Hollywood achieves a significant milestone: In 2024, there were just as many films with female leads as male ones.

The discussion over gender equality in Hollywood has been going on for a while, and in recent years, industry participants have been calling for more diversity and representation. At last, it seems that this conversation is resulting in a change. In 2024, the film industry made a huge breakthrough when the proportion of top-grossing films with female protagonists equaled that of films with male protagonists, a first for the industry in recent memory.

The most recent edition of Dr. Martha Lauzen’s annual It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World study revealed that 42% of the 100 highest-grossing domestic films included female leads, while another 42% featured male leads. The remaining sixteen percent included ensembles, according to Deadline.

Two further studies, one at San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film and one at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, emphasized the same conclusion, according to Hollywood Reporter.

More than half (54) of the top 100 films at the North American box office in 2024 had a story centered on a female lead, according to the USC study. These films included Pixar’s Inside Out 2, starring Amy Poehler; Disney’s Moana 2, starring Auliʻi Cravalho; Universal’s Wicked, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo; and Paramount’s A Quiet Place: Day One, starring Lupita Nyong’o. Compared to 2023, when 30% of films featured a female lead, the percentage is greater now.

The studio that released the most female-led films in 2024 was Universal, under chairwoman Donna Langley, with 10 movies, or 66.7 percent of its slate female-led, followed by Warner Bros (55.6 percent), Lionsgate (54.5 percent), Paramount (44.4 percent), Disney (40 percent) and Sony (38.5 percent).