Responding to new reporting finding only nine of the directors behind 2025’s 100 top-grossing US films were women, Hamnet film-maker questions industry’s capacity for inclusivity
Chloé Zhao, the Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, has said that the US film industry is not set up to foster gender diversity.
Speaking at a Women in Motion talk at the Palm Springs film festival on Monday, Zhao was asked for her response to a recent study that found just nine of the 111 directors behind last year’s 100 top grossing films in the US were women.
Zhao is on the list with awards season favourite, Hamnet, a poetic exploration of the grief experienced by William Shakespeare (played by Paul Mescal) and his wife, Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley). The film won Buckley a Critics Choice award last weekend for her raw performance as mother struggling with the death of her son.
“What I’ve learned from making Hamnet,” said Zhao, “is that feminine leadership – and that doesn’t mean just women, it means the feminine consciousness in all people – is drawing strength from interdependence, not dominance. So it’s drawing strength from intuition, relationships, community and interdependence.
