Fails the Bechdel test
The Siege
1998. Directed by Edward Zwick, written by Lawrence Wright and Menno Meyjes and Edward Zwick.
The Bechdel test
Bechdel score
1 / 3
Fails
-
Yes
1. At least two women
13 women characters. 9 of them speak. -
No
2. Who talk to each other
Our parser found no scene where two women talk to each other. -
No
3. About something besides a man
Not reached: the film fails an earlier rule.
Second opinion
Not rated bechdeltest.com readers haven't rated this film.
The film
After the abduction by the US military of an Islamic religious leader, New York City becomes the target of escalating terrorist attacks. Anthony Hubbard, the head of the FBI's Counter-Terrorism Task Force in New York, teams up with CIA operative Elise Kraft to hunt down the terrorist cells responsible for the attacks. As the bombings continue, the US government responds by declaring martial law, sending US troops, led by Gen. Devereaux, into the streets of New York City.
- Released
- 06 Nov 1998
- Genres
- Action, Thriller
- Rated
- R
- IMDb
- 6.4 / 10
- Metascore
- 53 / 100
- Awards
- 2 wins & 4 nominations total
- Elsewhere
- View on IMDb
Starring, by lines spoken
- Women
- Men
- Not in the cast list
- Bigger name, more lines
- Hub 342 lines, man
- Elise 217 lines, woman
- Frank 104 lines, man
- Devereaux 81 lines, man
- Samir 47 lines, man
- Chief Of Staff 31 lines, man
- Danny 19 lines, man
- Tina 18 lines, woman
- Col. Hardwick 9 lines, man
- Fred 9 lines, man
Full cast, 81 people
- Denzel Washington as Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard
- Annette Bening as Elise Kraft / Sharon Bridger
- Bruce Willis as Major-General William Devereaux
- Tony Shalhoub as Agent Frank Haddad
- Sami Bouajila as Samir Nazhde
- Aasif Mandvi as Khalil Saleh
- Mark Valley as FBI Agent Mike Johanssen
- Jack Gwaltney as Fred Darius
- David Proval as Danny Sussman
- Lance Reddick as FBI Agent Floyd Rose
- Wood Harris as Officer Henderson
- David Costabile as Fingerprint Expert
- Said Faraj as Sleeper terrorist
- Christian Chase as Prisoner
- Chip Zien as Chief of Staff
- Ahmed Ben Larby as Sheik Achmed Bin Talal
- Lianna Pai as Tina Osu
- Jacqueline Antaramian as Najiba Haddad
- Donna Hanover as District Attorney
- Dakin Matthews as Senator Wright
- John Rothman as Congressman Marshall
- John Henry Cox as Speaker of the House
- E. Katherine Kerr as Attorney General
- Jimmie Ray Weeks as Army General
- Will Lyman as FBI Director
- Victor Slezak as Colonel Hardwick
- Chris Messina as Corporal
- Susie Essman as Protest Speaker
- Arianna Huffington as Capitol Week Pundit
- Bill Clinton as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
- Diana Naftal as Injured Woman
- Ben Shenkman as Kaplan, INS
- Ray Godshall Sr. as CIA Director
- Gilbert Rosales as Mechanic
- Amro Salama as Tariq Husseini
- Jim Shankman as ACLU Lawyer
- Matt Servitto as Journalist #1
- Jourdan Fremin as Journalist #2
- Anjua Warfield-Maximo as March Organizer
- Jeff Beatty as Undercover FBI Agent
- Rory J. Aylward as Lieutenant
- Robert Scheer as Capitol Week Pundit
- Matt Miller as Capitol Week Pundit
- Ali Afshar as Ali
- John Beard as Newscaster (as John F. Beard)
- Stan Brooks as Newscaster
- Alex Chadwick as Newscaster
- Epi Colon as Newscaster
- Judy de Angelis as Newscaster
- Luis Jimenez as Newscaster
- Sean Hannity as Newscaster
- Ron Kuby as Newscaster
- Daniel Schorr as Newscaster
- Curtis Sliwa as Newscaster
- Susan Stamberg as Newscaster
- Mary Alice Williams as Newscaster
- Mike Akrawi as Terrorist (uncredited)
- Michael Arthur as Army Major (uncredited)
- Lisa Masters as Reporter #2 (uncredited)
- Robin Anne Phipps as Crying Girl on Monitor (uncredited)
- Valeria Von Leczycki Goncharova Barrett as Screaming Woman in Silver Gown (uncredited)
- William Hill as INS Uniform
- Craig Castaldo
- Neal Jones as NYPD Representative
- Mosleh Mohamed as Muezzin
- Jeremy Knaster as INS Official
- Frank DiElsi as Officer Williams
- Ellen Bethea as Anita
- Glenn Kessler as Fiber Expert
- Jeffrey Allan Waid as Video Agent
- Tom McDermott as Phone Bank Agent
- Sherry Ham-Bernard as Hubbard's Secretary
- Joseph Hodge as Landlord
- Joey Naber as Rashad
- Helmi Kassim as Frank Haddad Jr.
- Ghoulam R. Rasoully as Frank Jr.'s Teacher
- Joseph Badalucco Jr. as EMT
- Barton Tinapp as Mayoral A.A.
- Peter Schindler as Johnson, FAA
- Hany Kamal as Arab Spokesman
- Graham Larson as FBI Agent
Who talks, scene by scene
Lines of dialogue in every 1 scene, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 4% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.
Women
Men
Scene 1 Scene 14
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 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 to 2 | 0 | 5 |
| 3 to 3 | 9 | 37 |
| 4 to 4 | 13 | 24 |
| 5 to 5 | 48 | 174 |
| 6 to 6 | 90 | 204 |
| 7 to 7 | 2 | 32 |
| 8 to 8 | 13 | 21 |
| 9 to 9 | 17 | 52 |
| 10 to 10 | 0 | 18 |
| 11 to 11 | 8 | 48 |
| 12 to 12 | 29 | 55 |
| 13 to 13 | 23 | 32 |
| 14 to 14 | 0 | 19 |
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, 26 are women's.
252 lines from women, 721 from men.
- Women
- Men
Exhibit B: who's in it
13 women and 48 men in the cast. 9 women and 38 men from it get lines.
Characters
With lines
- Women
- Men
Exhibit C: who gets heard
The first woman speaks at line 11 of 1,012.
The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 51 lines.
Every line of dialogue, first to last
- First line by a woman
- Longest stretch with no woman speaking
Words spoken
Women speak 23% of the words (2,578), men 77% (8,563). Women have 26% of the lines, so their lines run shorter 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
0
Two men
66
Exhibit E: behind the camera
5 of the 13 people in these jobs are women.
Across the whole crew, 23% of the people whose gender is listed are women.
- Directed by
- Edward Zwick (man)
- Written by
- Lawrence Wright (man), Menno Meyjes (man), Edward Zwick (man)
- Produced by
- Edward Zwick (man), Lynda Obst (woman)
- Shot by
- Roger Deakins (man)
- Edited by
- Steven Rosenblum (man)
- Music by
- Graeme Revell (man)
- Production design by
- Lilly Kilvert (woman)
- Costumes by
- Ann Roth (woman)
- Cast by
- Mary Colquhoun (woman), Mary Goldberg (woman)
The crew, department by department
-
Other crew
8 women, 23 men, 14 not listed
-
Production
5 women, 8 men, 14 not listed
-
Art
4 women, 7 men, 7 not listed
-
Sound
0 women, 11 men, 7 not listed
-
Camera
0 women, 6 men, 7 not listed
-
Costume & Make-Up
4 women, 4 men, 4 not listed
-
Directing
1 women, 4 men, 2 not listed
-
Lighting
0 women, 3 men, 3 not listed
- Women
- Men
- Gender not listed on TMDB
Exhibit F: how old the stars were
Women: 40 on average. Men: 40 on average.
The top-billed cast, at the film's release.
Women
Annette Bening 40
Men
Sami Bouajila 32, Aasif Mandvi 32, Mark Valley 33, Lance Reddick 36, Jack Gwaltney 38, Denzel Washington 43, Bruce Willis 43, Tony Shalhoub 45, David Proval 56
Exhibit G: the money
It made 1.7 times what it cost.
- Budget
- $70 million
- Box office
- $117 million
From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.
About this analysis
Our parser read the script: 14 scenes and 1,012 lines of dialogue. How the test works
