The number of female protagonists in movies dropped in 2017, according to a new report.
Last year saw a number of highly successful female-led films, including Wonder Woman, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and Beauty and The Beast - two of which occupy slots in the top three highest grossing movies of last year.
A study in the US conducted by the Centre For The Study Of Women In Television And Film in San Diego has revealed that women only comprised 24% of all lead roles in movies in 2017.
It marks a 5% decrease on the previous year, which saw women comprise 29% of all lead roles.
The study also highlights the number of films which featured ten or more female characters with speaking roles.
Only 32% of films included that number of female speaking roles according to the report.
This is in contrast to a huge 79% of films which featured ten or more male speaking roles.
Female protagonists were most likely to appear in comedies (30%) and dramas (30%), followed by action films (17%), horror films (13%), animated features (4%), and science fiction films (4%).
Male protagonists were most likely to appear in action features (38%), followed by comedies (20%), animated features (18%), dramas (13%), horror features (7%), and science fiction features (4%).
The number of female roles in top-grossing movies stayed at 37%, matching the previous year.
The number of roles which went to women of colour saw an increase, although small.
Black female characters went up from 14% to 16%, latina female characters rose to 7% from 3%, while Asian women in movies rose by 1% to 7%.
45% of movies with a female director or writer had a female protagonist.
However, only 20% of films with an all-male team featured a woman in the leading role.
