In 1985, American cartoonist Alison Bechdel debuted a comic strip called Dykes to Wath Out For that introduced the idea of what came to be known as the Bechdel test. The test measures the representation of women in film. Bechdel credited her friend Liz Wallace and the works of Virginia Woolf with the concept of the Bechdel test. There are three requirements a movie must meet to pass the Bechdel test:

  • It has at least 2 named women in it who have names
  • These women have a conversation with each other
  • That topic is not about a man.

According to Bechdeltest.com, only about half of all films meet the criteria to pass the test. The test is an indicator of how active the women in a particular film are. They must be more than simply window dressings. They must be credited as more than “blonde sitting at the bar.” They must have developed personalities that aren’t wholly there to simply talk about men or their relationships or lack thereof to men. It really isn’t asking a lot of a film, especially in 2022.

It should be noted that all but one of the seven films below were written by men. Only Runaway Bride was written by women.

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7 Hitch

     Sony Pictures Releasing

Hitch is a 2005 romantic comedy starring Will Smith as a matchmaker and Kevin James as his client looking for love. Hitch only passes two of the three requirements of the Bechdel Test. It has four women with names – Eva Mendes as Sara Melas, Julie Ann Emery as Casey Sedgewick, Amber Valletta as Allegra Cole, and Paula Patton as Mandy (no last name). Sara is a tabloid gossip journalist reporting on the love life of Allegra, Casey is her best friend, who she talks to about love (or the lack of the romantic style of it in her life) but also life in general.

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6 My Best Friend’s Wedding

My Best Friend’s Wedding is a 1997 romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts at the height of her run as the de facto America’s Sweetheart. My Best Friend’s Wedding passed two of the three requirements of the Bechdel Test. It has five women with names, Julia Roberts as Julianne Potter, Cameron Diaz as Kimberly Wallace, Rachel Griffiths and Carrie Preston as Samantha and Mandy Newhouse, and Susan Sullivan as Isabelle Wallace. Julianne and Kimberly do talk to each other about things other than men suck, as Kimberly revealing she can’t do karaoke due to her tone-deaf singing and asking Julianne to be her maid of honor.

RELATED: These Were the Most Memorable “Best Friends” in Romantic Comedies

5 50 First Dates

     Columbia Pictures

50 First Dates is a 2004 romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore as Lucy Whitmore, a young woman who was in an accident that caused her to completely lose her short-term memory. 50 First Dates passes two of the three requirements of the Bechdel Test. It has five women with names – Barrymore as Lucy, Maya Rudolph as Stacy, Luisa Struts as Alexa, Amy Hill as Sue, and Lynn Collins as Linda. In the film, Lucy has conversations with Sue about what she’s ordering for breakfast and with the female innkeeper about how life isn’t always fair.

4 Runaway Bride

     Paramount Pictures

Runaway Bride is a 1999 romantic comedy starring Julia Roberts as Maggie Carpenter, a woman who has been engaged multiple times but has never managed to actually make it down the aisle to say “I do.” Runaway Bride only passes one requirement of the Bechdel Test. It has three women with names, Roberts as Maggie, Joan Cusack as Peggy Fleming, and Rita Wilson as Ellie Graham. Those three characters do talk to each other, but it’s mostly about the odds of Maggie making it down the aisle, so essentially is about a man.

RELATED: Every Movie About Women Friendships That We Can’t Live Without

3 A Star Is Born (2018)

In 2018’s A Star is Born, starring Bradley Cooper as Jackson and Lady Gaga as Ally, has a bit of Bechdel Test controversy. It has Lady Gaga as Ally, Dreana De Niro as Paulette Stone, and Rebecca Field as Gail, so that’s one requirement of the Bechdel Test met. Gail plays the stage manager and she and Ally have a brief conversation. That’s slightly two requirements of the Bechdel Test met. However, they talk about how Jackson is happy she is there. Technically that’s still about a man, and also it is a very brief interaction with a character who isn’t well-rounded and isn’t an integral part of the story. Some people believe A Star is Born meets all three requirements of the Bechdel Test, but we maintain that it satisfies just two.

2 Before Sunrise

Before Sunrise is a 1995 film starring Ethan Hawke as Jesse and Julie Delpy as Celine from writer/director Richard Linklater. It passes none of the three Bechdel Test requirements but for a good reason – the film only has two named characters who spend the entirety of the film talking to each other on an overnight train through Europe. It’s a bit of an unfair comparison as a result, because Before Sunrise is a perfect film and a great romance, something which may indicate that the Bechdel Test can be reductive and misleading when taken out of context.

1 Wonder Woman (Honorary Mention)

     Warner Bros. Pictures

In 2017’s Wonder Woman, Gal Gadot played Diana Prince, the iconic super-heroine. She hails from the island of Themyscira, where the only gender of its citizens is women. So there are several female characters with names, and in the scenes shot on Themyscira, conversations are had that are not solely about men. As such, Wonder Woman passes the Bechdel Test.

However, (and this is the hill I will die on if need be), at the end of the movie, Diana looks to Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor for validation and approval. What the what? She just kicked the butts of the enemy and essentially saved the world, and she turns into a simpering love-sick woman in the final scenes. In this way, this movie technically passes the Bechdel test, but it shouldn’t. And if a woman had written the screenplay, the ending would have been different.