Passes the Bechdel test

The Theory of Everything

Name: The Theory of Everything
Released: 2014

2014. Directed by James Marsh, written by Anthony McCarten and Jane Hawking.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

Yes 1. At least two women
14 women characters. 7 of them speak.
Yes 2. Who talk to each other
In 2 scenes out of 143.
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, though someone marked that rating as dubious.

The film

The Theory of Everything is the story of the most brilliant and celebrated physicist of our time, Stephen Hawking, and Jane Wilde, the arts student he fell in love with while studying at Cambridge in the 1960s. Little was expected from Hawking, a bright but shiftless student of cosmology, after he was given just two years to live following the diagnosis of a fatal illness (ALS) at 21 years of age. He became galvanized, however, by the love Jane Wilde, and went on to be called the "successor to Einstein," as well as a husband and father to their three children. Over the course of their marriage, however, as Stephen's body collapsed and his academic renown soared, fault lines were exposed that tested the resolve of their relationship and dramatically altered the course of both of their lives.

Released: 26 Nov 2014
Genres: Biography, Drama, Romance
Rated: PG-13
IMDb: 7.7 / 10
Metascore: 71 / 100
Awards: Won 1 Oscar. 26 wins & 128 nominations total
Elsewhere: View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

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

Jane 258 lines, woman
Stephen 250 lines, man
Jonathan 70 lines, man
Sciama 63 lines, man
Brian 62 lines, man
Elaine 20 lines, woman
Beryl 19 lines, woman
Frank Hawking 10 lines, man
Isobel 8 lines, woman
Diana 6 lines, woman

Full cast, 48 people

Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking
Felicity Jones as Jane Hawking
Charlie Cox as Jonathan Hellyer Jones
Emily Watson as Beryl Wilde
Simon McBurney as Frank Hawking
David Thewlis as Dennis Sciama
Maxine Peake as Elaine Mason
Harry Lloyd as Brian
Tom Prior as Robert Hawking (Age 17)
Sophie Perry as Lucy Hawking (Age 14)
Finlay Wright-Stephens as Timothy Hawking (Age 8)
Alice Orr-Ewing as Diana King
Thomas Morrison as Carter
Michael Marcus as Ellis
Gruffudd Glyn as Rees
Paul Longley as Barman - Rowing Club
Guy Oliver-Watts as George Wilde
Lucy Chappell as Mary Hawking
Charlotte Hope as Philippa Hawking
Abigail Cruttenden as Isobel Hawking
Nicholas Gerard-Martin as Physicist #1
Brett Brown as Physicist #2
Anthony Skrimshire as Physicist #3
Christian McKay as Roger Penrose
Adam Godley as Senior Doctor - Cambridge Hospital
Nicola Sloane as Bedder
Lottie Hamilton as Robert Hawking (New Born)
Enzo Cilenti as Kip Thorne
Rufus Taylor as Robert Hawking (Age 2)
Delilah Sexton as Lucy Hawking (New Born)
Eileen Davies as Eileen Bond
Simon Chandler as John Taylor
Georg Nikoloff as Khalatnikov
Oliver Payne as Robert Hawking (Age 8)
Raffiella Chapman as Lucy Hawking (Age 6)
Sam Houston as Timothy Hawking (Baby)
Victoria Emslie as Sarah (Geneva Student)
Frank Lebœuf as Swiss Doctor
Will Barton as Technician
Lucy Challenger as Female Fan
Nicola Victoria Buck as Cockcroft Guest #2
Stuart Benson as Cockcroft Guest #3
Andrew Bridgmont as Cockcroft Guest #5
Jamie Edwards as Cockcroft Guest #4
Jumaane Brown as Cockcroft Guest #1
Becky Bush as Undergraduate (uncredited)
Jon Wennington as Journalist (uncredited)
Cynthia Garbutt as Journalist (uncredited)

Who talks, scene by scene

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

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 143

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	0	3
4 to 6	20	52
7 to 9	5	34
10 to 12	0	12
13 to 15	13	18
16 to 18	9	7
19 to 21	12	10
22 to 24	0	7
25 to 27	4	18
28 to 30	0	12
31 to 33	4	17
34 to 36	2	0
37 to 39	15	10
40 to 42	11	12
43 to 45	2	1
46 to 48	2	3
49 to 51	3	26
52 to 54	0	3
55 to 57	5	3
58 to 60	5	14
61 to 63	0	13
64 to 66	2	28
67 to 69	6	1
70 to 72	7	4
73 to 75	2	3
76 to 78	0	11
79 to 81	23	10
82 to 84	10	10
85 to 87	24	42
88 to 90	6	9
91 to 93	10	6
94 to 96	20	23
97 to 99	4	2
100 to 102	2	0
103 to 105	1	2
106 to 108	7	7
109 to 111	1	0
112 to 114	3	3
115 to 117	15	1
118 to 120	6	14
121 to 123	8	12
124 to 126	0	1
127 to 129	16	13
130 to 132	22	0
133 to 135	1	0
136 to 138	2	14
139 to 141	2	1
142 to 143	7	1

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.

JANE: picks up pieces of a BROKEN POTTED PLANT, dirt spilled over the carpet, then violently VACUUMES as BERYL comes in with a tea-tray. BERYL: Jane--Jane? Jane? Jane! STOP! JANE: keeps VACUUMING. BERYL pulls the PLUG on the VACUUM CLEANER. JANE stares at her Mum. BERYL: Sit down. Sit.

ELAINE: enters - JANE: Better than one a minute.

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 39 are women's.

319 lines from women, 493 from men.

Women
Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

14 women and 23 men in the cast. 7 women and 19 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

Women
Men

Exhibit D: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 11 of 833. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 53 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

First line by a woman
Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 36% of the words (4,384), men 64% (7,884). Women have 39% 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

Two women

Two men

Exhibit F: behind the camera

2 of the 12 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 35% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by: James Marsh (man)
Written by: Anthony McCarten (man)
Produced by: Eric Fellner (man), Lisa Bruce (woman), Anthony McCarten (man), Tim Bevan (man)
Shot by: Benoît Delhomme (man)
Edited by: Jinx Godfrey (man)
Music by: Jóhann Jóhannsson (man)
Production design by: John Paul Kelly (man)
Costumes by: Stephen Noble (man)
Cast by: Nina Gold (woman)