Gender Overall
Marianna Diamos/Los Angeles Times; Brigitte Lacombe; Billy Rose Theatre Division/The New York Public Library; ABC Photo Archives/ABC via GI
Overall 1929-2025
Of the 13,653 nominees at the Academy Awards® since 1929, 17.6% were women and 82.4% were men. The ratio of men to women nominees was 5 to 1. Seventeen percent of all winners across the last 97 years were women. Less than 2% of nominees were women of color. The first woman of color was nominated in 1936 (Merle Oberon). Of all Academy Award® winners, women of color were less than 2%. The first woman of color to win any Oscar® did so in 1940 (Hattie McDaniel).
There were a total of 1,369 individual women nominees over the last 97 years, compared to 5,045 individual men. Women were more likely to receive a single nomination than men. More than two-thirds of women (69%) were nominated once versus 59% of men. The majority of women of color earned only one nomination– 87% of women of color received a single Oscar nomination in their careers.
The women with the most nominations were Edith Head (35), Meryl Streep (21), Irene Sharaff (16), and Marilynn Bergman (16). John Williams (54), Alfred Newman (45), and Cedric Gibbons (39) all had more nominations than the most-nominated woman. The highest number of nominations for any woman of color was 4. There were 6 women who received 4 nominations over the last 96 years: Ruth E. Carter, Penélope Cruz, Viola Davis, Ai-Ling Lee, Yolanda Toussieng, and Chloé Zhao.
Of all Academy Award® winners, 2% were women of color.
2025 Nominees
In 2025, there were 208 Academy Award® nominees. Twenty-seven percent were women and 73% were men. The percentage of women nominated in 2025 (27%) is lower than the previous highest of all time–2021 when 33% of all nominees were women. Women of color comprised 3.9% of all nominees in 2025. This figure is lower than 2021, when 11% of all nominees were women of color.
Gender: 1929-2025
To provide a comprehensive understanding of women’s nominations at the Academy Awards,® the chart below provides information on the number and percentage of nominees by category and by year from the first ceremony to today. While the overall figures regarding women’s nominations remain low, there are categories where women’s presence has increased notably.
Year | Director | Cinematography | Adapted Screenplay | Original Screenplay | Editing | Picture | Animated Film | Production Design | Costume Design | Documentary Feature | Score | Song | Visual Effects | Makeup & Hairstyling | Sound | Overall | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1929 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | -- | -- | -- | 0% | -- | -- | -- | -- | 0% | -- | -- | 17% | ||
| 1930 | 0% | 0% | -- | 27% | -- | -- | -- | 0% | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 22% | ||
| 1931 | 0% | 0% | -- | 14% | -- | -- | -- | 0% | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 0% | 18% | ||
| 1932 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | -- | -- | -- | 0% | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 12% | ||
| 1933 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 50% | -- | -- | -- | 0% | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 24% | ||
| 1934 | 0% | 0% | 40% | 33% | -- | -- | -- | 0% | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | 0% | 21% | ||
| 1935 | 0% | 0% | 25% | 0% | 33% | -- | -- | 0% | -- | -- | 0% | 0% | -- | -- | 0% | 13% | ||
| 1936 | 0% | 0% | -- | 0% | 33% | -- | -- | 0% | -- | -- | 0% | 17% | -- | -- | 0% | 14% | ||
| 1937 | 0% | 0% | -- | 14% | 17% | -- | -- | 0% | -- | -- | 0% | 9% | -- | -- | 0% | 16% | ||
| 1938 | 0% | 0% | -- | 11% | 0% | -- | -- | 0% | -- | -- | 0% | 0% | -- | -- | 0% | 12% |