LGBTQ media advocacy organization GLAAD has released the 2026 edition of its annual film study, newly rebranded as Where We Are in Film (previously the Studio Responsibility Index), and the picture it paints is bleak. Of the 225 films released in 2025 by the ten major distributors GLAAD tracks — A24, Amazon MGM Studios, Apple TV, Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount Skydance, Sony, The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery — only 46 included LGBTQ characters. That is 20.4 percent, down from 23.6 percent in 2024 and a fall of eight percentage points from the record high of 28.5 percent set just three years ago.
The number of LGBTQ characters dropped even more sharply: GLAAD counted 112 across the year's inclusive films, down from 181 the year before. And for the first time since the study expanded to include streaming releases, not a single one of them was transgender. Zero trans characters, in 225 films, from ten of the biggest film companies in the world.
"Given the current attacks on the trans community, it is extremely disappointing that studios have either released films that cause harm to the transgender community or excluded trans characters entirely," the report states, calling the exclusion "unconscionable" at a moment when politicians and anti-LGBTQ activists are targeting trans people through misinformation, legislation and violence.
Queer Characters of Color Hit a Nine-Edition Low
The decline is not spread evenly. Representation of LGBTQ people of color dropped to 30 percent of all queer characters — down six points from last year and the lowest share GLAAD has counted in nine editions of the study. Films like Hedda, After the Hunt and The Parenting put LGBTQ people of color in leading roles, but the report calls these "definitively an exception rather than the norm."
Queer characters were also pushed to the margins of their own stories. Under a new methodology that classifies narrative significance rather than screentime, only 16 percent of LGBTQ characters were leads, while 60 percent were merely supporting or background characters. Bisexual+ characters made up just 10 percent of the total, and only four LGBTQ characters had a disability.
There was one notable return: after two years of complete invisibility, characters living with HIV appeared again in a major studio release. Lionsgate's Fairyland, a father-daughter story set in 1970s and 80s San Francisco, features an openly gay father who is diagnosed with HIV — a portrayal GLAAD praises as told "with care, complexity, and humanity."
Zero Queer Characters in Animated and Family Films
Genre by genre, the findings are just as telling. Drama was the most inclusive genre (20 of 72 films), but animated and family films included no LGBTQ characters at all — not one, across 19 releases. GLAAD points out that 23 percent of American adults under 30 are LGBTQ and an estimated 5 million children in the US are being raised by LGBTQ parents: "If studios continue to reject reality — that LGBTQ young people and families exist — they are leaving money on the table."
Horror, of all places, was the bright spot. Sony's I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot made one of its final girls bisexual, Warner Bros.' The Parenting put a gay couple at the center of a haunted-house comedy, and Companion and Weapons both featured gay couples while earning back more than three times their production budgets. In fact, every theatrically released LGBTQ-inclusive horror film in the study with public budget information made back over double its budget at the box office.
Franchises, meanwhile, are quietly retreating. There were no LGBTQ characters in any Marvel or DC film in 2025. Netflix's Fear Street: Prom Queen dropped the queer storylines that defined the original trilogy, and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery made no mention of Benoit Blanc's male partner, who had been revealed in the previous film.
Warner Bros. Discovery Leads, Lionsgate and Paramount Trail
Among the ten distributors, Warner Bros. Discovery scored the highest share of inclusive films at 36 percent, followed by A24 at 29 percent and Amazon MGM Studios and Netflix at 25 percent each. All nine of Netflix's inclusive films passed GLAAD's Vito Russo Test — a Bechdel-style baseline measuring whether a queer character actually matters to the plot — though the streamer released no film with a queer lead. Sony released five films with LGBTQ leads, the most of any distributor, including the Oscar-nominated Blue Moon, the 1950s romance On Swift Horses and its blockbuster I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot. At the bottom, Lionsgate and Paramount Skydance each managed just 9 percent, with Paramount's entire slate containing a single inclusive title, The Running Man.
Overall, 78 percent of the year's inclusive films passed the Vito Russo Test — the highest pass rate in four years, suggesting that when queer characters do make it to screen, they are written with more substance. The problem is that fewer and fewer make it there at all.
"LGBTQ Stories Are Good for Business — Period"
GLAAD situates the decline squarely in the current political climate in the United States, pointing to escalating censorship efforts — including a recent FCC inquiry into whether TV ratings should "warn" audiences about LGBTQ families and trans characters. But its core argument to studios is commercial, not just moral.
"LGBTQ stories are good for business — period," writes GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. "While this administration and its retaliatory arms have spent the past two years leveraging legal rulings and political pressure to discourage diverse and inclusive storytelling, these efforts are in direct opposition to reality."
The report cites an estimated $1.4 trillion in LGBTQ purchasing power in the US alone, and notes that 64 percent of all American adults are either LGBTQ or active supporters of the community. Television, GLAAD argues, is proving the point — pointing to queer hits like Heated Rivalry dominating global demand charts. "Film is leaving money on the table by not following their example."
Outside the ten majors, independent distributors picked up the slack in 2025 with acclaimed titles like The Wedding Banquet, Plainclothes, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Ponyboi and the GLAAD Media Award-nominated Dutch film Young Hearts. And 2026 has already brought some course correction from the majors, with Focus Features' Girls Like Girls and A24's gay biker romance Pillion in cinemas, and Netflix's Heartstopper Forever premiering this July.
Still, GLAAD's conclusion is pointed: passing the minimum bar of representation "is a first step, rather than the finish line" — and right now, Hollywood is walking backwards. The full 2026 Where We Are in Film report is available at glaad.org.
