Passes the Bechdel test

Splice

Name: Splice
Released: 2010

2010. Directed by Vincenzo Natali, written by Vincenzo Natali and Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

Yes 1. At least two women
4 women characters. 3 of them speak.
Yes 2. Who talk to each other
In 5 scenes out of 133.
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

Two young rebellious scientists are told by their employers to halt groundbreaking work that has seen them produce new creatures with medical benefits by splicing together multiple organisms' DNA. They decide to secretly continue their work, but this time splicing in human DNA.

Released: 04 Jun 2010
Genres: Horror, Sci-Fi
Rated: R
IMDb: 5.8 / 10
Metascore: 66 / 100
Awards: 4 wins & 23 nominations total
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

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

Elsa 344 lines, woman
Clive 311 lines, man
Barlow 47 lines, man
Dexter 37 lines, man
Joan 25 lines, woman
Melinda 3 lines
Yuji 3 lines
Bald Man 2 lines, man
A New Day 1 lines
Assistant 1 lines

Full cast, 8 people

Adrien Brody as Clive Nicoli
Sarah Polley as Elsa Kast
Delphine Chanéac as Dren
Brandon McGibbon as Gavin Nicoli
Simona Măicănescu as Joan Chorot
David Hewlett as William Barlow
Abigail Chu as Child Dren
Doug Hicton as Lab tech (uncredited)

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 3 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 1% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 133

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 3	5	7
4 to 6	1	1
7 to 9	4	3
10 to 12	18	21
13 to 15	15	18
16 to 18	2	2
19 to 21	3	2
22 to 24	12	14
25 to 27	1	7
28 to 30	6	7
31 to 33	10	14
34 to 36	2	1
37 to 39	12	14
40 to 42	18	12
43 to 45	11	10
46 to 48	3	13
49 to 51	8	15
52 to 54	0	3
55 to 57	10	5
58 to 60	33	36
61 to 63	7	14
64 to 66	28	20
67 to 69	25	8
70 to 72	5	11
73 to 75	12	5
76 to 78	7	4
79 to 81	1	1
82 to 84	0	7
85 to 87	13	7
88 to 90	7	7
91 to 93	5	25
94 to 96	12	0
97 to 99	0	11
100 to 102	12	7
103 to 105	9	7
106 to 108	0	0
109 to 111	5	6
112 to 114	1	5
115 to 117	21	18
118 to 120	0	1
121 to 123	10	21
124 to 126	3	3
127 to 129	5	4
130 to 132	2	0
133 to 133	6	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.

ELSA: But what about our proposal? JOAN: Very impressive. But it sounds like a longterm goal. That is not what Novaphorm needs at this time. ELSA: Proceeding to human splicing was always part of our plan. It's what we signed on for.

ELSA: What's the worst that could happen? JOAN: Here is a couple... each so unlike anything we've seen before...

JOAN: It's a fucking disaster! ELSA: They've never exhibited aggression in the past... JOAN: Well, they did tonight. Why? JOAN: What HAPPENED?

ELSA: Hormonal changes. JOAN: Hormonal changes? ELSA: She turned into a male.

JOAN: So your first surviving, living hybrid changes sex... And you didn't notice? How is that possible? ELSA: We can recreate them. There's no reason not to start over. JOAN: No more monsters! JOAN: We don't have time for that. We need the gene that produces CD-356. And we need it immediately.

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 48 are women's.

370 lines from women, 397 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

4 women and 3 men in the cast. 3 women and 2 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit D: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 2 of 776. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 19 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

First line by a woman
Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 49% of the words (3,029), men 51% (3,110). Women have 48% 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

5 of the 16 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 26% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: Vincenzo Natali (man)
Written by: Antoinette Terry Bryant (woman), Vincenzo Natali (man), Doug Taylor (gender not listed)
Story by: Antoinette Terry Bryant (woman), Vincenzo Natali (man)
Produced by: Steven Hoban (man)
Shot by: Tetsuo Nagata (man)
Edited by: Michele Conroy (woman)
Music by: Cyrille Aufort (man)
Production design by: Todd Cherniawsky (man)
Costumes by: Alex Kavanagh (woman)
Cast by: John Buchan (man), Jason Knight (man), Constance Demontoy (woman), John Papsidera (man)