Passes the Bechdel test
Barbarian
2022. Directed by Zach Cregger, written by Zach Cregger.
The Bechdel test
Bechdel score
3 / 3
Passes
-
Yes
1. At least two women
9 women characters. 5 of them speak. -
Yes
2. Who talk to each other
In 2 scenes out of 64. -
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.
The film
In town for a job interview, a young woman arrives at her Airbnb rental late at night only to find that the house has been mistakenly double-booked and a strange man is already staying there. Against her better judgment, she decides to stay the night anyway, but soon discovers that there is much more to be afraid of in the house than the other house guest.
- Released
- 09 Sep 2022
- Genres
- Horror, Mystery, Thriller
- Rated
- R
- IMDb
- 7 / 10
- Metascore
- 78 / 100
- Awards
- 5 wins & 40 nominations total
- Elsewhere
- View on IMDb
Starring, by lines spoken
- Women
- Men
- Not in the cast list
- Bigger name, more lines
- Tess 308 lines, woman
- Cale 192 lines
- Keith 157 lines, man
- Frank 33 lines, man
- Mother 32 lines, woman
- Man 30 lines, man
- Marcus 26 lines
- Bonnie 21 lines, woman
- Operator 19 lines
- Woman 18 lines, woman
Full cast, 21 people
- Georgina Campbell as Tess
- Justin Long as AJ
- Bill Skarsgård as Keith
- Richard Brake as Frank
- Matthew Patrick Davis as The Mother
- Jaymes Butler as Andre
- Kurt Braunohler as Doug
- Sophie Sörensen as Bonnie
- Rachel Fowler as Meg
- JR Esposito as Jeff
- Kate Nichols as Catherine
- Kate Bosworth as Melissa (voice)
- Brooke Dillman as AJ's Mom
- Sara Paxton as Nursing Video Narration / Assistant / Megan
- Will Greenberg as Robert
- Derek Morse as Officer #1
- Trevor Van Uden as Officer #2
- Zach Cregger as Everett
- Devina Vassileva as Property Manager Assistant
- Kalina Stancheva as Young Woman
- Julian Stanishkov as Gas Station Clerk
Who talks, scene by scene
Lines of dialogue in every 2 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 28% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.
Women
Men
Scene 1 Scene 64
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 2 | 26 | 13 |
| 3 to 4 | 57 | 71 |
| 5 to 6 | 23 | 28 |
| 7 to 8 | 12 | 10 |
| 9 to 10 | 0 | 0 |
| 11 to 12 | 19 | 0 |
| 13 to 14 | 25 | 0 |
| 15 to 16 | 1 | 6 |
| 17 to 18 | 22 | 2 |
| 19 to 20 | 3 | 2 |
| 21 to 22 | 52 | 34 |
| 23 to 24 | 13 | 12 |
| 25 to 26 | 0 | 0 |
| 27 to 28 | 18 | 7 |
| 29 to 30 | 7 | 0 |
| 31 to 32 | 9 | 8 |
| 33 to 34 | 0 | 0 |
| 35 to 36 | 6 | 0 |
| 37 to 38 | 0 | 26 |
| 39 to 40 | 0 | 0 |
| 41 to 42 | 9 | 12 |
| 43 to 44 | 1 | 27 |
| 45 to 46 | 48 | 13 |
| 47 to 48 | 0 | 0 |
| 49 to 50 | 1 | 0 |
| 51 to 52 | 5 | 2 |
| 53 to 54 | 6 | 0 |
| 55 to 56 | 3 | 0 |
| 57 to 58 | 14 | 0 |
| 59 to 60 | 1 | 0 |
| 61 to 62 | 13 | 1 |
| 63 to 64 | 25 | 8 |
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.
CATHERINE: Tess? TESS: Catherine! Hi! TESS: Nice to meet you! CATHERINE: Nice to meet you! Thanks for making the trip all the way out here!
CATHERINE: Where you staying while you’re in town? TESS: AirBnB. CATHERINE: Oh that’s nice. Where-a-bouts? TESS: Ummm... It’s in Petosky Otsego? You know where that is?
Exhibit B: every 100 lines
Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 60 are women's.
419 lines from women, 282 from men.
- Women
- Men
Exhibit C: who's in it
9 women and 12 men in the cast. 5 women and 8 men from it get lines.
Characters
With lines
- Women
- Men
Exhibit D: who gets heard
A woman speaks the first line.
The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 48 lines.
Every line of dialogue, first to last
- First line by a woman
- Longest stretch with no woman speaking
Words spoken
Women speak 52% of the words (2,967), men 48% (2,785). Women have 60% 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
2
Two men
2
Exhibit F: behind the camera
2 of the 12 people in these jobs are women.
Across the whole crew, 16% of the people whose gender is listed are women.
- Directed by
- Zach Cregger (man)
- Written by
- Zach Cregger (man)
- Produced by
- Arnon Milchan (man), Raphael Margules (man), J.D. Lifshitz (man), Roy Lee (man)
- Shot by
- Zach Kuperstein (man)
- Edited by
- Joe Murphy (man)
- Music by
- Anna Drubich (woman)
- Production design by
- Rossitsa Bakeva (gender not listed)
- Costumes by
- Kiril Naumov (man)
- Cast by
- Nancy Nayor (woman)
The crew, department by department
-
Sound
2 women, 10 men, 9 not listed
-
Production
3 women, 11 men, 3 not listed
-
Visual Effects
0 women, 4 men, 3 not listed
-
Camera
0 women, 1 men, 5 not listed
-
Other crew
1 women, 4 men, 1 not listed
-
Costume & Make-Up
0 women, 1 men, 4 not listed
-
Directing
1 women, 2 men, 2 not listed
-
Art
0 women, 2 men, 1 not listed
- Women
- Men
- Gender not listed on TMDB
Exhibit G: how old the stars were
Women: 30 on average. Men: 49 on average.
The top-billed cast, at the film's release.
Women
Georgina Campbell 30
Men
Bill Skarsgård 32, Justin Long 44, Kurt Braunohler 46, JR Esposito 51, Richard Brake 57, Jaymes Butler 62
Exhibit H: the money
It made 10.1 times what it cost.
- Budget
- $4.5 million
- Box office
- $45.4 million
From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.
About this analysis
Our parser read the script: 64 scenes and 971 lines of dialogue. The bechdeltest.com rating comes from that site’s readers. How the test works
