Katherine Heigl is a bigger star than Denzel Washington. Sandra Bullock has been pummeling Tom Hanks and Russell Crowe. Meryl Streep reeks of gold brick.
In 2009, when it came to movie-ticket sales, women came out on top.
While male stars grapple with a changing movie scene that favors costumed superheroes over conventional action movies and thrillers, female actresses are still opening movies in a wide range of genres, from romantic comedies to sports dramas.
"This is the year of the woman," Paul Dergarabedian, a box-office analyst with Hollywood.com, told TheWrap. "Female stars or female-driven movies have been unexpectedly dominant. I mean, Meryl Streep is just as vital today as ever."
Scan the list of the top 50 grossing movies over the last year and it's clear: Recent hits like Streep's "Julie & Julia," along with Heigl's "The Ugly Truth" and Bullock's "The Proposal," and "The Blind Side," show that when it comes to star-driven films, female actresses have consistently outperformed their male counterparts. (See slideshow: "The Golden Women of 2009.")
They also tend to cost less to produce and market, meaning a bigger profit margin for studios.
Among the top-grossing female starrers, "The Proposal" netted $296 million on a $40 million production budget, "Ugly Truth" made $196 million and cost $38 million to produce, "Julie & Julia" grossed $118 million worldwide on a $40 million budget, and "Blind Side" is on track to top $200 million domestically after only costing $28 million.
In contrast, "The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3" featured two of the biggest males stars in Hollywood, John Travolta and Washington, and grossed a disappointing $65 million domestically after costing a staggering $100 million to film. 
Other box-office casualties this year with marquee male names includd:
-- Russell Crowe's "State of Play" ($87 million worldwide gross, undisclosed budget)
-- Adam Sandler's "Funny People" ($61 million worldwide gross, $75 million production budget)
-- Will Ferrell's "Land of the Lost" ($65 million worldwide gross, $100 million production budget)
-- Bruce Willis' "Surrogates" ($60 million worldwide gross, $80 million production budget).
"'The Proposal' and 'Blind Side' show that when people have a film that pairs a really strong actress with strong story, they’ll respond," said John Singh, a spokesman for the box-office tracking company Flixster Forecast.
"It's not just about the stars themselves," Singh said. "Actresses tend to be in films that are much more story-driven, and that may be the primary correlation. For whatever reason, female actresses tend to find better stories than male actors."
And it's not just romantic comedies. "Blind Side" was sports-themed, and "New Moon" -- which drew an 80 percent female audience to its record opening weekend -- proved that effects-laden films are not gender biased if the story is right.
In the immediate future, at least, female moviegoers will be pretty well-saturated with appealing fare.
"It's Complicated," a romantic comedy with Meryl Streep that was written by "Something's Got to Give" creator Nancy Meyers, opens next month and has been tracking strongly (analysts privately predicted it would earn in the $100 million range).
