Fails the Bechdel test
All the President's Men
1976. Directed by Alan J. Pakula, written by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward and William Goldman.
The Bechdel test
Bechdel score
1 / 3
Fails
-
Yes
1. At least two women
11 women characters. 5 of them speak. -
No
2. Who talk to each other
Our parser found no scene where two women talk to each other. -
No
3. About something besides a man
Not reached: the film fails an earlier rule.
Second opinion
Agree bechdeltest.com readers give it 1 out of 3.
The film
In the run-up to the 1972 elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward covers what seems to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party National headquarters. He is surprised to find top lawyers already on the defense case, and the discovery of names and addresses of White House fund organizers on the accused further arouses his suspicions. The editor of the Post is prepared to run with the story and assigns Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. They find the trail leading higher and higher in the White House.
- Released
- 09 Apr 1976
- Genres
- Drama, History, Thriller
- Rated
- PG
- IMDb
- 7.9 / 10
- Metascore
- 84 / 100
- Awards
- Won 4 Oscars. 17 wins & 23 nominations total
- Elsewhere
- View on IMDb
Starring, by lines spoken
- Women
- Men
- Not in the cast list
- Bigger name, more lines
- Woodward 243 lines, man
- Bernstein 233 lines, man
- Rosenfeld 47 lines, man
- Bradlee 45 lines, man
- Deep Throat 32 lines, man
- Sloan 30 lines
- Simons 28 lines, man
- Bookkeeper 16 lines, woman
- Segretti 15 lines, man
- Secretary 13 lines, woman
Full cast, 95 people
- Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein
- Robert Redford as Bob Woodward
- Jack Warden as Harry Rosenfeld
- Martin Balsam as Howard Simons
- Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat
- Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee
- Jane Alexander as Bookkeeper
- Meredith Baxter as Debbie Sloan
- Ned Beatty as Dardis
- Stephen Collins as Hugh Sloan
- Penny Fuller as Sally Aiken
- John McMartin as Foreign Editor
- Robert Walden as Donald Segretti
- Frank Wills as Frank Wills
- F. Murray Abraham as Arresting Officer #1
- David Arkin as Eugene Bachinski
- Henry Calvert as Bernard L. Barker
- Dominic Chianese as Eugenio R. Martinez
- Bryan Clark as Arguing Attorney
- Nicolas Coster as Markham
- Lindsay Crouse as Kay Eddy
- Valerie Curtin as Miss Milland
- Gene Dynarski as Court Clerk
- Nate Esformes as Virgilio R. Gonzales
- Ron Hale as Frank Sturgis
- Richard Herd as James W. McCord Jr.
- Polly Holliday as Dardis' Secretary
- James Karen as Hugh Sloan's Lawyer
- Paul Lambert as National Editor
- Frank Latimore as Judge
- Gene Lindsey as Alfred D. Baldwin
- Anthony Mannino as Arresting Officer #2
- Allyn Ann McLerie as Carolyn Abbott
- James Murtaugh as Congress Library Clerk
- John O'Leary as Attorney #1
- Jess Osuna as Joe
- Neva Patterson as CRP Woman
- George Pentecost as George
- Penny Peyser as Sharon Lyons
- Joshua Shelley as Al Lewis
- Sloane Shelton as Bookkeeper's Sister
- Lelan Smith as Arresting Officer #3
- Jaye Stewart as Male Librarian
- Ralph Williams as Ray Steuben
- George Wyner as Attorney #2
- Leroy Aarons as Financial Editor
- Donnlynn Bennett as Reporter
- Stanley Bennett Clay as Assistant Metro Editor
- Carol Coggin as News Aide
- Laurence Covington as News Announcer
- John Devlin as Metro Editor
- John Furlong as News Desk Editor
- Sidney Ganis as L.A. Stringer
- Amy Grossman as Reporter
- Cynthia Herbst as Reporter
- Basil Hoffman as Assistant Metro Editor
- Mark Holtzman as Reporter
- Jamie Smith-Jackson as Post Librarian
- Barbara Lipsky as Reporter
- Doug Llewelyn as White House Aide
- Jeff MacKay as Reporter
- Irwin Marcus as Reporter
- Greg Martin as Reporter
- Ron Menchine as Post Librarian
- Christopher Murray as Photo Aide
- Jess Nadelman as Assistant Metro Editor
- Noreen Nielson as Reporter
- Florence Pepper as Message Desk Receptionist
- Barbara Perlman as CRP Receptionist
- Louis Quinn as Salesman
- Peter Salim as Reporter
- Shawn Shea as News Aide
- Marvin Smith as Reporter
- Pam Trager as Reporter
- Carol Trost as Ben Bradlee's Secretary
- Richard Venture as Assistant Metro Editor
- Bill Willens as Hippie
- Wendell Wright as Assistant Metro Editor
- Al Beaudine as Reporter (uncredited)
- Stephen Burnette as Reporter (uncredited)
- Marcello Clay as Reporter (uncredited)
- Edward Coch Jr. as Reporter (uncredited)
- Cara Duff-MacCormick as Tammy Ulrich (uncredited)
- Len Felber as Reporter (uncredited)
- Mel Gold as Reporter (uncredited)
- Bart Greene as Reporter (uncredited)
- Francine Henderson as Reporter (uncredited)
- Eugene Jackson as Reporter (uncredited)
- Pauline Lum as Reporter (uncredited)
- Robert S. Mills as TV Reporter (uncredited)
- Ray Pourchot as Reporter (uncredited)
- John Randolph as John Mitchell (voice) (uncredited)
- Bill Scully as Reporter (uncredited)
- Bob Templeton as Reporter (uncredited)
- Lance Vantile Whitfield as Child in Courtroom (uncredited)
Who talks, scene by scene
Lines of dialogue in every 1 scene, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 11% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.
Women
Men
Scene 1 Scene 5
Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.
Show the numbers
| Scenes | Women's lines | Men's lines |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 1 | 1 | 44 |
| 2 to 2 | 14 | 125 |
| 3 to 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 to 4 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 to 5 | 64 | 576 |
The evidence
- Straight from the script
- Counted from the script and the credits
Tap an exhibit to open it.
Exhibit A: every 100 lines
Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 10 are women's.
79 lines from women, 745 from men.
- Women
- Men
Exhibit B: who's in it
11 women and 50 men in the cast. 5 women and 24 men from it get lines.
Characters
With lines
- Women
- Men
Exhibit C: who gets heard
The first woman speaks at line 53 of 926.
The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 155 lines.
Every line of dialogue, first to last
- First line by a woman
- Longest stretch with no woman speaking
Words spoken
Women speak 11% of the words (1,074), men 89% (9,078). Women have 10% of the lines, so their lines run longer than men's.
Exhibit D: the test the other way
Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.
Conversations between two named characters
Two women
0
Two men
41
Exhibit E: behind the camera
None of the 8 people in these jobs are women.
Across the whole crew, 10% of the people whose gender is listed are women.
- Directed by
- Alan J. Pakula (man)
- Written by
- William Goldman (man)
- Produced by
- Walter Coblenz (man)
- Shot by
- Gordon Willis (man)
- Edited by
- Robert L. Wolfe (man)
- Music by
- David Shire (man)
- Production design by
- George Jenkins (man)
- Cast by
- Alan Shayne (man)
The crew, department by department
-
Art
0 women, 6 men, 6 not listed
-
Production
0 women, 4 men, 4 not listed
-
Sound
0 women, 6 men, 2 not listed
-
Camera
0 women, 3 men, 3 not listed
-
Costume & Make-Up
2 women, 1 men, 3 not listed
-
Directing
1 women, 2 men, 3 not listed
-
Editing
0 women, 2 men, 1 not listed
-
Writing
0 women, 3 men
- Women
- Men
- Gender not listed on TMDB
Exhibit F: how old the stars were
Women: 32 on average. Men: 45 on average.
The top-billed cast, at the film's release.
Women
Meredith Baxter 28, Jane Alexander 36
Men
Stephen Collins 28, Dustin Hoffman 38, Ned Beatty 38, Robert Redford 39, Hal Holbrook 51, Jason Robards 53, Jack Warden 55, Martin Balsam 56
Exhibit G: the money
It made 8.3 times what it cost.
- Budget
- $8.5 million
- Box office
- $70.6 million
From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.
About this analysis
Our parser read the script: 5 scenes and 926 lines of dialogue. The bechdeltest.com rating comes from that site’s readers. How the test works
