Leading Ladies, Lagging Ratings? Gender Bias in Evaluations of Movies

The movie industry provides a unique setting to analyze consumer-driven gender biases, as it allows clear identification of how the gender of leading actors, directors and producers influences movie performance outcomes. Using a hand-collected dataset of over 5,000 globally produced movies from 1998 to 2008, we document a distinct non-linear relationship between female representation in leading roles and audience ratings. Specifically, ratings initially decline significantly as the number of female leads increases, reaching a turning point at approximately two female leads, beyond which ratings stabilize or slightly improve (convex pattern). This negative impact on audience ratings is primarily driven by male viewers, whose proportional presence diminishes as female representation grows. In contrast, professional film awards exhibit an opposite, concave pattern, peaking significantly at two female leads. Employing a Heckman- like selection test, we further reveal that audience gender biases persist even after accounting for the selective attrition of male viewers from movies featuring female leads.