Aladdin has only Jasmine. Aladdin's mother was originally in the film, but got cut. The protagonist (Aladdin), main villain (Jafar), best friend/mentor (Genie), and sidekicks (Abu and Carpet) or henchman (Iago) are all male. The Sultan rounds out the cast of male characters. Female characters do populate the world so this is arguably faithfully reflecting the kind of world where power games are played out between men and Jasmine's story would revolve around the necessity of her finding a man to marry. It still doesn't solve the diversity/representation issue but it's somewhat logical.
The Bad Guys: Of the titular five-member criminal gang, the sole female member is Ms. Tarantula. This also makes her a Gender Flip of her male book counterpart; this was done because while later books in the series introduced more female characters to balance out the genders, the first four books that the film covers did not. The film also has more prominent female characters outside the gang, including Governor Diane Foxington, Police Chief Misty Luggins, and news reporter Tiffany Fluffit.
In The Book of Life, Manolo's Grandmother is the only female Sanchez bullfighter.
In Ice Age: The Meltdown, Ellie is the only female member of the group. It's Lampshaded in this exchange:
Crash: We'll have to repopulate the earth!
Eddie: How? Everyone here's either a dude or our sister.
Megamind has a single Brainbot out of hundreds with a pink frill and lipstick. The DVD commentary states that she was an Invoked Trope, and considered "the Smurfette of the Brainbots".
Mulan: During most of the film, Mulan is with the Chinese Army, which wouldn't accept females at the time. (Which is why she has to disguise herself as a man.) However, the film does have fairly consistent supporting character with Cri-Kee the cricket; while officially male, his gender is never stated and is not particularly apparent, which (coupled with the lack of female characters) can easily trick viewers into thinking he is female.
7 is the only female ragdoll in 9. There are a total of nine dolls, and the twins 3 and 4 never talk, so their gender is ambiguous. Justified; they all seem to stem from the Scientist's soul, so odds of his soul containing a lot of feminine qualities are very low.
For all the praise they have received, one major complaint about Pixar is the lack of films that have a notable number of prominent female characters:
Toy Story's main cast includes a young boy's toy collection, with predictably male-oriented rather than girls' toys. Bo Peep was the only female in the cast, a domestic woman and Satellite Love Interest with no part in the main action. It's hinted that the sequels would add more female characters at the end by having Mr. Potato Head wishing for a Mrs. Potato Head to be opened. Of course, the sequels, while still having mostly male characters, replace Bo with Jessie and Barbie.
Cars: The first two films add more than one female to the main cast, but in this world of racing, the principle is still enforced. Somewhat justified since the Piston Cup is analogous to NASCAR, which has been a male-dominant sport for decades. (While there have been women drivers like Janet Guthrie and Danica Patrick, they've never lasted long enough to make major impacts).
In the sequel, Carla Veloso, the Brazilian racecar, is the only female competing in the World Grand Prix.
Cars 3 is a deliberate attempt to push against this, with them both noticing how guy-heavy the series has been and Pixar developing a new software to help with gender balance in their scripts starting with this film. The second most important character is woman racecar trainer and enthusiast Cruz Ramirez, and more of the prominent new cast of cars being women than not, including Natalie Certain, the school bus Mrs. Fritter and a number of old legend racecars.
There is only one female rat in the film, who speaks to Remy at the end. Remy's family consists of a father and a brother. Plus thousands of additional colony rats.
This is the premise of Alien³, where Ripley is stranded on a penal colony planet populated solely by men. The only other female character in the film is Newt, who only briefly appears in suspended animationand later as a corpse.
In Big Game, the unnamed woman in National Security Vault (referred to as chief of CIA in the closing credits) is the only female being in the entire film, which otherwise uses a large cast of actors.
Bimbos in Time inverts this by having only one male character in the hero team (referred to as "the male Bimbo"); indeed, the only other male character with a major role in the story is the villain.
In Brassed Off, Gloria is the only female member of the band.
Cargo (2013): Thoomi's mother Josie is the only female member of the group of Aboriginal zombie-hunters.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the 2005 adaptation of the novel. While hundreds of Oompa-Loompas are seen in the film only one is depicted as female. This is in contrast to the book, whose Greek Chorus of Oompa-Loompas clearly has multiple females.
Centurion shows the Pict army with one female, the archer Aeron. Subverted when the female with the Romans is revealed to be a mole for the Picts, and their Dragon-in-Chief to boot.
Wonder Woman in Justice League is the only female member of the six-person superhero team.
In addition to Diana being the only Justice League member, Zack Snyder's Justice League reveals that Mera is the only female JL member in the Knightmare timeline, as both Diana and Harley Quinn (who is implied to have switched sides) have both died.
Miss Wick from Doctor in Distress (1963) is the only female medical student at Hampden Cross Hospital.
In Down Periscope there's one female officer in the sub crew. It is the source of some cheesy jokes in the first half of the movie. Justified in that, at the time the film was made, the U.S. Navy had only recently begun to introduce women into front-line service, particularly in the submarine fleet. It was both less common before, and more common after the film.
In Ernest Goes to Camp, Nurse St. Cloud is the only female at Camp Kikakee. Justified in that it is a boys' camp.
Euro Trip: Jenny is the one girl in the main foursome. Cooper even says he thinks of her as a guy at first as she always hangs out with them.
In Fight Club, Marla Singer is the only major female character — Fight Club itself is entirely male, with an unknown number of members across the country. On the commentary track, Helena Bonham Carter talks about how she was glad when the support group scenes were being filmed because it was effectively the only time there were other women on set.
Five: Of the five survivors of the Depopulation Bomb that wipes out the rest of humanity, Roseanne is the only female.
Ford v Ferrari features a male-dominated cast as it is set in the 1960s era of motor racing, which is a male-dominated profession. The only two notable female characters are Mollie Miles, Ken's wife, and the Ferrari translator.
Galaxy Quest parodies Star Trek: The Original Series by having only a single female character on the show, whose actress was constantly annoyed that her only roles on the show were Fanservice and repeating the computer. At the end, when the show is revived, Laliari joins the cast, moving the In-Universe series to Two Girls to a Team.
Janine in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II is the only female character working for the five-member company, as secretary.
This gets inverted in the reboot Ghostbusters (2016) as the genders are swapped, so the receptionist Kevin Beckman is The One Guy.
The Hobbit trilogy were adapted from a book that features zero women, and only mentions one in passing (Bilbo's mother). Peter Jackson consciously wanted to avert this trope, so he pre-planned women from the beginning by using materials from the appendixes to The Lord of the Rings. An Unexpected Journey features Galadriel as the film's sole woman with a role. The next two films add an Affirmative Action Girl: Tauriel, a Canon Foreigner, so there will be at least one woman who takes part in the fighting (as Galadriel stays out of the action until The Battle of the Five Armies).
In Immortals, Athena is the only female god out of the six seen in the film.
Gina is the only woman among the eight thieves Jack recruits in The Immortals.
Inception has a crew of around six guys and one girl. There is one other important female character, but for most of the film, she's a projection of the main (male) character's subconscious.
Jack the Giant Slayer: Princess Isabelle and the Queen are the only two females in the whole film, which has plenty of actors otherwise. Unfortunately, the Queen dies early on, making Isabella the only major female character.
In Kingsman: The Secret Service, though initially two of the nine candidates recruited for the intelligence agency are women, one of them is disposed of on the first night of training, leaving Roxy as the Smurfette for the majority of the film.
Late Night (2019): Molly is hired as the only female (and only non-white) writer on the Katherine Newbury Show. Her boss Katherine is the only woman in late night TV.
In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Mina Harker is the lone female in an otherwise all-male league of seven. In the movie it's made clear early on that she's a vampire who can kick all the other League members' collective asses. Alan Moore said he titled it "Gentlemen" to reflect the sexist tendencies of Victorian times.
Mad Max: Fury Road: While not an example for the film as a whole, Furiosa is notably the only woman who is a member of the fighting forces of any of the warlords. The fact that, before her betrayal is revealed, she is one of the highest ranked and most universally respected members of Joe's army (with her underlings never even questioning her bizarre decisions) is used to communicate both her incredible combat prowess and the likely extra awful things she had to do to climb her way to the top of such a misogynistic culture.
The Avengers hosts a primary ensemble of eight characters, with Black Widow acting as the lone female of the team. Supporting female cast members were included to improve the gender demographics. Joss Whedon himself was not happy, as he'd initially wanted The Wasp to be part of the team as well. He introduced Scarlet Witch to the sequel, Avengers: Age of Ultron, partially for this reason.
Captain America: The First Avenger has only Agent Carter for female protagonists. Supporting cast membership includes some females, to even out the story disparity. Carter's own spin-off averts this.
Captain America: Civil War shows this, as each side of the conflict has exactly one female member - Scarlet Witch for the Anti-Accords and Black Widow for the Pro-Accords. The above-mentioned Wasp was planned to appear as part of the Anti-Accord side, but ended up being cut between concerns over cast bloat and Evangeline Lilly being pregnant. Additionally the group of other Winter Soldiers has just one female in the group of five.
The Marvel Universe LIVE! stage show (inspired by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but not canon with it) added The Falcon and Captain Marvel to The Avengers to help offset the racial and gender disparity.
Guardians of the Galaxy has exactly one female teammate (Gamora), and her sister (Nebula) works for the antagonists.
Thor and sequel Thor: The Dark World have a team of the prince(s) and "Lady Sif and her warriors three", implying that Thor, Loki, and Sif are the only ones who rate a name to strangers. The first film put some emphasis on her success, although people familiar with Norse history or mythology will find this odd, since Scandinavian women enjoyed more freedom than women almost anywhere else in the world during the medieval period, and Norse Mythology features several Action Girls. This is especially odd since The Dark World shows that Queen Frigga is quite capable with a sword too.
Phase 3 takes steps to avert this, with Mantis joining the team in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Nebula becomes a member of the Guardians over the course of Infinity War and Endgame, and Valkyrie debuting in Thor: Ragnarok.note The same film drops Sif due to Jaimie Alexander's commitments, though she returned for Thor: Love and Thunder.Captain Marvel also got her own film, making her the first woman in the MCU to do so.
Inverted in Black Widow (2021), where the protagonists are one man (Alexei) and three women (Natasha, Yelena, and Melina).
Margaret Dumont is affectionately known as "The Marx Sister" by many fans of the four Marx Brothers, since she was the one female actor who consistently appeared as a leading lady alongside the Brothers in nearly all of their films. Notably, just like each of the Brothers typically played variations on the same character (with different names) in all of their movies, Dumont managed to cultivate a Straight Man persona that turned out to be nearly as iconic as that of Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo. The iconic role is a feisty, wealthy Grand Dame, always known only by her last name and inevitably seduced by Groucho's character.
In Mean Girls, the two Mathlete teams we see each have a single female member, presumably because of the double-funding incentive Kevin mentions.
Men in Black has the titular organization with a lack of female members.
The end of the first film shows the female mortician become agent L, J's new partner. However, she is neuralyzed before the events of the second film and given a Written-In Absence to make way for the return of Tommy Lee Jones.
Men in Black 3 had agent O in charge of the organization (during present day), but she was still the only female in an organization of hundreds (dozens in the past).
Mission: Impossible Film Series: While Ethan's team in the first film had three women on it that team was quickly killed off, with his subsequent teams in that film, M:I-2, M:I-3, and Ghost Protocol having one woman on them. In later films his team has only male members.
In Mystery Men, the team has one female member, The Bowler, who carries a male bowling ball.
In The Naked Spur, Lina Patch (Janet Leigh) is the only female in the five-person Minimalist Cast. Her obvious sexual desirability is used by the bad guy, a fugitive who's been caught by a Bounty Hunter, to sow tension between the bounty hunter and the two partners the bounty hunter got stuck with.
Ocean's Eleven zig-zags through the films. The first (Eleven), has Tess, Love Interest to Danny Oceans. The second (Twelve), averts it by bringing in Isabel Lahiri, and the third (Thirteen), plays it straight by dropping Julia Roberts and Jones and bringing in Ellen Barkin. It should be noted that all three of these women were a love interest for one of the main (male) characters.
Pan features Tiger Lily as the only woman with a prominent role in the story. Peter's deceased mother Mary is an offscreen presence and a cameo from Wendy was filmed but cut.
Pacific Rim has roughly 9 major characters, only one of which—Mako—is female. She's more assertive and plot-relevant than most examples, has her own story arc, and isn't presented as a Love Interest despite some Ship Tease with Raleigh. Sasha could have made the movie an aversion if she'd had more screen time.
In Predator (1987), the cast was made up of a bunch of battle-hardened marines and one female prisoner-of-war whose primary function was to create an Enemy Mine situation.
In Predators, Isabelle is shown to be the only female cast in the entire film.
Referenced in Raising the Wind by Jill when it is agreed that Miranda will be moving in; she adds that she wouldn't like the idea of being the only female in the group.
Bob Hope/Bing Crosby made the "Road to ..." movies (Road to Morocco, etc), which included one woman in the cast: Dorothy Lamour. A trope related to the Smurfette Principle was named after her, as Roger Ebert referred to "Dorothy Lamour Syndrome" in his Little Movie Glossary: when two men and one woman have a dialogue in a movie, the woman is usually reduced to looking back and forth between the two men as they talk. Lamour had an excuse, as Hope and Crosby were frequently off-script and adlibbing.
In Run Hide Fight, the four school shooters have one token girl among them, Anna, who also happens to be Tristan's girlfriend and Chris' sister.
Sometimes found in Military and Warfare Films where there isn't a realistic opportunity for more female parts. One example is submarine film Run Silent, Run Deep, in which the only speaking part for a woman goes to Cmdr. Richardson's wife, who appears in one scene.
Salt had the titular character operating as the only known female CIA agent and only known female Russian spy.
The Scribblerinverts the trope; the character of Hogan is the only guy in an otherwise all-female psychiatric halfway house.
Star Wars: The original trilogy almost represented this trope, with Leia given nearly the entirety of female dialogue. There are a few other female speaking roles: Aunt Beru (who only appears briefly and is slaughtered by the Empire in the first act of A New Hope), Jabba's slave dancers, and Mon Mothma. Someone actually tabulated the amount of screen time given to non-Leia female dialogue over the three films: 63 seconds. There are a few women extras, too.
After the There Is Another line in The Empire Strikes Back someone suggested to Mark Hamill that the mysterious second Jedi might be Leia. Hamill joked that she had too much power already. "She's the only woman in the universe! If you don't make it with her, you're a monk!" An early draft of the script for Empire, written by Leigh Brackett, included Luke's twin sister — who was not going to be Leia, but instead another Jedi, already in training on some remote planet. This idea was never developed, though the "There Is Another" line might be a reference to it.
Return of the Jedi was originally to include shots of several female Rebel pilots in the attack on the Death Star, with at least one getting a substantial amount of dialogue, but for unknown reasons these shots were all removed from the final cut. The one line of female dialogue that remained in the scene ("got it!") was over-dubbed with a male voice.
This is lampshaded in the Lego Star Wars: Droid Tales adaptation of Return of the Jedi. Luke surmises that Leia is his sister because she's literally the only woman he's ever met in the trilogy aside from his dead aunt.
Yoda:Not many women in our adventures, are there. Fix that next time, we must. NoteAnd they did! There's four major women in The Force Awakens: Young scavenger Rey, wise, old bartender Maz Kanata, Leia Organa, who is now a Rebel general, and Captain Phasma, who leads the Stormtroopers.
Tickles the Clown: Of all the characters in the movie, Princess Kali Divine is the only female.
Sleepers: Carol is the only female member of her friendship with the boys, as well as the only female character with serious importance to the plot.
In the 2011 J.J. Abrams' film Super 8, Alice Dainard is the only female in a group with 5 young boys making a film and navigating their way through their adventure. In fact, she's pretty much the only female in the entire movie, other than one of the boys' mothers.
The Transformers Film Series has a complicated relationship with the Smurfette Principle. Depending on the medium, transformers Arcee, Elita One and Chromia may be one robot, or sisters. The human cast always has several females, even if it isn't usually an even gender split. In Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, they are female Autobots; Arcee gets the most screen time and one line, but the sisters do get a good fight scene with Sideswipe at the beginning. In the novel and comics, Arcee is the central component with Chromia and Elita One as drone units she controls and they can combine into a larger robot. Arcee was cut at the last minute from the first movie and was replaced by Ironhide because it was decided that there wasn't enough time to discuss why there were female Transformers in the first place (not that it stopped them from appearing in the second movie).
The Bride of Frankenstein is the only female monster of the Universal Monsters. And she had a grand total of one screen appearance in the classic cycle, while all of her male counterparts had multiple ones.
In the 2010 film, The Traveler, Jane Hollow is the only female police officer present in the film, and the only female who took part in the assaulting of the drifter 1 year prior to the story.
In Wanted (2008), the sociopathic female killer-for-hire Fox (played by Angelina Jolie) is the only female member of an ancient fraternity of assassins, and (what else did you expect) the top-ranking member.
the amount of screen time given to non-Leia female dialogue over the three films: 63 seconds. There are a few women extras, too.