Passes the Bechdel test

Babel

Name: Babel
Released: 2006

2006. Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, written by Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

Yes 1. At least two women
23 women characters. 12 of them speak.
Yes 2. Who talk to each other
In 6 scenes out of 200.
Yes 3. About something besides a man
In those scenes, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.

Second opinion

Agree bechdeltest.com readers give it 3 out of 3, though someone marked that rating as dubious.

The film

Four interlocking stories connected by a single gun converge at the end to reveal a complex, tragic story of the lives of humanity around the world and how we truly aren't all that different. In Morocco, a troubled married couple are on vacation trying to work out their differences. Meanwhile, a Moroccan herder buys a rifle for his sons so they can keep the jackals away from his herd. A girl in Japan dealing with rejection, her mother's death, her father's emotional distance, her own self-consciousness, and a disability, deals with modern life in the enormous metropolis of Tokyo, Japan. On the opposite side of the world the married couple's Mexican nanny takes the couple's two children with her to her son's wedding in Mexico, only to meet trouble on the return trip. Combined, it provides a powerful story and an equally-powerful looking glass into the lives of seemingly random people around the world and it shows just how connected we really are.

Released: 10 Nov 2006
Genres: Drama
Rated: R
IMDb: 7.4 / 10
Metascore: 69 / 100
Awards: Won 1 Oscar. 45 wins & 137 nominations total
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

Women
Men
Not in the cast list
Bigger name, more lines

Richard 156 lines, man
Amelia 131 lines, woman
Anwar 65 lines, man
Susan 53 lines, woman
Yussef 41 lines, man
Abdullah 38 lines, man
Ahmed 38 lines, man
Kenji 38 lines, man
Santiago 38 lines, man
Mike 35 lines, man

Full cast, 57 people

Brad Pitt as Richard Jones
Rinko Kikuchi as Chieko
Adriana Barraza as Amelia
Cate Blanchett as Susan Jones
Satoshi Nikaido as Kenji Mamiya
Said Tarchani as Ahmed
Boubker Ait El Caid as Yussef
Gael García Bernal as Santiago
Nathan Gamble as Mike Jones
Elle Fanning as Debbie Jones
Mohamed Akhzam as Anwar
Yuko Murata as Mitsu
Koji Yakusho as Yasujiro Wataya
Mustapha Rachidi as Abdullah
Abdelkader Bara as Hassan Ibrahim
Driss Roukhe as Alarid
Peter Wight as Tom
Clifton Collins Jr. as Officer at Border Crossing
Robert Esquivel as Luis
Michael Peña as John - Border Patrol
Harriet Walter as Lilly
Michael Maloney as James
Dermot Crowley as Barth
Trevor Martin as Douglas
Aaron D. Spears as Officer #2
Alex Jennings as Ken Clifford
Matyelok Gibbs as Elyse
Claudine Acs as Jane
Jamie McBride as Bill - Border Patrol
Mónica del Carmen as Lucia
André Oumansky as Walter
Wendy Nottingham as Tourist
Linda Broughton as Tourist
Lynsey Beauchamp as Tourist
Aline Mowat as Tourist
Michel Dubois as Tourist
Shirley Dixon as Tourist
Robert Fyfe as Tourist
Wahiba Sahmi as Zohra
Fadmael Ouali as Yasira
Abdelaziz Merzoug as Waiter Casbah
El Hassan Ait Bablal as Old Man in Car
Sfia Ait Benboullah as Anwar's Grandmother
Lhacen Znin as Store Owner
Emilio Echevarría as Emilio
Ivor Shier as Helicopter Pilot
R. D. Call as FBI Interrogation Officer
Qyoko Kudo as Mother at Dentist
Barbarella Pardo as Amelia's Daughter
Cynthia Montaño as Patricia
Tose Fukuda as Nurse at Dentist's
Shigemitsu Ogi as Dentist
Jane Arapawe as Wedding Guest
Shinji Suzuki as Takeshi
Shizue Yamamoto as Wife
Kaori Shimizu as Volleyball Girl
John O'Mahony as Tourist

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 5 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 12% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 200

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 5	0	16
6 to 10	1	9
11 to 15	22	33
16 to 20	16	6
21 to 25	27	23
26 to 30	6	6
31 to 35	11	10
36 to 40	10	7
41 to 45	3	18
46 to 50	2	10
51 to 55	16	13
56 to 60	2	15
61 to 65	1	3
66 to 70	5	24
71 to 75	7	16
76 to 80	6	40
81 to 85	0	7
86 to 90	9	9
91 to 95	1	16
96 to 100	6	26
101 to 105	4	7
106 to 110	3	8
111 to 115	15	18
116 to 120	10	6
121 to 125	3	15
126 to 130	0	12
131 to 135	3	8
136 to 140	6	8
141 to 145	11	10
146 to 150	7	7
151 to 155	7	17
156 to 160	0	47
161 to 165	4	45
166 to 170	10	5
171 to 175	11	9
176 to 180	21	25
181 to 185	12	17
186 to 190	0	8
191 to 195	3	18
196 to 200	0	29

The evidence

Straight from the script
Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: the passing scenes

The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.

AMELIA: Do you want another quesadilla? DEBBIE: Mhh.

MITSU: What's the matter? CHIEKO: They look at us like we're monsters. MITSU: Oh, come off it. MITSU: What are you doing?

DEBBIE: Is this Mexico? AMELIA: Yes, this is Mexico.

DEBBIE: Are they crashed cars? AMELIA: Yes... DEBBIE: Did lots of people die? AMELIA: I guess so...

PATRICIA: My belly's been hard since the morning. AMELIA: That happens when you're nervous.

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 31 are women's.

281 lines from women, 626 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

23 women and 31 men in the cast. 12 women and 19 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit D: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 18 of 1,035. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 118 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

First line by a woman
Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 29% of the words (1,932), men 71% (4,786). Women have 31% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.

Exhibit E: 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

Two men

Exhibit F: behind the camera

2 of the 13 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 18% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: Alejandro G. Iñárritu (man)
Written by: Guillermo Arriaga (man)
Produced by: Alejandro G. Iñárritu (man), Steve Golin (man), Jon Kilik (man)
Shot by: Rodrigo Prieto (man)
Edited by: Douglas Crise (man), Stephen Mirrione (man)
Music by: Gustavo Santaolalla (man)
Production design by: Brigitte Broch (woman)
Costumes by: Michael Wilkinson (man), Miwako Kobayashi (woman), Gabriela Diaque (gender not listed)