziz Ansari)
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (Kogonada)
KPop Demon Hunters (Maggie Kang, co-director)
Him (Justin Tipping)
Those names, in addition to two imports from Crunchyroll and Ne Zha 2. So, not anything to knock anyone’s socks off, but not nothing.
Let’s move on then to see where things stand for Black directors since the days of historic lock-out, when, for any significant project, directors of color need not apply, way back in the 2010s:
So that’s it. Three films so far this year. Three.
And they are:
Sinners (Ryan Coogler)
Captain America: Brave New World (Julius Onah)
One of Them Days (Lawrence Lamont)
That’s the list. After all the upheaval, all the commitments, all the programs — there we are.
But wait! It gets even worse! Here then are the numbers for Latino directors during this period:
Since 2018, Latino directors have gone from zero films a year to one film a year, for a group that makes up approximately a quarter of the U.S. box office totals.
Here is the list of Latino-directed films so far in 2025:
Elio (co-directed by Adrian Molina).
That’s actually one-third of Elio, representing one of the film’s three directors.
Looking ahead at the chart to see what is likely to be added to those lists, we’ve got Wicked for Good from Jon M. Chu. In the specialty space, Rental Family (Hikari) and Hamnet (Chloé Zhao), a few more anime are still to come — and as far as major releases go, that’s what I’m seeing.
So let’s repeat that: for all of 2025 thus far, three films by Black directors, one by a Latino director.
Broken Promises
It’s at a point where it feels like any outrage is just shouting into a void.
Don’t take my word for it. Here are a few facts from ChatGPT itself, spokesperson for our incoming overlords:
If you had said a decade ago that the problem with minority directors would be worse than ever by 2025, no one would have believed you.
And it was incredible that in the 2010s, we were still in that place; that in the 2020s, directing and storytelling in Hollywood was the province nearly exclusively of white men of affluent backgrounds. But here we still are, standing at home plate.
I’ll repeat my personal caveat from last week (and you can read the whole piece here):
Even after #MeToo, I was very much the centrist, the type of person who would say “numbers don’t tell you everything,” who felt you can’t view the totality of film experience or value through one prism, and that counting heads was a very limiting way to look at the big picture.
I still basically believe all that. But… Jesus H. I would have never imagined that eight years later, on this very basic, very key metric, we’d be right where we were, or worse.
I hate the idea of viewing something as profound and complex as filmmaking through such a narrow, simplistic lens — but that feeling was based on the apparently misplaced notion that change was in progress, that things were happening, and acquiring momentum on their own.
What is amazing about this list is that 10 years ago, you still heard the argument — maybe a little sotto voce, but it was widely stated — that the reason for this state of things was that you didn’t have any breakout successes from Black or Latino directors, so how could they get elevated up the ranks?
The ridiculous strength of that argument was that since Black and Latino directors had never (or very, very rarely) been given the chance to direct major tentpoles, there were no examples to the contrary.
Because we’ve never given them a chance, we can’t know if they will succeed, but our numbers suggest they won’t.
Well, since then, any number of films directed by and/or starring artists from underrepresented communities have been smash hits — Sinners, Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians and Get Out, to name a very few off the top of my head — and any number of other films have outperformed their mean.
So I guess it’s onto another argument for why you can’t take that chance, on this film, adding up to every film. Or no argument at all, just the backwards tide of it’s not what the Hollywood leadership feels like doing — and how can there be a higher law than that?
Again, if this were a matter of… we’re already at 37 percent of films made and growing, and splitting hairs over whether we’re up or down a few points in a given year is silly… I would agree with that.
But it’s not that. However much it may “feel like” we’ve made progress — three films from Black directors, one from a director with a Latino background among a trio of directors — that feeling is a lie. As of this moment, circa late-2025, we are nowhere.
Are there reasons for this? Explanations? Aren’t there always? And if you look at projects one by one, there’s always very good reasons to make the choice they made — even when they turn out terrible.
This is How an Industry Dies
Which is why you need someone looking at the big picture, rather than piecemeal, to say that industry-wide, we have a significant problem — one that is unacceptable in 2025. Actually, it’s beyond unacceptable, and whatever steps are necessary to rectify it, we hereby decree that they be taken.
However, getting our leadership to do that would involve having leaders, and on this issue, as on so many others, it's once again clear that we have none — no one willing to buck the tide and lay out a better vision for Hollywood.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll no doubt repeat it — the distinguishing quality of the chieftains of this era is that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Here, on an issue that’s been discussed endlessly, on which countless promises were made, they have done so once again.
But as has been laid out a million times, opening the doors to a broader spectrum of storytellers isn’t altruism — it’s a path out of the creative rot that is well on the way to strangling this industry and forging ties to generations that are much less monochome and monocultural.
While we can still turn out audiences for the right films, the film medium slides further away from the centrality of our culture every year. Studio filmmaking has become this giant antiquated cargo ship, lumbering across the oceans, while on land, the entire world changes. Soon enough, the crew will die off, the folks on shore will find better, faster ways to send their goods, and it will likely sail on as a ghost ship, encounters with it becoming the stuff of legend.
Still think I’m Chicken Little on all this? Think that the direction of the film industry in the last decade represents any success — commercially, culturally, you name it.
And still think that with the changes happening in the world, looking ahead 10 years, how much do you think an industry making basically giant action films (and sometimes horror films) composed by a narrow demographic band representing, say, the most privileged 10 percent of the population, is going to be relevant to anyone?
We need to tell different kinds of stories in different ways — lots of different types of stories that are told and marketed in lots of different ways. Hopefully, it’s not too late to get started on that. Still, given that Hollywood overall seems to be moving hard in the opposite direction — as the numbers above suggest — there’s not a lot of reason to think we’re going to get there before the world tunes us out.
The audience has more choices of more voices, through more outlets than we can imagine. And in response, we are offering them big, bulky, predictable, forgettable, monoculture. How is that a long-term strategy? Or even frankly, a short-term one?
When people get scared, they retreat to their comfort zones. The overseers of the film world these days are very scared. And their comfort zone — as we see — is giant IP-driven action tentpoles made by the same cadre of a few dozen white men from the same elite backgrounds. To do anything else is to take a risk. Risk-taking is the very core of entertainment, but from top to bottom, there is no appetite for risk anywhere these days.
But who needs that? Who needs to shake up anything with the shareholders and Wall Street analysts looking over your shoulders these days? With a press that views it as its primary responsibility to defend against any risk of short-term losses as its highest calling?
This is the way an industry dies. There are some things scarier than change, and the fact that we’re back at this place should have us all very scared indeed.
Stars: Step It Up (Again)!
As I did last week, I want to examine the choices of one group of people who could make a difference here. I’m sorry to put it all on them, a situation that is not of their making, particularly the young ones. However, in their hands is the power to move the needle.
The A-list stars are the one group with any clout in this town, clout enough to demand to work with certain directors, even. Clout sufficient to get projects funded that might otherwise go nowhere.
So, let’s look at the same big stars we examined last week and see how they have performed working with non-white directors.
Again, we’re looking at their films since 2020. Voice roles — which are very important but a different set of issues — are not included in this list, nor are more minor cameos. This includes films currently in production or post-production, as well as streaming films.
To compile this group, I started with the Forbes list of the 10 highest-paid stars of 2024 (excluding non-film stars such as Jerry Seinfeld and Mariska Hargitay) and added a few more notable individuals. The list includes the number of films they starred in since 2020, as well as the total number of those helmed by non-white directors.
1. DWAYNE JOHNSON
Total movies: 8 (Jungle Cruise, Red Notice, Black Adam, Fast X, Red One, The Smashing Machine, Moana live-action, Jumanji 3)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 0
2. RYAN REYNOLDS
Total movies: 7 (Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard, Red Notice, The Adam Project, Spirited, IF, Deadpool & Wolverine, Mayday)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 0
3. KEVIN HART
Total movies: 7 (Fatherhood, The Man from Toronto, Me Time, Lift, Borderlands, Jumanji 3, 72 Hours)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 2 (F, Gary Gray, Lift; Tim Story, 72 Hours)
4. HUGH JACKMAN
Total movies: 6 (Reminiscence, The Son, Deadpool & Wolverine, Song Sung Blue, The Sheep Detective, The Death of Robin Hood)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 0
5. BRAD PITT
Total movies: 6 (Bullet Train, Babylon, Wolfs, F1, The Adventures of Cliff Booth, The Heart of the Beast)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 0
6. GEORGE CLOONEY
Total movies: 4 (The Midnight Sky, Ticket to Paradise, Wolfs, Jay Kelly)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 0
7. NICOLE KIDMAN
Total movies: 8 (The Prom, Being the Riccardos, The Northman, Aquaman & the Lost Kingdom, A Family Affair, Babygirl, Holland, Practical Magic 2)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 1 (James Wan, Aquaman & the Lost Kingdom)
8. ADAM SANDLER
Total movies: 7 (Hubie Halloween, Hustle, Murder Mystery 2, You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, Spaceman, Happy Gilmore 2, Jay Kelly)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 0
9. WILL SMITH
Total movies: 4 (Bad Boys For Life, King Richard, Emancipation, Bad Boys: Ride or Die)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 4 (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, Bad Boys for Life; Reinaldo Marcus Green, King Richard; Adil and Bilall, Bad Boys Ride or Die; Antoine Fuqua, Emancipation)
10. CHANNING TATUM
Total movies: 8 (Dog, The Lost City, Magic Mike’s Last Dance, Fly Me to the Moon, Deadpool & Wolverine, Blink Twice, Roofman, Josephine)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 2 (Zoë Kravitz, Blick Twice; Beth de Arajulo, Josephine)
And then a few other prominent stars of this moment:
MATT DAMON
Total movies: 7 (Stillwater, The Last Duel, Oppenheimer, The Instigators, The RIP, The Odyssey, Animals)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 0
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Total movies: 6 (The Little Things, The Tragedy of Macbeth, The Equalizer 3, Gladiator II, Highest 2 Lowest, Here Comes the Flood)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 3 (Fuqua, The Equalizer 3; Spike Lee, Highest 2 Lowest; Fernando Meirelles, Here Comes the Flood)
TOM CRUISE
Total movies: 4 (Top Gun: Maverick, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, Untitled Alejandro G. Iñárritu film)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 1 (Untitled Alejandro G. Iñárritu film)
TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET
Total movies: 9 (The French Dispatch, Dune, Don’t Look Up, Bones & All, Wonka, Dune: Part Two, A Complete Unknown, Marty Supreme, Dune: Part Three)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 0
ZENDAYA
Total movies: 9 (Malcolm & Marie, Dune, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Dune: Part Two, Challengers, The Drama, The Odyssey, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Dune: Part Three)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 0
PEDRO PASCAL
Total movies: 13 (Wonder Woman 1984, We Can Be Heroes, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, The Bubble, Freaky Tales, Drive-Away Dolls, The Uninvited, Gladiator II, Eddington, Materialists, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, The Mandalorian & Grogu, Avengers: Doomsday)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 2 (Robert Rodriguez, We Can Be Heroes; Celine Song, Materialists)
JENNA ORTEGA
Total movies: 17 (The Babysitter: Killer Queen, Yes Day, The Fallout, Scream, Studio 666, X, American Carnage, Scream VI, Finestkind, Miller’s Girl, Winter Spring Summer or Fall, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Death of a Unicorn, Hurry Up Tomorrow, The Gallerist, Klara and the Sun, Ghostwriter)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 4 (Miguel Arteta, Yes Day; Diego Hallivis, American Carnage; Cathy Yan, The Gallerist; Taika Waititi, Klara and the Sun)
SYDNEY SWEENEY
Total movies: 12 (Nocturne, The Voyeurs, Night Teeth, Reality, Americana, Anyone But You, Madame Web, Immaculate, Eden, Echo Valley, Christy, The Housemaid)
Movies directed by people with non-white backgrounds: 0
totally agree w/ the takeaways from this analysis, but i would quibble on one point - Bong Joon-ho and fellow international filmmakers from Asia are not Asian American. (and if you want to split hairs, most of the AAPI directors cited are Canadian, but for these purposes it's fine to group them together)
Was worried about this back in early 2020, but the year(s) impacted by COVID were also the years which set to otherwise be dominated left and right by big flicks helmed by “not a white guy” directors and/or centered on “not a white guy” protagonists. And yet Hollywood acts as if the likes of SOUL, IN THE HEIGHTS, HAPPIEST SEASON, BARB AND STAR, THE HIGH NOTE, etc., etc., etc., etc. opened theatrically in conventional circumstances and pretend like their “commercial failure” rebutted every good lesson it allegedly learned all throughout the 2010s. And that’s not even counting the deluge of “not a white guy” talent creating and headlining variations on expired or irrelevant IP who were treated as cannon fodder in a doomed streaming war.