Portugal Colonial - Hollywood star Julianne Moore warns women are being pushed back

The Oscar-winner said women have to band together, with the number of women and girl leads in top-grossing movies down 10 percent in a year to 37 percent, according to the University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

"It's not endemic just to the film industry, it's global," she said at the Cannes Film Festival, after getting a Women In Motion award.

"There's not representation in the media, there's not representation in higher education. There are lots of places where we don't have the representation we deserve," the actor added.

The fall comes after a study earlier this year by the same university found only nine of the 100 biggest US movies last year were directed by women.

"How do you change that? You do it slowly, steadily, speaking up, using your privilege, hiring more, talking about alliances," Moore said.

"I feel like women are each other's greatest allies, and that's the secret sauce."

Moore, 65, said progress has been made, saying "I can remember being on a set not too long ago where the only women were me and the third AC (assistant camera)," who takes care of the focus on the camera.

"I said (to her), 'Look around the room. We're the only ones here.'"

Moore, who won her Oscar for "Still Alice" in 2015, and has four other nominations, said she gives gratuitously violent or shocking films a wide berth.

"When things are rough globally.... I don't like someone being murdered. I don't like explosions and guns. I don't like histrionics. I don't like things that raise the stakes without real feeling underneath... I don't want to watch it."

J.Pereira--PC