Carol, Laurel, Jules, Therese, Maud. These are just a few of the lead characters in a fall season that is by all accounts a big one for female-driven movies.

“Freeheld,” based on a documentary, stars Julianne Moore as the terminally ill New Jersey police detective Laurel Hester, who becomes an advocate for gay rights when government officials prevent her from assigning her pension benefits to her domestic partner (played by Ellen Page). Based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, “Carol” is a 1950s melodrama with Cate Blanchett as the married title character and Rooney Mara as her lover, Therese, that has already won accolades at Cannes. “Suffragette” tells the little-known story of the militant women’s emancipation movement in England, directed and written by women, with Carey Mulligan as Maud, a foot soldier in the fight. “The Intern,” directed by Nancy Meyers, follows Jules (Anne Hathaway), an Internet entrepreneur struggling to manage her company’s success with the help of an intern (Robert De Niro) who’s a senior citizen.

Trailer: ‘Freeheld’

And there are more — “Brooklyn,” “Truth” and “Sisters,” to name a few. All are garnering attention, some are even the subject of Oscar talk, and yet their very existence is still a rarity in Hollywood.

From 2007 through 2014, women made up only 30.2 percent of all speaking or named characters in the 100 top-grossing fictional films distributed in the United States, according to a report released in August by the University of Southern California. Only 19.9 percent of female characters were 40 to 64 years old. Only 1.9 percent of the movies were directed by women. And the numbers for minority women are even worse.

The movie industry is “failing women,” Manohla Dargis of The Times has said.

Is this fall’s crop an exception or a possible sign of a shift afoot? Certainly there are no major films built around women of color on the horizon. So we asked actresses, writers and directors (including a few men) from forthcoming films about what’s changed, what needs to change and how. They didn’t always agree, and the subject won’t be settled anytime soon.

Here are excerpts from those conversations:

Are women in Hollywood unfairly denied opportunities to act, direct, write and produce?

JULIANNE MOORE I’ve had a lot of luck in my career and I’ve worked with a lot of really wonderful directors, so I can’t complain. When people start putting this on the entertainment business, I’m like, “Wait a minute, this is endemic to our culture at large.” [However,] sometimes I read a script and there’s only one female in it. That’s not what my world looks like. I have days where the only men I see are my husband and my teenage son, but the rest of the day, I go to my yoga class, I see a female friend for lunch, I talk to my female manager on the phone. So how is that even possible?

CATE BLANCHETT I do think there’s a sense in the industry, and in most industries, that a woman can’t screw up. Look at the number of second-time male directors: If for some reason their film doesn’t do well, in eight to 12 months they’re back in there again, someone backs them. It’s always on the marketing schedule that a woman has directed the film, which on one hand you want to celebrate, but on the other does put a remarkable amount of pressure on, is it going to work? So the numbers people go into it with their arms slightly crossed, and I think that has an impact on the courage of a woman’s creative expression.

Trailer: ‘Suffragette’

ELLEN PAGE Absolutely, women and all minorities [are denied opportunities], African-American men, African-American women, trans men, trans women, the list goes on.

MICHAEL SHANNON, CO-STAR, “FREEHELD” They say it’s harder for women in this business, and maybe there is a narrower window of opportunity, but I think it’s a hard life for anybody. I know a lot of guys who are sitting there with their thumbs up their butts. It’s hard, but some of the most exciting actors right now are women. I’ve worked with a lot of really strong women, Jessica Chastain, Julie, Ellen.

ABI MORGAN, SCREENWRITER, “SUFFRAGETTE” When the Sony hacking scandal revealed that there is huge disparity in pay for women, it made me question why don’t I get offered those action movies.

ANNE HATHAWAY I’ve for many years tried to tell myself I wasn’t treated differently because I was a woman. And I just thought maybe if I say these things they will be true. I wish they were, but they’re not.

Can women be unlikable on screen?

MOORE I think there is a time in a person’s life, probably age 6, when they want to see stuff that is romanticized, but after that we’re ready for more complication.

PHYLLIS NAGY, SCREENWRITER, “CAROL” There aren’t that many complex women on screen, and how depressing. If someone had asked me which Patricia Highsmith novel would you like to adapt, “The Price of Salt” [which became “Carol”] would not have been it, but I’m actually very glad, because it was actually a very radical novel about women. She presented two female characters who were utterly without guilt about their sexual choices. They are allowed to behave the way men would behave.

NANCY MEYERS In [“The Intern”] we don’t really emphasize guilt. There’s been enough written about women’s guilt.

Trailer: ‘Carol’

RON NYSWANER, SCREENWRITER, “FREEHELD” Whenever I’m in a meeting and an executive says this particular moment makes her unlikable, I just draw a complete blank. Likability is not really something that interests me. What I care about is audience identification, that you connect to someone.

CAREY MULLIGAN I think of Cate Blanchett in “Blue Jasmine,” that character is so awful and so fascinating to watch, you don’t need to like her. It’s infuriated me when I have had conversations with male directors — and I would never in a million years name names — but I’ve questioned an edit, and I’ve been told, “Well you just don’t like her.” And I’m like, “Well you just don’t like people a lot, and if you don’t show their flaws, you don’t show them as real human beings, so stop trying to cut out the ugly bits.”

MOORE Audiences want to see real people. I know I do. [Laurel Hester’s domestic partner] would tell me these stories when I would go to visit her: Laurel was very bossy. And if you were to talk to anybody’s partner, you’d hear about the things they love about them and the things that drive them crazy.

HATHAWAY So often when we see career women on screen, they’re unlikable. But Jules is all warmth and energy, really works hard and gets stuff done. And she is a young woman with a ton of responsibility and not a lot of life experience, so she’s making mistakes. I admired all of that.

Do you think the status for women in Hollywood is changing?

ROBERT DE NIRO There’s a slow process where the change comes, sometimes generationally. I do see that it’s happening, but it won’t happen overnight. Look at my career, I’ve worked with Penny [Marshall], Nancy.

PAGE We’re seeing changes especially in television. Look at “Orange Is the New Black,” a perfect example of an incredibly diverse cast with incredible actors, and I’m hoping that it’s becoming clear that people want to experience different stories and realities, whether it’s socio-economic, or racial, or sexual or gender identities.

MULLIGAN This is a great year for women. It’s nowhere near the number of roles that are available to men, but it does feel like a step in the right direction. Kristen Stewart or Jennifer Lawrence — people want to go and see these films with these really strong female characters at the helm, and you can’t deem them chick flicks anymore. So the audiences will go, but the industry hasn’t quite caught up yet. It’s stuck in a more sexist time.

Trailer: ‘The Intern’

MEYERS Lately everyone is talking about [this issue], and that’s the best thing that could be happening. A friend of mine in her 50s just got her first chance to direct a movie; I don’t think that would have happened six months ago.

HATHAWAY I don’t think I can say there is change in Hollywood, but this movie got made, so we have at least one example of it. I think you are starting to see interest in telling a broader range of stories. Whether that actually translates specifically to material gains, I’m not sure.

MORGAN Now you see someone like Donna Langley [the Universal chairwoman]. Not only are there very powerful producers but there are powerful actresses becoming producers, the Reese Witherspoons of this world, Sandra Bullocks.

BLANCHETT Women who have been in the industry a long time are now producing themselves, like Angelina Jolie. She’s not waiting for roles to come to her. She’s proactively creating her own work. I think women get to a point where they can actually embrace the power, and that’s one of the biggest changes.

HATHAWAY I’m in awe of Nancy. I’m sure having a career in Hollywood over the past 30 years and being the smartest, funniest in the room and being a woman, maybe wasn’t the easiest, but she thrived throughout it.

MULLIGAN [“Suffragette”] was a complete first in my career, working with that many women. We had a woman director, writer, producer, costume, makeup, a huge cast of incredible women. I’ve never experienced anything like it, really.

Talk about the economics of putting women front and center in films.

BLANCHETT The films with women at their center are generally lower-budget, because there is lazy thinking. But if you look at those films, they’re passion projects. People lose confidence, because the traditional marketing numbers don’t add up to the progressive nature of the films.

NYSWANER A woman lead in a film, it’s just very hard to get that film financed. Two women helps, because then you can get an Ellen Page and a Julianne Moore, but people really do have mathematical formulas in which numbers are assigned to these elements. They look at what sells around the world — now foreign sales are as important as domestic — and it’s really frustrating, because they add up those numbers, and two women often don’t equal one man. What you do then is find people like our financiers and producers, who don’t care, who don’t add up numbers; they just love the movie.

MOORE Traditionally it’s very difficult to make money with dramas. They don’t make as much money as comedy and action films, so that’s another reason [women] can get relegated to the sidelines. You can be a woman headlining a drama that [makes] $50 million and nobody is going to get that excited about it. But look at this summer, Melissa McCarthy with “Spy” and “Trainwreck” [with Amy Schumer] — those movies made a fortune and those women are comic geniuses. And so suddenly are we going to see more of that? Time will tell, but it’s really about money.

NAGY Our industry is a little literal, so if a woman makes money doing a comedy, then we get 800 other similar comedies. What I really hope for a movie like “Carol” or other female-driven projects is that some of them make money, so we’ll see a spate of films that aren’t plot driven but are largely character based.

HATHAWAY The big question [with the forthcoming films] is, are they going to translate to box office success? One of the pressures of female-driven movies is, they have to perform. If they don’t, [the market might think] it’s not because the film didn’t work, it’s because it was about a woman.

In what other ways can Hollywood change?

SARAH GAVRON, DIRECTOR, “SUFFRAGETTE” For me personally, I wish there were more role models. I didn’t dare put myself forward until I recognized there were women like Jane Campion, Mira Nair, who inspired me to dare to do it. So I’ll do everything I can.

DE NIRO If it’s a movie that you wouldn’t necessarily associate with, say, a women director — say, an action film — I think a woman hired to do an action film could do just as well if not better than any of the male counterparts.

MORGAN Writing “Suffragette” has made me connect more to my own responsibilities as a screenwriter. How often have I asked a woman to take off her clothes and how often have I asked a man?

HATHAWAY I’m not looking to be an advocate for women in film. That being said, I do actively take an interest in not perpetuating stereotypes that hold women back.

BLANCHETT When the director says you really need to be topless in this scene, I go, “Do I?” You have to fight back and claim the right to develop the character. Women need to empower themselves and claim even a character that’s written in a clichéd way. You don’t have to play it that way.

MOORE Vote with your money. If there’s something you don’t like, don’t go, don’t pay for it. And if there’s a female-driven movie out there that you want to see, buy a ticket. That’s really what makes a difference. My husband laughs at me, but I just won’t go see movies with only men in them. I just can’t bear it.