The Bechdel Test for Ethnicity

How beige is your favourite film?

We watched the entire IMDb Top 250. We've got some notes.

IMDb Top 250

sorted by

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The Kid
Sherlock Jr.
The Gold Rush
The General
Metropolis
The Passion of Joan of Arc
City Lights
M
It Happened One Night
Modern Times
Gone with the Wind
The Wizard of Oz
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Rebecca
The Grapes of Wrath
The Great Dictator
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
To Be or Not to Be
Double Indemnity
The Best Years of Our Lives
It's a Wonderful Life
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Bicycle Thieves
The Third Man
Rashomon
All About Eve
Sunset Blvd.
Singin' in the Rain
Ikiru
The Wages of Fear
Tokyo Story
Seven Samurai
On the Waterfront
Rear Window
Dial M for Murder
Pather Panchali
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Wild Strawberries
Witness for the Prosecution
Paths of Glory
12 Angry Men
The Seventh Seal
Vertigo
Ben-Hur
The 400 Blows
Some Like It Hot
North by Northwest
Psycho
The Apartment
Yojimbo
Judgment at Nuremberg
Hara-Kiri
To Kill a Mockingbird
Lawrence of Arabia
High and Low
The Great Escape
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
For a Few Dollars More
The Sound of Music
The Battle of Algiers
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Persona
Cool Hand Luke
2001: A Space Odyssey
Once Upon a Time in the West
A Clockwork Orange
The Godfather
The Sting
The Exorcist
Chinatown
The Godfather: Part II
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Barry Lyndon
Jaws
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Dersu Uzala
Taxi Driver
Rocky
Network
Star Wars
The Deer Hunter
Apocalypse Now
Alien
Life of Brian
The Elephant Man
The Shining
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back
Raging Bull
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Boat
The Thing
Gandhi
Blade Runner
Scarface
Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi
Amadeus
The Terminator
Once Upon a Time in America
Come and See
Back to the Future
Ran
Stand by Me
Aliens
Platoon
Full Metal Jacket
Cinema Paradiso
Grave of the Fireflies
Die Hard
My Neighbor Totoro
Dead Poets Society
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Dances with Wolves
Goodfellas
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
The Silence of the Lambs
Beauty and the Beast
Unforgiven
Reservoir Dogs
Aladdin
In the Name of the Father
Groundhog Day
Schindler's List
Jurassic Park
The Shawshank Redemption
Pulp Fiction
The Lion King
Forrest Gump
Léon: The Professional
The Usual Suspects
Before Sunrise
Casino
Toy Story
La Haine
Heat
Braveheart
Se7en
Trainspotting
Fargo
Princess Mononoke
Good Will Hunting
Children of Heaven
Life Is Beautiful
L.A. Confidential
American History X
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
The Big Lebowski
Saving Private Ryan
The Truman Show
Fight Club
The Matrix
The Sixth Sense
The Green Mile
American Beauty
Amores perros
Snatch
Memento
Requiem for a Dream
Gladiator
Monsters, Inc.
A Beautiful Mind
Amélie
Spirited Away
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Catch Me If You Can
City of God
The Pianist
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Oldboy
Finding Nemo
Memories of Murder
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Hotel Rwanda
Downfall
Howl's Moving Castle
Before Sunset
The Incredibles
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Million Dollar Baby
V for Vendetta
My Father and My Son
Batman Begins
The Departed
The Prestige
Pan's Labyrinth
The Lives of Others
Into the Wild
Ratatouille
Like Stars on Earth
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
WALL·E
Gran Torino
The Dark Knight
The Secret in Their Eyes
3 Idiots
Mary and Max
Inglourious Basterds
Up
Hachi: A Dog's Tale
Shutter Island
Inception
Toy Story 3
Incendies
How to Train Your Dragon
Warrior
A Separation
The Help
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Intouchables
The Hunt
Django Unchained
The Dark Knight Rises
Rush
The Wolf of Wall Street
12 Years a Slave
Prisoners
Wild Tales
Whiplash
Interstellar
Gone Girl
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Room
Spotlight
Mad Max: Fury Road
Inside Out
Your Name.
Dangal
The Handmaiden
Hacksaw Ridge
Coco
Logan
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Avengers: Infinity War
Green Book
Capernaum
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Parasite
Joker
1917
Ford v Ferrari
Avengers: Endgame
Hamilton
The Father
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Jai Bhim
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Top Gun: Maverick

1921

2022

12 Years a Slave

Dir. Steve McQueen (2013, IMDb #183)

12 Years a Slave poster
Buy itStream it

Uh oh here we go.

12 Years a Slave may well be one of the top five beigest Hollywood movies on record, but according to the folks in marketing, it’s the white part that sells: Promotional posters in Italy focused on highlighting Michael Fassbender (Edwin Epps) and Brad Pitt (Bass), with the film’s Black lead Chiwetel Ejiofor (Solomon Northup) minimised in the image, and co-lead Lupita Nyong’o (Patsey) nowhere in sight.

The Beige Index – 12 Years a Slave

SCORE: DOWN TO BROWN

Cast

Film Details

Budget

20m USD

Gross

187.7m USD

IMDb User Score

8.1

Metacritic

96%

Synopsis

In the antebellum United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery.

Major Wins and Nominations

239 wins and an additional 337 nominations (approximate).

71%

of the Top 250's credited cast lands in the palest band of the beige scale.

We counted every credited actor across all 250 films — then watched 500+ hours so you don't have to.

The beige-o-meter

Each credited cast member is coded 1–5. Averaged across the cast, a film lands somewhere on this scale.

1CREAMY
2BEIGE FEVER
3MIDDLEBEIGE
4DOWN TO BROWN
5WELCOME TO BEIGEWATCH

The Oscars, but beige

How diverse were the 2023 Best Picture nominees?

The Whitewash

The award-winning novel by co-creator Siang Lu.

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