Shonda Rhimes, Film Producer. Photo By Sarah E. Freeman – Wikimedia Commons.

20 Best Female Film Producers   


 

In a mostly male-dominated industry, female film producers are not that many but the few that are there do an awesome job and are equally as good as their male counterparts.  

With the weight of overseeing a project from pitching to its release, a film producer must be a very good manager of time, people, and resources. This person is responsible for and is expected to provide the needed resources, logistics, and infrastructure for everyone involved in the project. 

Here are the 20 best female film producers.  

1. Kathleen Kennedy 

Kathleen Kennedy. Photo By Dick Thomas – Wikimedia Commons

Kathleen Kennedy is an American film producer and president of Lucasfilm. She was born on 5th June 1953 in Berkeley, California. She went to San Diego State University where she majored in film and telecommunications.    

She has produced over 60 films including all Indiana Jones, all Star Wars, Jurassic Park, The Mandalorian, and others. Kathleen has received many awards over the years.  

She is married to Frank Marshall, another kickass producer whom she works with. He is on our 20 best Hollywood Producers list.

2. Shonda Rhimes 

Shonda Lynn Rhimes is an American television screenwriter, producer, and author. She is best known for producing Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal. 

Rhimes has also served as the executive producer of the ABC television series Off the Map, How to Get Away with Murder, The Catch, and Station 19. She also produced Bridgerton and Inventing Anna.  

Born on 13th January 1970 in Chicago, Illinois, this lady owns the Shondaland company and is one of the best producers in Hollywood.   

3. Oprah Winfrey 

Oprah Winfrey. Photo By Greg Hernandez – Wikimedia Commons

Oprah Gail Winfrey is an American producer and actress best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show. She is the owner of the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). She was born on 29th January 1954 in Mississippi but she grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Nashville, Tennessee.  

Oprah has produced many shows including, Queen Sugar, Greenleaf, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Love Is, and When They See Us among many more.  

She has won many awards throughout her career. 

4. Ekta Kapoor    

Ekta Kapoor is an award-winning Indian television and film producer and director. She is regarded as one of the most powerful ladies in the television industry and is known as the Queen of soap operas. Ekta was born on 7th June 1975 in India, in a family of actors.  

She got into the film industry in 1992 when she was only 17 years old but her first shows did not do well. Ekta didn’t give up and she kept producing. Her first successful project was a sitcom, Hum Paanch, in 1995. She has done over 130 productions so far and has over 30 awards that recognize her input in the industry.  

Ekta heads Balaji Telefilms Limited, a successful film production and distribution company in India.  Kumkum Bhagya is one of her most successful soap opera projects. 

Here is a list of Bollywood Producers.

5. Nina Jacobson 

Nina Jacobson. Photo By atp_tyreseus – Wikimedia Commons

Nina Jacobson is an American film producer. She was born on 15th September 1965 in Los Angeles, California, and was raised Jewish. She started as a documentary researcher and then became a story analyst before becoming a producer.  

Nina worked with various production houses in different positions before moving to Disney where she was a film producer for Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, and Hollywood Pictures. She was fired from the company which was a blessing in disguise because it pushed her to starting her own production company which is known as Color Force.   

Some of her productions include Crazy Rich Asians, Ben Is Back, The Goldfinch, All Day and a Night, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and The Hunger Games series. 

6. Lynette Howell Taylor 

Lynette Howell Taylor is a British film and TV producer. She was born on 18th May 1979 in Liverpool, England. She attended Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts then she moved to London and worked as a casting director, then as a theatre producer. 

Afterward, she moved to Los Angeles and got into film production. Lynette then founded 51 Entertainment and started producing content independently. 

Some of her work includes Stephanie Daley, Phoebe in Wonderland, The Greatest, Blue Valentine, Big Eyes, and A Star Is Born among others. 

7. Megan Ellison  

Margaret Elizabeth Ellison is an American award-winning film producer and entrepreneur. She was born on 31st January 1986 in Santa Clara, California. Her older brother, David Ellison, is also a producer and she got into the film industry by working on his productions. 

As a producer, Ellison has no limits and encourages creative thinking, and only works with critically acclaimed directors because to her, the film is not an investment with high returns, but an artistic medium to entertain the masses the best way it can. 

Megan owns Annapurna Pictures and A Strange Loop, Waking Madison, Passion Play, Zero Dark Thirty, American Hustle, and Phantom Thread are some of her productions. 

8. Deepa Mehta   

Deepa Mehta. Photo By Canadian Film Centre – Wikimedia Commons

Deepa Mehta is an Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter. She was born on 1st January 1950 in Punjab, India. After school, she worked for a production company that specialized in documentaries and educational films and that is how she met her Canadian husband who was in India producing a show. Shortly after the two migrated to Canada. 

Deepa is famous for her three films, Fire, Earth, and Water, which have been criticized for portraying the Hindu culture in bad light.

She also produced Violation, Heaven on Earth, Donkeyhead, and Cooking with Stella among others. 

9. Chloé Zhao    

Chloe Zhao. Photo By Vegafi – Wikimedia Commons

Chloé Zhao is an award-winning Chinese Filmmaker. She was born on 31st March 1982 in Beijing, China and her birthname was Zhao Ting. She was sent to the UK to study when she was only 15 years old. She moved to Los Angeles and later to New York where she attended film school and Spike Lee was one of her professors. 

She has worked with Amazon Studios and Marvel Studios where she co-wrote and directed Eternals, the superhero film that was released in 2021. 

Songs My Brothers Taught Me, The Rider, Simple Pleasures, Daughters, and Nomadland are some of her other productions. 

She is featured on our 10 most famous Chinese women list.

10. Stephanie Allain  

Stephanie Allain is an African-American producer of independent movies in Hollywood, California. She was born on 30th October 1959 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

She began her career in film with different production houses as a script reader, then became a script analyst till she rose to the position of Senior Vice President of Production at Columbia Pictures.  

Stephanie sold her house and founded Homegrown Films in 2003. She was the Festival Director for the LA Film Festival from 2011 to 2016 and has produced many films in her career including, Beyond the Lights, French Dirty, Burning Sands, Dear White People, Life-Size, The Weekend, Juanita, and others 

11. Alison Owen 

Alison Mary Owen is an award-winning English film producer. She was born on 18th February 1961 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. She started her career by producing music videos before she started creating films.

At one point she worked at Working Title Films, the famous British film studio. Alison later started her production company known as Ruby Films. She has produced award winning films like Smashie and Nicey: The End of an Era, Saving Mr. Banks, Temple Grandin, Small Island, and Elizabeth. 

12. Christine Vachon

Christine Vachon. Photo By Moody College – Wikimedia Commons

Christine Vachon is an American award-winning independent film producer. She was born on 21st November 1962 in Manhattan, New York City. She did various odd jobs in the film industry in an effort to learn the trade and to make ends meet.

She started a production house, Apparatus Productions ,with two of her collegemates in 1987. Christine has produced over 70 films including, The Grey Zone, An American Crime, White Girl, Brothers by Blood, and Anything’s Possible. 

13. Emma Thomas  

Emma Thomas Nolan is an English film producer. She was born on 9th December 1971 in London, England. She is married to Christopher Nolan, an award-winning British-American film director famous for The Dark Knight Trilogy. 

Emma started as a script supervisor before becoming a producer. She has produced most of her husbands films like, The Dark Knight Trilogy, The Prestige, and Inception among others. 

14. Fabienne Servan-Schreiber   

Fabienne Servan-Schreiber is a French film and television producer.  She was born on 23rd March 1950 in Paris, France. She started her career as an assistant director then became a director before finally venturing into films production.  

Servan is the CEO of Cinétévé, a production company that she started  in 1982. She produced ‘Les Murs de Santiago’ and other films, documentaries, and television series like Witnesses. 

15. Dede Gardner

Dede Gardner. Photo By Dick Thomas – Wikimedia Commons

Dorcas Wright “Dede” Gardner is an American film producer. She was born on 16th October 1967 in Winnetka, Illinois. She is the president of Plan B Entertainment and she won two best picture Oscars for 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight. 

Dede has produced over 50 films in her career. The Third Day, The Underground Railroad, Lego Masters, The Last Black Man in San Francisco and Father of the Bride are some of her projects. 

16. Lucy Fisher  

Lucy Fisher is an American award-winning film producer. She was born on 2nd October 1949 in Englewood, New Jersey. She began her career as a freelance script writer and moved up the ladder to the position of vice president in various well known production companies.  

Lucy has worked at 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers and Columbia TriStar among others. She co-owns Red Wagon Entertainment with her husband, producer Douglas Wick.  

Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, The Great Gatsby, Divergent, Jarhead, Peter Pan, RV, Stuart Little, and Lawless are some of her productions. 

17. Ava DuVernay 

Ava DuVernay. Photo By usbotschaftberlin – Wikimedia Commons

Ava Marie DuVernay is an American award-winning filmmaker and television producer. She was born on 24th August 1972 in Long Beach, California. After college, Ava became a journalist before she opened The DuVernay Agency (DVAPR) a PR firm which offered marketing and PR services to the entertainment and lifestyle industry, working on campaigns for movies and television shows. 

At the end of 2005 she made a short film and that is how she started producing first doing documentaries only then going into films. Ava executive produced and directed the CBS civil rights crime drama pilot For Justice. 

Her other works include Queen Sugar, When They See Us, Middle of Nowhere, I Will Follow, This is the Life, Home Sweet Home and others. 

18. Gale Anne Hurd  

Gale Anne Hurd is an American film and television producer. She was born on 25th October 1955 in Los Angeles, California. She joined the industry as an assistant, worked her way up till she joined the production team.

Famous for producing The Walking Dead, Gale started Pacific Western Productions, a production house that she heads and is currently known as Valhalla Entertainment.  

She has produced The Terminator, Hunters, Downtown, Tremors, and The Incredible Hulk among others.

19. Darla K. Anderson   

Darla K. Anderson. Photo By Nick Stepowyj – Wikimedia Commons

Darla Kay Anderson is an American award- winning film producer. She was born on 22nd October 1968 in Glendale, California. She is known for producing kickass animations. She worked as an executive producer at Angel Studios before joining Pixar Animation Studios and later Netflix. Kori Rae, the Pixar producer famous for Monsters University, is her wife.  

A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., It’s Tough to Be a Bug, Coco, Cars and Toy Story 3 are some of her films. 

20. Molly Smith 

Molly Smith is an American film producer whose father is the founder of FedEx. She was born on 12th March 1981. She heads Black Label Media and she has two other business partners. 

Some of her productions include Sicario, La La Land, P.S. I Love You, Something Borrowed, The Good Lie, and Broken Diamonds among others. 

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