The 20 best female screen­writ­ers work­ing today

This list of female screen­writ­ers exhibits the great diver­si­ty of tal­ent lurk­ing in the for­got­ten realms of our indus­try. It is time to call atten­tion to their tal­ent and ver­sa­til­i­ty, which has for too long been ignored and under­mined. These women (some of whom have been paired accord­ing to their long-term cre­ative part­ner­ships) have penned an array of great genre pieces, from char­ac­ter-dri­ven dra­mas to huge Hol­ly­wood blockbusters.

Their con­tri­bu­tion to all man­ner of char­ac­ter arcs, com­plex nar­ra­tives and accessed emo­tion is excep­tion­al, and each indi­vid­ual career suc­cess­ful­ly dis­pels of any mis­con­cep­tions sur­round­ing female writ­ers, each body of work strik­ing a line through each argu­ment built against their employ­ment. In no par­tic­u­lar order…

Dia­blo Cody pos­sess­es a fear­less approach to screen­writ­ing, cre­at­ing unashamed­ly unlike­able, unusu­al and unde­ni­ably com­plex female char­ac­ters with her unique brand of com­e­dy. While her risk-tak­ing may not be to everybody’s tastes, her female-cen­tric nar­ra­tives present inno­v­a­tive, elab­o­rate arcs. Films like Jennifer’s Body and Young Adult play with gen­res in an unset­tling, unnerv­ing way, while Juno has secured itself as part of the con­tem­po­rary cin­e­mat­ic canon. Cody is the mas­ter of con­tro­ver­sy, and her upcom­ing film, Rik­ki and The Flash, appears to be no excep­tion. Direct­ed by Jonathan Demme and star­ring Meryl Streep, the film doc­u­ments one woman’s deci­sion between moth­er­hood and liv­ing out her dream as a rock musician.

Lucin­da Cox­on has a num­ber of play­writ­ing cred­its under her belt, while her back cat­a­logue of cin­e­mat­ic treats includes Wild Tar­get and The Heart of Me. Her lat­est project, The Dan­ish Girl, is shap­ing up to be a major awards con­tender, with Eddie Red­mayne play­ing the title char­ac­ter in this biopic of Lili Elbe, the first known recip­i­ent of sex­u­al reas­sign­ment surgery. Cox­on also served as a co-writer on Guiller­mo del Toro’s Crim­son Peak, the direc­tor recent­ly quot­ed as say­ing that she brought a ​“prop­er degree of per­ver­si­ty and intel­li­gence” to the piece. How­ev­er, she is yet to be credited.

Karen Croner inter­twines her own fem­i­nist view­point into her nar­ra­tives, cre­at­ing female char­ac­ters with great pres­ence and tenac­i­ty. Past projects include Admis­sion, a spunky com­e­dy-dra­ma star­ring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, and fam­i­ly dra­ma One True Thing, explor­ing the dys­func­tion­al rela­tion­ship between a young woman and her par­ents. Her past projects have a dis­tinc­tive­ly indie feel, but now Croner is set to play to big­ger mar­kets, cur­rent­ly work­ing on polit­i­cal thriller, Girl Sol­dier, which will star Uma Thur­man in the lead role.

Austin-born Shau­na Cross is anoth­er screen­writer to cham­pi­on female-cen­tric tales. Her career as a skater for the Los Ange­les Der­by Dolls inspired hit, Whip It!, while oth­er cred­its include What to Expect When You’re Expect­ing, and Chloë Grace Moretz front­ed dra­ma, If I Stay. Cur­rent­ly, the for­mer ​“Mag­gie May­hem” is work­ing on an adap­ta­tion of Ally Carter’s Heist Soci­ety, Lianne Moriarty’s What Alice For­got, and Fear of Flying.

Leslie Dixon’s career has spanned over many gen­er­a­tions, from ​’90s clas­sic Mrs. Doubt­fire, to the Lind­say Lohan body swap com­e­dy Freaky Fri­day, to the 2007 adap­ta­tion of John Waters’ cult musi­cal Hair­spray. She is also the mas­ter­mind behind quip­py tech­no-thriller Lim­it­less, prov­ing her tal­ent can tran­scend gen­res. More recent­ly, she act­ed as a pro­duc­er on Gone Girl.

Which brings us to Gillian Fly­nn, writer of the afore­men­tioned mys­tery thriller, adapt­ing her own riv­et­ing nov­el for the screen. Cur­rent­ly, she is part­ner­ing up with David Finch­er for the sec­ond time, to pen the US ver­sion of award-win­ning British TV series Utopia. We sense a dream team is in the works.

Jane Gold­man has quick­ly become a house­hold name, con­tin­u­ing a long-time part­ner­ship with direc­tor Matthew Vaughn to bring audi­ences genre-bend­ing bel­ters Kick-Ass and Kings­man: The Secret Ser­vice. More recent­ly, she penned the script for The Woman in Black, while cur­rent projects include The Lime­house Golem, and Miss Peregrine’s Hotel for Pecu­liar Chil­dren for Tim Burton.

Con­tro­ver­sy sur­round Kel­ly Mar­cel in the wake of Fifty Shades of Grey, with her con­tin­ued argu­ment that EL James dras­ti­cal­ly mod­i­fied her ini­tial script. In fair­ness, her ini­tial ideas could have led to an (arguably) bet­ter adap­ta­tion – while her tal­ent has been illus­trat­ed with her pre­vi­ous work, includ­ing Sav­ing Mr. Banks, co-writ­ten with Sue Smith, anoth­er female screen­writer with a pletho­ra of cred­its under her belt.

Melis­sa Math­i­son has teamed up with big direc­tors over the years; Mar­tin Scors­ese for Kun­dun, Steven Spiel­berg for cult clas­sic, E.T. – and is set to work with the lat­ter again for an upcom­ing live0action adap­ta­tion of Roald Dahl’s nov­el, ​‘The BFG’. She also act­ed as a sto­ry con­sul­tant for Ponyo, from Japan­ese ani­ma­tion house Stu­dio Ghibli.

Esteemed screen­writer, Abi Mor­gan has a num­ber of the­atre and TV cred­its under her belt, includ­ing BAF­TA award-win­ning Chan­nel 4 series, Sex Traf­fic and Emmy award-win­ning series, The Hour. How­ev­er, Mor­gan is an excep­tion in that her tal­ents have trans­lat­ed to the big screen, her fea­ture cred­its includ­ing Steve McQueen’s Shame, Phyl­l­i­da Lloyd’s The Iron Lady and Ralph Fiennes The Invis­i­ble Woman. Next she’s set to bring fem­i­nist his­to­ry to the fore with Suffragette.

Nan­cy Oliver’s debut screen­play, Lars and the Real Girl, received a boun­ty of awards nom­i­na­tions and a stand­ing ova­tion at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. Cur­rent­ly you’ll find her writ­ing for TV’s True Blood – while Lars remains her only film cred­it, this remark­able screen­play can­not be ignored. Oliv­er received the Human­i­tas Prize in 2008, and was also nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award. We await her return to film with eager anticipation.

Nicole Perl­man made his­to­ry when she became the first woman to pen a Mar­vel movie. After enrolling on their writ­ing pro­gramme, her script for Guardians of the Galaxy was com­mis­sioned for release. She will con­tin­ue on the Mar­vel movie-path with the upcom­ing Cap­tain Mar­vel, col­lab­o­rat­ing with Meg LeFauve, whose screen­plays include Pixar’s lat­est, Inside Out. With this new female super­hero, Perl­man wants to refrain from arche­types, and insists the char­ac­ter will not be reduced to a ​“Super­man with boobs”.

Love them or loathe them, the Twi­light films deserve their dues. Melis­sa Rosen­berg is cred­it­ed for the entire series, while her ear­li­er works include dance dra­ma, Step Up. She is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a remake of High­lander, which will star Dave Baustista (Guardians of the Galaxy, Spec­tre), has also been involved with the board of direc­tors for the Writ­ers Guild of Amer­i­ca and found­ed the league of Hol­ly­wood women’s writers.

Action girl Aman­da Sil­ver proves that women can throw their three­pence into any genre. Co-writ­ing with hus­band, Rick Jaf­fa, the pair are behind genre giants Juras­sic Park, Rise of the Plan­et of the Apes, and the sequel to Avatar. More recent­ly Sil­ver draft­ed the sto­ry for Ron Howard’s In the Heart of the Sea. She cut her screen­writ­ing teeth on an orig­i­nal script for ​’80s sin­is­ter box-office smash The Hand That Rocks The Cra­dle. This part­ner­ship have been writ­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ly togeth­er for a career span­ning over 25 years.

Karen McCul­lah and Kirsten Smith are pos­si­bly the queens of the teen scene, bring­ing their own niche voice to com­e­dy. Their pre­vi­ous col­lab­o­ra­tions include Legal­ly Blonde, She’s the Man, and 10 Things I Hate About You – all quirky tales play­ing on fem­i­nine stereo­types and putting women at the fore­front of the male-dom­i­nat­ed are­na. The pair are cur­rent­ly work­ing on an all-female ver­sion of The Expend­ables (apt­ly named Expend­abelles) and are slat­ed to write the script for Disney’s Sis­ter Act remake. While McCul­lah has recog­nised the exis­tence of sex­ism with­in the indus­try, she has said that she refus­es to feel dis­crim­i­nat­ed against. At present, the pair cer­tain­ly seem to be hold­ing their own.

Prov­ing that she can tack­le nar­ra­tives both big and small, adapt­ed and orig­i­nal, Vanes­sa Taylor’s work ranges from the first instal­ment of the Diver­gent series to old cou­ple sex com­e­dy Hope Springs. The lat­ter, an orig­i­nal screen­play, earned her a nom­i­na­tion for a Gold­en Globe and Out­stand­ing Film or Show Writ­ten by a Woman award at The Women’s Image Net­work in 2012. Tay­lor has tack­led a diver­si­ty of gen­res, from hum­ble begin­nings to big block­busters. Her most recent cred­its include writ­ing and co-exec­u­tive pro­duc­ing episodes of Game of Thrones.

Nation­al trea­sure Emma Thomp­son is best known for her act­ing career, but she also wrote the script for the 2005 adap­ta­tion of Sense and Sen­si­bil­i­ty, the Nan­ny McPhee films – in which she also starred in the title role – and more recent­ly, Effie Gray. Thomp­son has recent­ly spo­ken out about sex­ism as an ongo­ing issue in the film indus­try, both behind and in front of the cam­era, claim­ing it is in ​“a worse state than I have known it…”

Juli­ette Towhi­di start­ed out script-edit­ing for Canal+ and Roman Polan­s­ki, before turn­ing her atten­tion to writ­ing full-time. She is cred­it­ed as a co-writer on Cal­en­dar Girls and more recent­ly adapt­ed Tes­ta­ment of Youth and Love, Rosie for the screen. She chaired the BAF­TA Rocliffe New Writ­ing Forum in 2014, and has a num­ber of orig­i­nal fea­ture films in devel­op­ment, includ­ing Not­ting Hill Car­ni­val for BBC Films, Project Ajaz, a polit­i­cal thriller for Raw/​Film4, and The Brontes, an orig­i­nal fea­ture backed by Pathé.

Res­i­dent Dis­ney scribe Lin­da Woolver­ton orig­i­nal­ly worked as a children’s tele­vi­sion writer. She earned her first film cred­it for 1991’s Beau­ty and the Beast, which became the first ani­mat­ed film to be nom­i­nat­ed for Best Pic­ture at the Acad­e­my Awards, and she is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a live action adap­ta­tion. Past cred­its also include The Lion King, Tim Burton’s Alice in Won­der­land adap­ta­tion, Malef­i­cent and is cur­rent­ly writ­ing a sequel to the lat­ter. She is con­cerned with char­ac­ter dri­ven nar­ra­tives, and in her films, has tack­led pro­lif­ic female heroes and vil­lains alike.

Peter Jack­son had the right idea when tag-team­ing up with Phillip­pa Boyens and wife, Fran Walsh. This Oscar-win­ning pair­ing is respon­si­ble for the The Lord of the Rings, The Hob­bit, and also col­lab­o­rat­ed on King Kong and The Love­ly Bones. Fran Walsh start­ed her career writ­ing for tele­vi­sion, while Phillip­pa Boyens has also spent time as direc­tor of the New Zealand Writ­ers Guild. The part­ner­ship prove that bal­ance is key to any genre, for any demo­graph­ic audi­ence, and their award-win­ning suc­cess is tes­ta­ment to the fact that women are capa­ble of han­dling epic fran­chis­es with an array of intri­cate male and female char­ac­ters and con­vo­lut­ed mul­ti-lin­ear narratives.

Which female screen­writ­ers do you think deserve to be on this list? Let us know @LWLies