Fails the Bechdel test

Isle of Dogs

Name: Isle of Dogs
Released: 2018

2018. Directed by Wes Anderson, written by Wes Anderson and Kunichi Nomura and Roman Coppola.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

2 / 3

Fails

Yes 1. At least two women
10 women characters. 5 of them speak.
Yes 2. Who talk to each other
Women do talk to each other.
No 3. About something besides a man
Every conversation between women that our parser found mentions a man.

Second opinion

Disagree bechdeltest.com readers give it 3 out of 3.

The film

An outbreak of dog flu has spread through the city of Megasaki, Japan, and Mayor Kobayashi has demanded all dogs to be sent to Trash Island. On the island, a young boy named Atari sets out to find his lost dog, Spots, with the help of five other dogs... with many obstacles along the way.

Released: 13 Apr 2018
Genres: Animation, Adventure, Comedy
Rated: PG-13
IMDb: 7.8 / 10
Metascore: 82 / 100
Awards: Nominated for 2 Oscars. 34 wins & 95 nominations total
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

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

Chief 99 lines, man
Rex 58 lines, man
Spots 44 lines, man
Interpreter 32 lines
Tracy 31 lines, woman
Nutmeg 27 lines, woman
Duke 21 lines, man
Narrator 20 lines, man
Jupiter 15 lines, man
Boss 13 lines, man

Full cast, 49 people

Bryan Cranston as Chief (voice)
Koyu Rankin as Atari Kobayashi (voice)
Bob Balaban as King (voice)
Edward Norton as Rex (voice)
Bill Murray as Boss (voice)
Jeff Goldblum as Duke (voice)
Kunichi Nomura as Mayor Kobayashi (voice)
Fisher Stevens as Scrap (voice)
Akira Takayama as Major Domo (voice)
Greta Gerwig as Tracy Walker (voice)
Ken Watanabe as Head Surgeon (voice)
Frances McDormand as Interpreter Nelson (voice)
Nijiro Murakami as Editor Hiroshi (voice)
Harvey Keitel as Gondo (voice)
Liev Schreiber as Spots (voice)
Scarlett Johansson as Nutmeg (voice)
Tilda Swinton as Oracle (voice)
Akira Ito as Professor Watanabe (voice)
F. Murray Abraham as Jupiter (voice)
Courtney B. Vance as Narrator (voice)
Yoko Ono as Assistant-Scientist Yoko-ono (voice)
Mari Natsuki as Auntie (voice)
Yojiro Noda as News Anchor (voice)
Frank Wood as Simul-Translate Machine (voice)
Roman Coppola as Igor (voice)
Anjelica Huston as Mute Poodle (voice)
Kara Hayward as Peppermint (voice)
Satoshi Yamazaki as Taiko Drummer (voice)
Gen Ueda as Taiko Drummer (voice)
Ryuhei Matsuda as Junior Scientist 4 / Bartender (voice)
Jun Takahashi as Mission Control Drone Pilot (voice)
Edward Bursch as Owl (voice)
Luli Shioi as Mission Control Technician (voice)
Erica Dorn as Mission Control Technician (voice)
Chinami Narikawa as Mission Control Technician (voice)
Chris Benz as Aboriginal Dog (voice)
Alex Orman as Aboriginal Dog (voice)
J. Wurster as Aboriginal Dog (voice)
Jake Ryan as Junior-Interpreter Ernie (voice)
Takayuki Yamada as Junior Scientist 1 (voice)
Kozue Akimoto as Junior Scientist 2 (voice)
Shota Matsuda as Junior Scientist 3 (voice)
Kiyotaka Mizukoshi as Election Night Tabulator (voice)
Elaiza Ikeda as Punk Girl (voice)
Ryuhei Nakadai as Surgical Assistant (voice)
Shin Mononobe as Surgical Assistant (voice)
Ikunosuke as Daily Manifesto Student (voice)
Taichi Kodama as Daily Manifesto Student (voice)
Karin Okoso as Daily Manifesto Student (voice)

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 2 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 9% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 60

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	0	1
3 to 4	0	5
5 to 6	0	0
7 to 8	0	1
9 to 10	0	45
11 to 12	0	1
13 to 14	0	4
15 to 16	0	5
17 to 18	0	9
19 to 20	0	13
21 to 22	22	35
23 to 24	4	13
25 to 26	0	25
27 to 28	2	0
29 to 30	3	16
31 to 32	0	12
33 to 34	0	19
35 to 36	5	2
37 to 38	0	44
39 to 40	1	15
41 to 42	0	13
43 to 44	0	18
45 to 46	13	5
47 to 48	11	9
49 to 50	1	3
51 to 52	0	1
53 to 54	0	2
55 to 56	0	2
57 to 58	0	4
59 to 60	5	16

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, 17 are women's.

67 lines from women, 338 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit B: who's in it

10 women and 26 men in the cast. 5 women and 22 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 98 of 444. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 97 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

First line by a woman
Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 18% of the words (915), men 82% (4,048). Women have 17% 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

Two men

Exhibit E: behind the camera

None of the 18 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 25% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: Wes Anderson (man)
Written by: Wes Anderson (man)
Story by: Wes Anderson (man), Roman Coppola (man), Jason Schwartzman (man), Kunichi Nomura (man)
Produced by: Wes Anderson (man), Jeremy Dawson (man), Steven M. Rales (man), Scott Rudin (man)
Shot by: Tristan Oliver (man)
Edited by: Edward Bursch (gender not listed), Ralph Foster (gender not listed)
Music by: Alexandre Desplat (man)
Production design by: Adam Stockhausen (man), Paul Harrod (man)
Cast by: Douglas Aibel (man), Kunichi Nomura (man)