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Passes the Bechdel test

Jackie Brown

1997. Directed by Quentin Tarantino, written by Quentin Tarantino and Elmore Leonard.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

  1. Yes 1. At least two women
    20 women characters. 8 of them speak.
  2. Yes 2. Who talk to each other
    In 7 scenes out of 102.
  3. 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.

Poster for Jackie Brown

The film

The middle-aged stewardess Jackie Brown smuggles money from Mexico to Los Angeles for the arms dealer Ordell Robbie. When she gets caught by the agents Ray Nicolet and Mark Dargus with ten thousand dollars and cocaine in her purse, they propose a deal to her to help them to arrest Ordell in exchange of her freedom. Meanwhile Ordell asks the 56-year-old Max Cherry, who runs a bail bond business, to release Jackie Brown with the intention of eliminating her. Jackie suspects of Ordell's intention and plots a complicated confidence game with Max to steal half a million dollars from Ordell.

Released
25 Dec 1997
Genres
Crime, Drama, Thriller
Rated
R
IMDb
7.5 / 10
Metascore
62 / 100
Awards
Nominated for 1 Oscar. 9 wins & 24 nominations total
Elsewhere
View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

  • Women
  • Men
  • Not in the cast list
  • Bigger name, more lines
  1. Jackie 394 lines, woman
  2. Ordell 328 lines, man
  3. Max 287 lines, man
  4. Louis 136 lines, man
  5. Melanie 106 lines, woman
  6. Nicolet 85 lines, woman
  7. Dargus 47 lines, man
  8. Beaumont 26 lines, man
  9. Anita 9 lines, woman
  10. Winston 9 lines, man
Full cast, 36 people
  • Pam Grier as Jackie Brown
  • Samuel L. Jackson as Ordell Robbie
  • Robert De Niro as Louis Gara
  • Bridget Fonda as Melanie Ralston
  • Michael Keaton as Ray Nicolette
  • Robert Forster as Max Cherry
  • Michael Bowen as Mark Dargus
  • Chris Tucker as Beaumont Livingston
  • LisaGay Hamilton as Sheronda
  • Tommy Lister Jr. as Winston
  • Hattie Winston as Simone
  • Sid Haig as Judge
  • Aimee Graham as Amy – Billingsley Sales Girl
  • Ellis Williams as Cockatoo Bartender
  • Tangie Ambrose as Billingsley Sales Girl #2
  • T'Keyah Crystal Keymáh as Raynelle – Ordell's Junkie Friend
  • Venessia Valentino as Cabo Flight Attendant
  • Diana Uribe as Anita Lopez
  • Renee Kelly as Cocktail Waitress
  • Elizabeth McInerney as Bartender at Sam's
  • Colleen Mayne as Girl at Security Gate
  • Laura Lovelace as Steakhouse Waitress
  • Christine Lydon as Tec-9 Sidney – Chicks Who Love Guns
  • Julia Ervin as Steyr AUG Cindy – Chicks Who Love Guns
  • Juliet Long as AK-47 Gloria – Chicks Who Love Guns
  • Michelle Berube as Baretta 12S Brittany – Chicks Who Love Guns
  • Gillian White as Mossberg 500 Tammy Jo – Chicks Who Love Guns
  • Candice Briese as The Deputy
  • Gary Mann as The Deputy
  • Jeffrey Deedrick as The Sheriff
  • Roy Nesvold as The Sheriff
  • Herbert Hans Wilmsen as The Sheriff
  • Mary Ann Schmidt as Flight Attendant (uncredited)
  • Glendon Rich as Restaurant Regular (uncredited)
  • Denise Crosby as Public Defender (uncredited)
  • Quentin Tarantino as Answering Machine (voice) (uncredited)

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 3 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 2% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 102

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers
ScenesWomen's linesMen's lines
1 to 321
4 to 61575
7 to 9022
10 to 12058
13 to 15027
16 to 183418
19 to 2101
22 to 241659
25 to 271416
28 to 3094101
31 to 336355
34 to 363339
37 to 394755
40 to 42146
43 to 4533
46 to 48221
49 to 51224
52 to 541623
55 to 57446
58 to 604411
61 to 63100
64 to 66176
67 to 6916
70 to 72180
73 to 7551
76 to 781915
79 to 8147
82 to 8409
85 to 873674
88 to 90019
91 to 931413
94 to 96147
97 to 99014
100 to 1023030

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.
JACKIE: Beauty products. NICOLET: I'll count the money.
NICOLET: Oh, Miss Brown? JACKIE: Yeah? NICOLET: And what would this be, Sweet and Low? JACKIE: What the fuck is that shit?
JACKIE: I'm tellin' you, I don't know nothin' about that fuckin' shit. NICOLET: Well then, Miss Brown. Why don't you have a seat and tell us who might know something about this fuckin' shit.
NICOLET: Well just be a minute. JACKIE: Can I smoke?
NICOLET: Thanks for waiting, Jackie. Now tell me, what can we do for you? JACKIE: I need permission to leave the country so I keep my job. NICOLET: We can look into that. JACKIE: I need it tomorrow. If I don't show up for work tomorrow, I'm fired.

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 42 are women's.

618 lines from women, 842 from men.

  • Women
  • Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

20 women and 12 men in the cast. 8 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 155 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

  • First line by a woman
  • Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 40% of the words (6,802), men 60% (10,143). Women have 42% 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

Exhibit F: behind the camera

4 of the 10 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 27% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by
Quentin Tarantino (man)
Written by
Quentin Tarantino (man)
From the novel by
Elmore Leonard (man)
Produced by
Lawrence Bender (man)
Shot by
Guillermo Navarro (man)
Edited by
Sally Menke (woman)
Production design by
David Wasco (man)
Costumes by
Mary Claire Hannan (woman)
Cast by
Robyn M. Mitchell (woman), Jaki Brown (woman)

The crew, department by department

  • Other crew

    5 women, 21 men, 29 not listed

  • Sound

    5 women, 18 men, 19 not listed

  • Production

    6 women, 9 men, 17 not listed

  • Art

    1 women, 7 men, 16 not listed

  • Camera

    0 women, 9 men, 9 not listed

  • Costume & Make-Up

    8 women, 2 men, 6 not listed

  • Lighting

    0 women, 3 men, 6 not listed

  • Editing

    3 women, 2 men, 3 not listed

  • Women
  • Men
  • Gender not listed on TMDB

Exhibit G: how old the stars were

Women: 38 on average. Men: 44 on average. The top-billed cast, at the film's release.

Women

Bridget Fonda 33, LisaGay Hamilton 33, Pam Grier 48

Men

Chris Tucker 26, Michael Bowen 39, Tommy Lister Jr. 39, Michael Keaton 46, Samuel L. Jackson 49, Robert De Niro 54, Robert Forster 56

Exhibit H: the money

It made 6.2 times what it cost.

Budget
$12 million
Box office
$74.7 million

From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.

About this analysis

Our parser read the script: 102 scenes and 1,493 lines of dialogue. The bechdeltest.com rating comes from that site’s readers. How the test works

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