Passes the Bechdel test

Lion

Name: Lion
Released: 2017

2017. Directed by Garth Davis, written by Saroo Brierley and Luke Davies.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

Yes 1. At least two women
11 women characters. 8 of them speak.
Yes 2. Who talk to each other
In 5 scenes out of 238.
Yes 3. About something besides a man
In those scenes, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.

Second opinion

Disagree bechdeltest.com readers give it 2 out of 3.

The film

In 1986, Saroo was a five-year-old child in India of a poor but happy rural family. On a trip with his brother, Saroo soon finds himself alone and trapped in a moving decommissioned passenger train that takes him to Calcutta, 1000 miles away from home. Now totally lost in an alien urban environment and too young to identify either himself or his home to the authorities, Saroo struggles to survive as a street child until he is sent to an orphanage. Soon, Saroo is selected to be adopted by the Brierley family in Tasmania, where he grows up in a loving, prosperous home. However, for all his material good fortune, Saroo finds himself plagued by his memories of his lost family in his adulthood and tries to search for them even as his guilt drives him to hide this quest from his adoptive parents and his girlfriend. Only when he has an epiphany does he realize not only the answers he needs, but also the steadfast love that he has always had with all his loved ones in both worlds.

Released: 06 Jan 2017
Genres: Biography, Drama
Rated: PG-13
IMDb: 8 / 10
Metascore: 69 / 100
Awards: Nominated for 6 Oscars. 59 wins & 110 nominations total
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

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

Saroo 220 lines, man
Lucy 69 lines, woman
Sue 56 lines, woman
John 34 lines, man
Mantosh 33 lines, man
Guddu 25 lines, man
Kamla 25 lines, woman
Mrs Sood 20 lines, woman
Noor 17 lines, woman
Rama 15 lines, man

Full cast, 36 people

Dev Patel as Saroo Brierley
Rooney Mara as Lucy
David Wenham as John Brierley
Nicole Kidman as Sue Brierley
Sunny Pawar as Young Saroo
Abhishek Bharate as Guddu
Priyanka Bose as Kamla Munshi
Divian Ladwa as Mantosh Brierley
Deepti Naval as Saroj Sood
Tannishtha Chatterjee as Noor
Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Rama
Keshav Jadhav as Young Mantosh
Arka Das as Sami
Pallavi Sharda as Prama
Sachin Joab as Bharat
Menik Gooneratne as Swarmina
Emilie Cocquerel as Annika
Eamon Farren as Luke
Rohini Kargaiya as Shekila
Benjamin Rigby as Waiter
Kaushik Sen as Police Official
Riddhi Sen as Cafe Man
Anna Samson as Cute Bar Maid
Tegan Crowley as Workmate #1
Belinda Misevski as Lucy's Friend
Lucy Moir as Lucy's Friend
Khushi Solanki as Young Shekila
Shankar Nisode as Shankar
Rita Roy as Amita
Uday Shankar Paul as Liluah Teacher
Surojit Das as Shondeep / Haunted Boy
Todd Sampson as Provost
Daniela Farinacci as Tutor
Vinod Chauhan as Merchant
Babli Pandey as Woman with Baby
Madhukar Narlwade as English-speaking Man

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 5 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 238

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	1
6 to 10	0	3
11 to 15	1	11
16 to 20	0	14
21 to 25	0	4
26 to 30	0	1
31 to 35	1	6
36 to 40	1	7
41 to 45	0	0
46 to 50	0	0
51 to 55	13	6
56 to 60	4	24
61 to 65	0	0
66 to 70	4	4
71 to 75	0	6
76 to 80	0	1
81 to 85	18	8
86 to 90	4	3
91 to 95	3	3
96 to 100	8	5
101 to 105	1	11
106 to 110	10	27
111 to 115	0	3
116 to 120	25	19
121 to 125	17	38
126 to 130	0	7
131 to 135	3	9
136 to 140	4	12
141 to 145	1	5
146 to 150	13	10
151 to 155	20	28
156 to 160	19	13
161 to 165	2	3
166 to 170	0	1
171 to 175	1	1
176 to 180	7	9
181 to 185	2	1
186 to 190	0	1
191 to 195	15	15
196 to 200	4	4
201 to 205	0	26
206 to 210	0	4
211 to 215	0	3
216 to 220	0	6
221 to 225	4	7
226 to 230	0	1
231 to 235	5	27
236 to 238	0	0

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.

LUCY: - so I saw first-hand how the hospitality industry brings infrastructure to communities that really need it. But I also saw the problems tha… LUCY: Not try to prevent progress, but convince developers there are benefits to being sustainable and community oriented. TUTOR: Why not think big? LUCY: Absolutely. In return, the labour force would be more consistent and better trained and more motivated. Win-win.

PRAMA: Hi! Come in, come in - LUCY: Wow, something smells amazing!

LUCY: Okay, I say flashlight - - you say - ANNIKA: Lampe de poche. LUCY: You say -

ANNIKA: Taxi. LUCY: See? It’s the same in every language.

PRAMA: You must have been freaking. Howrah Station’s enormous! I went through on pilgrimage to Puri - I missed my connection twice. LUCY: And you couldn’t speak Bengali?

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 35 are women's.

210 lines from women, 398 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

11 women and 14 men in the cast. 8 women and 13 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit D: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 11 of 669. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 45 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 (1,802), men 60% (2,687). Women have 35% of the lines, so their lines run longer 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

3 of the 13 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 27% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: Garth Davis (man)
Written by: Luke Davies (man)
Produced by: Iain Canning (man), Angie Fielder (gender not listed), Emile Sherman (man)
Shot by: Greig Fraser (man)
Edited by: Alexandre de Franceschi (man)
Music by: Volker Bertelmann (man), Dustin O'Halloran (man)
Production design by: Chris Kennedy (man)
Costumes by: Cappi Ireland (woman)
Cast by: Kirsty McGregor (woman), Tess Joseph (woman)