Breakthroughs for Women as Writers, Directors, and Stars in Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror

It’s no secret that science fiction, fantasy, and horror are male-dominated genres in movies and television. However, after experiencing a slump in 2025, more women are starting to break through as writers, directors, and headlining stars in live-action (non-animated) projects in these genres. These breakthroughs include Prime Video’s 2026 limited sci-fi series Blade Runner 2099 having a female showrunner (Silka Luisa) and being the first major sci-fi series headlined by an Asian woman (Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh) and a transgender woman (Hunter Schafer) as the co-lead stars. Writer/director Greta Gerwig is following up the record-breaking success of her Warner Bros. Pictures 2023 blockbuster comedy Barbie with Netflix’s 2027 big-budget fantasy film Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, becoming the first woman to write and direct a movie in the Narnia franchise. Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew is a rare Netflix movie to receive a wide release worldwide, including in IMAX theaters, with Columbia Pictures handling the movie’s distribution outside of the U.S. and Canada.

Meanwhile, Katie Dippold is the showrunner of Apple TV’s horror comedy series Widow’s Bay, which won 14 Primetime Emmy Awards for its first season and was the top winner at the 2026 Primetime Emmy Awards. Gina Prince-Bythewood, the director/co-writer of Paramount Pictures’ 2027 fantasy action movie Children of Blood and Bone, is one of the few Black women who has directed a theatrically released fantasy film from a major movie studio. Prince-Bythewood is an experienced filmmaker in this genre, having directed Netflix’s 2020 superhero movie The Old Guard, which was a big hit for Netflix that year.

Prince-Bythewood and several cast members from Children of Blood and Bone gathered for a panel discussion at the 2026 New York Comic Con. The movie (an adaptation of Tomi Adeyemi’s 2018 best-selling novel of the same name) centers on a young woman named Zélie Adebola (played by Thuso Mbedu) who seeks to restore magic to the West African–inspired kingdom of Orïsha, which has royal and nonroyal characters in various alliances and conflicts. Prince-Bythewood and the other panelists did not address the behind-the-scenes controversy with Adeyemi (who is credited as a co-writer and an executive producer) publicly disavowing the movie after filming was completed. Prince-Bythewood commented on why she wanted to direct the movie: “It started with my love of the book. Everything that was in those pages that Tomi wrote is everything that makes a great film. You know, you get the gods and creatures and magic and battles and kingdoms and heroes. It was such an extraordinary story and characters. I just got excited about trying to bring that to life and what that would mean in the space.”

There are more women-directed sci-fi, fantasy, or horror non-animated movies with theatrical releases in 2026, compared to 2025. According to Box Office Mojo (a website that reports ticket sales for movies), only three women-directed sci-fi, fantasy, or horror non-animated movies were in the top 200 feature films that were theatrically released in the U.S. in 2025: Universal Pictures’ Five Nights at Freddy's 2, directed by Emma Tammi; Walt Disney Pictures’ Freakier Friday, directed by Nisha Ganatra; and Sony Pictures’ I Know What You Did Last Summer, directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. By comparison, there are five women-directed sci-fi, fantasy, or horror movies in the top 200 feature films that have been theatrically released so far in 2026: Warner Bros. Pictures’ Practical Magic 2, directed by Susanne Bier; Columbia Pictures’ 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, directed by Nia DaCosta; Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Bride!, directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal; Black Bear Pictures’ Wicker, co-directed by Eleanor Wilson; and Independent Film Company’s Forbidden Fruits, directed by Meredith Alloway. Not all of these movies were profitable, but the fact that women directed these films is an indication that progress has been made in female creative leadership in these genres. Filming is set to begin in 2027 for two more women-directed horror movies: Universal Pictures’ Five Nights at Freddy’s 3 (with director Tammi continuing to helm this movie series, which is based on video games of the same name), while the independent film House of Night (based on the vampire book series of the same title) is being directed by Johanna Watts.

Women Thriving in Horror

The 2020s have been a breakthrough decade for women directors of horror movies. Coralie Fargeat received three Oscar nominations (Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay) for MUBI’s 2024 body horror film The Substance, which made her the first woman to be Oscar-nominated for Best Director for a horror movie. With Universal Pictures’ 2021 slasher flick reboot/sequel Candyman, DaCosta became the first Black woman director to have a movie debut at No. 1 at the U.S. box office. In the 2020s, for the first time in the histories of several major film festivals, women directors of female-oriented horror movies have been winning the festivals’ top prizes. Julia Ducournau’s body horror thriller Titane won the 2021 Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or prize, before being released by Neon later that year. In 2022, Nikyatu Jusu’s ghost drama Nanny became the first horror film to win the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic, before being released by Amazon Studios later that year. Amy Wang’s body horror satire Slanted won the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival’s Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize, before being released by Bleecker Street Media in 2026. Jusu was one of the women directors featured in the documentary film 1000 Women in Horror, which had its TV premiere on horror streaming service Shudder in 2026.

Shudder and its sister distributor Independent Film Company (both owned by AMC Global Media) have been the homes of several independent horror films directed or co-directed by women. These movies released in 2026 include Shudder’s Mother of Flies, co-starring mother and daughter Toby Poser and Zelda Adams, who are also two of its three directors; Shudder’s Find Your Friends, directed by Izabel Pakzad; Independent Film Company’s Saccharine, directed by Natalie Erika James; Shudder’s Nightborn, directed by Hanna Bergholm; and Shudder’s Penny Lane Is Dead, directed by Mia'kate Russell. Shudder will premiere director Rebekah McKendry’s Sundown in 2027, following its 2026 film festival run.

Netflix has been a leading distributor of female-centric horror series with women as showrunners. These shows include horror series that debuted in 2026, such as Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen (created by showrunner Haley Z. Boston); The Body (created by showrunner Quinn Shephard); Balaraw: Blood Island (created by showrunner Rae Red); and The East Palace (co-created by co-showrunner Kwon So-ra).

Movies and TV shows about witches are making a big comeback this year. The lead characters in Practical Magic 2 and Forbidden Fruits are witches, and the title character of Mother of Flies is a witch. Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches (whose third season premieres on AMC on December 30) and the witch-oriented Yaga (a 2026 limited series on AMC+ in the U.S., and on Crave in Canada) each has a woman as the sole showrunner or co-showrunner. The 13th season of FX’s anthology series American Horror Story premiered in 2026, and it’s an “all-star” installment featuring returning characters, with a storyline dominated by the witches from American Horror Story: Coven, the third season of the series. Freeform’s Coven Academy (which can be seen on Hulu and Disney+) debuted this year to positive audience reactions and critical acclaim; the series has been renewed for a second season.

Set in a small town on Vancouver Island, the Canadian series Yaga is based on Kat Sandler’s play of the same name. Sandler is also the showrunner of Yaga, which is about a charismatic professor named Katherine Hargrove (played by Carrie-Anne Moss), who is suspected of being a modern-day version of the forest witch Baba Yaga during a missing-person investigation. At the 2026 New York Comic Con press conference for Yaga, Sandler commented on the challenges of making a supernatural story about magic believable for TV audiences. “Magic is what you decide it is, but power is real. I think there’s a lot of places in the show where we really walk a line between what you believe and what is real.”

Moss added, “I think it’s executed very naturally — like breathing. It’s not crazy special effects. Of course, there are a few [special effects]. It’s grounded in truth.” Yaga executive producer Mackenzie Donaldson commented, “Kat and I would ask ourselves all the time: ‘Is this pushing it too [much], one way or another?’ We were constantly debating it.” Sandler addressed how she wanted viewers to react to Yaga: “I want you to bring your experiences and your pop culture references and the way you see magic and witches and women to your experiences of watching the show.”

When asked about how powerful women characters are often depicted as blurring the lines between being a hero and being a villain, Moss replied: “I never worry about whether they [audiences] like the character. Why does a woman, who’s doing things that are maybe considered bad, why do we have to understand why she does it? It becomes about bringing the truth of her in a moment.”

Sandler commented on why witches are fascinating to people: “The reason we’re so drawn to witches is because of their power. It’s women exuding power, whether it’s magic or not. [Yaga] is reclaiming the way we talk about female monsters and female villains and stories that have been told incorrectly throughout history.”

If Yaga is about staying rooted in reality, then Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches is about leaning more into wacky stories as the series continues. The series (whose third season is subtitled Salem Coven) is about neurosurgeon Dr. Rowan Fielding (played by Alexandra Daddario), who is the heiress to a dynasty of witches. At the 2026 New York Comic Con press conference for Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches, Daddario commented on the direction that the series is taking: “It’s adding more humor, more fun, and just really going for things that are completely off-the-wall, so you don’t know what to expect. Weird surprises.”

Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches co-showrunner/creator Esta Spaulding adds, “When I read Anne Rice for the first time, that’s the way that I found it in the books. It’s harder to get that response from people now. These books were written in the ‘90s. It’s exciting to have that goal: How can we really surprise people now?”

The Female Superhero Slump

This surge in female creative leadership in sci-fi, fantasy, and horror coincides with a retreat from female-oriented movies and TV shows in the subgenre of superhero entertainment. Recent female-centered, live-action superhero movies, such as 2026’s Supergirl (from Warner Bros. Pictures), 2024’s Madame Web (from Columbia Pictures), and 2023’s The Marvels (from Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures), have been box-office flops with mixed or negative reviews. Netflix’s 2025 female-led superhero sequel The Old Guard 2 fell far short of the popularity of The Old Guard. This slump is in contrast to the late 2010s and early 2020s, when female-centric superhero movies — such as Warner Bros. Pictures’ Wonder Woman (2017), as well as Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures’ Captain Marvel (2019), Black Widow (2021), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) — were big hits with audiences and film critics.

The female superhero landscape has also been looking grim on the TV series side of the business. Female-centric TV series based on superhero comic book characters have been getting canceled in the development stages. DC Studios and HBO Max recently shelved plans for three such series: Waller, based on the Suicide Squad character Amanda Waller; Paradise Lost, a prequel to 2017’s Wonder Woman; and The Authority, about a superhero team led by female character Jenny Sparks. Marvel Television and Disney+ have not released a live-action TV series centered on a female comic book character since the 2024 limited series Agatha All Along, which received three Primetime Emmy nominations.

Can female superheroes make a comeback in live-action movies and TV? DC Studios is actively developing a new Wonder Woman movie written by Ana Nogueira, who wrote the 2026 Supergirl movie. The movie’s director, stars, and release date are to be announced. There are no guarantees at this stage of development that the film will be made. Meanwhile, neither DC Studios nor Marvel Studios (the leading production companies for superhero movies and TV shows) has announced any female-centric, live-action superhero movies or TV shows to be released in 2027.

Women Soaring in Sci-Fi/Fantasy

After two Blade Runner movies — 1982’s Blade Runner (starring Harrison Ford) and 2017’s Blade Runner 2049 (starring Ryan Gosling) — the franchise is getting a female-centric makeover with Blade Runner 2099. During a Blade Runner 2099 discussion panel at the 2026 New York Comic Con, showrunner Luisa and co-stars Yeoh (who plays a humanoid replicant named Olwen) and Schafer (who plays a human named Cora, who’s disguised as a replicant) revealed some information about the series, which is keeping major plot details under wraps until the series premieres on November 25.

Yeoh commented on Schafer: “It was really tough trying to keep up with her because we had a lot of running in the show. Look at those legs! I can't catch up. But the characters we play — thank you, Silka. You did an amazing job with them. For myself, playing a replicant, I didn't want to be a mere human. It was very complex because she knows her time is running out and she's a character that doesn't like to leave things unfinished. So, in the end, she had to fight back. And fortunately, she had this sidekick to do the job with. It was fun.”

Schafer added, “Cora, when we first meet her, is a human, more or less a fugitive from the LAPD [Los Angeles Police Department] Blade Runners. Her work gets raided, and she's got to go on the run and make sure she protects her little brother and ultimately undergo this mission where she goes undercover as a Blade Runner, with LAPD next to Olwen.”

Yeoh and Schafer also commented on being the first women to be the lead characters in a Blade Runner project. Schafer said, “I think I can speak for both of us when I say we were enormous fans of Blade Runner. I think it sort of changed sci-fi as a genre and the movies, particularly the first one, but also [Blade Runner] 2049 touched us both really deeply. I personally never thought I'd have an opportunity to make a contribution to this IP [intellectual property] franchise. So, I was incredibly excited when that came up.”

Luisa elaborated on how she made Blade Runner 2099 different from the preceding movies in the franchise: “The replicant uprising that has been bubbling up in the films has taken place, and humans have lost. The creations have surpassed their creators. In the series, the big question it asks is, ‘What happens when our time as a species ends?’ [Blade Runner] 2099 is taking place at a junction point when one species is ending and a new one is rising.”

Luisa added, “The first [Blade Runner] film, something I loved about it was that it was looking at mortality on a micro level. Roy Batty [a replicant leader, played by Rutger Hauer] and other replicants were fighting for more life. This show asked that same question, but on the macro level. Mankind: What happens when we realize our time is running out? And are we going to accept that loss? Can we hold on to our humanity during it?”

One of the aspects of Blade Runner 2099 that Luisa said she’s most proud of as a showrunner is that the Blade Runner world was not created mostly through computer-generated imagery (CGI) but used a functioning production design built by people. “I love that set so much,” Luisa commented. “What was so incredible coming to set every day was that so many of the sets are 360 [degrees]. The lighting is built into them. There are monitors with graphics that background actors are interacting with. There are mechanical elements that are moving. It really feels like a functional environment. It's completely invented, but when you create it down to the level that these hundreds of artists and craftspeople did, it suddenly comes alive. It's just a testament to the incredible, incredible crew that we had.”

Children of Blood and Bone director Prince-Bythewood also talked about how she made it a priority to have practical sets built instead of mostly relying on CGI to create the story’s fantasy world: “I knew what my vision was, which was an intimately epic, grounded fantasy. It made perfect sense to me. I wanted this world to feel real, despite the fantastical conceit of magic. That meant going to South Africa, shooting there, building everything. We had such an incredible crew, and we were able to build these incredible sets so that the actors could have this 360[-degree] playground to play in … and not necessarily just a CG world. That was really important.”

Prince-Bythewood added, “What is Orïsha? It's beautifully inspired by Nigeria. but also inclusive of the whole diaspora. And that meant being able to take the most beautiful things from the continent of Africa and pull them into this one place. There’s a pink lake that was really built that wasn't CG. This beautiful village on the water that was based on a village in Benin. Just pulling all these elements was really exciting.”

During the Children of Blood and Bone panel at New York Comic Con, Bythewood talked about getting advice from filmmaker Rian Johnson (who moderated the panel) about directing a big-budget film from a major studio when he was directing Walt Disney Pictures’ 2017 sequel Star Wars: The Last Jedi. “I've never forgotten when you were shooting Star Wars, I had asked you that question: ‘How do you not get overwhelmed by the bigness of all of this?’ And you said, ‘It doesn't matter how much money you have or how many toys you have, you have to tell a good story.’ And so that allowed me to go back to the beginning where it was about the relationships and the characters, and to be able to infuse those things into the bigger sandbox.”

She added, “Those are the films that I love to see where I care deeply about the characters where the action is infused with character. It's not separate. The set pieces aren't separate. The quiet character moments can feel as seismic as a set piece. And to have actors that we have, just such an extraordinary ensemble that can embody these super-complicated people that you hopefully come to care about, love. It was extraordinary to be on set and witness that.”

In addition to Mbedu, the other principal female cast members in Children of Blood and Bone are Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Regina King, Amandla Stenberg, and Lashana Lynch. In addition to Mbedu, the other principal female cast members in Children of Blood and Bone are Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Regina King, Amandla Stenberg, and Lashana Lynch. At the movie’s New York Comic Con panel, Mbedu said, “I first read the book in 2019 and absolutely fell in love with it. Fantasy is one of my favorite genres, in terms of reading, and I fell in love with Zilli because there’s a lot that I felt I connected with when it comes to her, especially when it comes to life throwing punches and then being forced to get up time and time again.”

Erivo (who has the role of Admiral Kaea) commented, “I first came into contact with [the Children of Blood and Bone story] when I read the book. I think I fell in love with the traditional mythology of the Orïsha, and it’s something that I recognize, being Nigerian. I just was like, ‘Oh, this is something I recognize and I can connect with, and I hadn’t seen it before. … When I knew it was coming in the film, I was like, ‘In whatever iteration, I want to be a part of it.’”

Stenberg (who depicts the princess character Amari) also expressed feeling a significant emotional reaction to the story: “I first found out about the project by reading the script. I was like, ‘What is this dense, beautiful, immersive experience that I’m having?’ I was so amazed by the narratives, by the characters, how real and three-dimensional they felt. And then I read the book, and I fell head over heels in love with that as well. I shed some tears, connected deeply with everything it was about. I went through the audition process, then a lot happened, and now I’m here.” Lynch (who plays Zelie in the movie) said, “I felt like I was almost like one of the chosen ones to be a part of this very enriching cultural moment for us all. To experience it both as an audience member and as an actor was divine.”

Children of Blood and Bone also exemplifies a movie where a woman director makes decisions to give qualified women opportunities to lead in jobs that are often given to men. Women have the roles of cinematographer (Polly Morgan), film editor (Terilyn A. Shropshire), and production designer (Oscar winner Hanna Beachler), as well as leadership roles in more traditionally female-dominated movie jobs, such as casting (Lucy Bevan, Aisha Coley, and Christa Schamberger), costume design (Charlese Antoinette Jones), makeup (led by Matiki Anoff), and hairstyling (led by Andrea Mona Bowman, also known as Mona B).

Prince-Bythewood praised the Children of Blood and Bone cast and crew for their commitment to working in real locations (not just inside film studios) for this fantasy film: “There were many [locations] that were a three-hour drive and then a half-hour walk through the jungle. And they didn’t complain, but they asked at times, ‘What is on the other side of this?’ But then you get to this incredible waterfall that you've never seen or you're suddenly in this place, this rock city that's been there for a million years and no one's got to shoot [a movie] there before. And it was just extraordinary to be in these real places.”

She added, “But I can't do that if they're not willing to do it. And everybody bought into this film we were making and how hard it was going to be. But it's great when you've come together. It's not because of money or ‘I just want a job.’ People wanted to tell this story and tell it together. And that is an incredible energy to have.”

What Women Want: Supply Versus Demand

To understand why some female-centric movies and TV shows in these genres get more industry support than others, it’s important to look at data indicating why there’s a disconnect between what audiences want and what the industry decides to give them. Luminate — an entertainment data and analytics company that tracks music, film, and television consumption — released a 2026 Streaming Viewership report on streaming services programs that are led by women and focused on female characters. The report found that the “serialized drama” category, which includes sci-fi, fantasy, and horror (with few exceptions) is underserving women audiences. The report covered TV series released from 2025 to the third quarter of 2026.

In a press release about the report, Luminate Intelligence media analyst Tyler Aquilina commented: “An analysis of TV series released from 2025 through Q3 of 2026 found that while women-centered shows accounted for just 11% of premieres during this time, they drew 17% of U.S. minutes streamed for these titles. This disparity, while not massive, shows women-centered series command more viewing time than the volume of these shows would suggest. This in turn suggests there is demand for such titles that may not be met by the current supply.”

Aquilina added, “For instance, dramas for women are particularly undersupplied. The ‘serialized drama’ category — e.g., The Handmaid's Tale, Yellowjackets — accounted for one-third of women-centered series released in 2025 and 2026 but 44% of minutes streamed for such shows. This 11-point gap indicates significant unfulfilled demand for serialized dramas starring women, which is, admittedly, no huge surprise.”

Aquilina concluded, “Ultimately, however, the key takeaway here is bigger than any one subgenre. This is a framework that can be applied to any category of streaming content and help identify meaningful gaps between what streaming audiences want and what they're getting.”

Most of Blade Runner 2099 star Yeoh’s best-known movie and TV roles have been the sci-fi/fantasy genre, including her Oscar-winning Best Actress performance in A24’s 2022 movie Everything Everywhere All at Once; Sony Pictures Classics’ 2000 fantasy epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; and Universal Pictures’ two-part fantasy musical Wicked (2024) and Wicked: For Good (2025). Yeoh (who is also a film and TV producer) has defied the odds by continuing to get starring roles in this genre as a woman over age 60. As she told Variety in a February 2026 interview: “Let’s not let them define us as women or put us in a box and say, ‘Oh, well, because now you’re this age, you should only play a grandmother.’ I’m like, ‘Hell, no. I will kick ass because I want to, and I still can.’”