A Century of Women in Science Fiction Film

An evolving list of films where women played key creative roles, beginning with Thea von Harbau's work on Metropolis

Note: This is list is not comprehensive, nor is it intended to be. It was put together for the Science Fiction by Women, for Everybody group that I admin. I’m always looking for additions, corrections, or insights, reach out.

1. Thea von Harbau (Writer, screenplay and original novel) - Metropolis (1927)

2. Thea von Harbau (Writer, screenplay and original novel) - Woman in the Moon (1929)

3. Mary Shelley (Writer, original novel) - Frankenstein (1931)

Peggy Webling’s 1927 theatre adaptation of Shelley’s novel was a major inspiration for the first feature film in a long line of films based on or inspired by what is arguably the first modern science fiction novel. Fun Fact: Universal Pictures license to produce Frankenstein derives from purchasing the rights to Webling’s play, not to Shelley’s novel.

4. Mary McCarthy (additional dialogue, Co-Editor) - Life Returns (1935)

5. Gertrude Purcell (Co-Writer) - The Invisible Woman (1940)

6. Sue Dwiggins Worsley and Vy Russell (Co-Writers) - Indestructible Man (1956)

Worsley would also go on to co-write the 1963 film Monstrosity.

7. Jane Mann (Writer, screenplay and original story) - The Unearthly (1957)

8. Kay Linkaker (Co-Writer) - The Blob (1958)

Linaker’s career spanned acting in B-movies of the 1930s and 40s, to writing for Voice of America during World War II, to teaching film studies in her retirement. She co-wrote The Blob and is also responsible for the title, which was originally The Molten Meteor.

9. Irene Mora (Editor) - War of the Satellites (1958)

Mora also edited Teenage Caveman in the same year. Both films were produced and directed by Roger Corman.

10. Kinta Zertuche (Co-Writer, original story) - The Wasp Woman (1959)

11. Doris Wishman (Co-Director, Co-Writer, Co-Producer) - Nude on the Moon (1961)

Wishman made many nudist or sexploitation films in the 1960s, and had a long career spanning the genres of sexploitation, pornography, and horror. Wishman also made the 1978 semidocumentary Let Me Die A Woman, one of the rare 20th century windows into the lived experiences of transgender women.

12. Elisabeth Lutyens (Composer) - Earth Dies Screaming (1964)

Lutyens also composed scores for Spaceflight IC-1: An Adventure In Space (1965) and The Terrornauts (1967)

13. Agnès Guillemot (Editor) - Alphaville (1965)

14. Victoria Mercanton (Editor) - Barbarella (1968)

15. Lidiya Ishimbaeva (Co-Director) - Solaris (1968)

Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris has been adapted three times, and Lidiya Ishimbaeva co-directed the first two-part teleplay, broadcast on Soviet Central Television on October 8 and 9, 1968.

16. Mag Bodard (Producer), Colette Leloup (Editor) - Je t'aime, je t'aime, (1968)

Mag Bodard had a long career as a film and television producer in France, including of Palm d’Or winner The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. From 1963-1972, she was the owner of Parc Films.

17. Sylvia Anderson (Co-Writer, Producer) - Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969)

18. Marion Rothman (Editor) - Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

Rothman also edited Escape from Planet of the Apes, the next film in the original series of films, and also went on to edit a 1977 production of The Island of Dr. Moreau. Her final editing credit was 1992’s Chevy Chase vehicle, Memoirs of an Invisible Man.

19. Joyce Hooper Corrington (Co-Writer) - The Omega Man (1971)

Based on the 1954 novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.

20. Wendy Carlos (composer) - A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Wendy Carlos was a transgender composer who began living as a woman in 1968. Before working with Stanley Kubrick on A Clockwork Orange, she had been in negotiation to compose the soundtrack for Marooned, another science fiction film, in 1969. Her Moog modular synthesizer compositions defined an era in science fiction sound. Williams would later reunite with Kubrick in 1980 on the score for The Shining.

21. Marjorie Fowler (Editor) - Conquest of the Planet of the Apes

Fowler had a long career in Hollywood as an editor, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Film Editing in 1968 for her work on Dr. Dolittle.

22. Lyudmila Feiginova (Editor) - Solaris (1972)

Feiginova would later edit Tartovsky’s other science fiction film, Stalker, in 1979.

23. Hélène Arnal, Marta Látalová (Co-Editors) - Fantastic Planet (1973)

24. Stephanie Rothman (Co-Writer, Editor) - Beyond Atlantis (1973)

25. Joyce Hooper Corrington (Co-Writer) - Battle For the Planet of the Apes (1973)

26. Marie Anne Gerhardt and Ursula Elles (Co-Editors) - Welt am Draht / World on a Wire (1973)

27. Marcia Lucas (Editor) - Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)

Marcia Lucas’ editing work on 1977’s Star Wars was the lever that made the film a success and allowed it to transform the film industry, the toy industry, and pretty much everything VFX. Without her work, Star Wars would have been another crappy 1970s space opera, and our world today would be very different. Marica Lucas received an Academy Award for her work editing Star Wars, the sole Academy Award won by the film.

28. Barbara Pokras (Editor) - Space is the Place (1974)

Arguably the first Afrofuturist film, Space is the Place is constructed around avant garde musician Sun Ra and his Arkestra. There is also another edit of this film, by Sun Ra.

29. Tina Hirsch (Editor) - Death Race 2000 (1975)

30. Ingrid Neumeyer (Writer) - The Alpha Incident (1978)

31. Joan Rivers (Director, Co-Writer) - Rabbit Test (1978)

The sole directorial gesture by comedy legend Joan Rivers is also a science fiction-y take on the “pregnant man” genre.

32. Jane Arden (Co-Director, Writer) - Anti-Clock (1979)

Anti-Clock was shot on both film and video, and features early use of computers to as a VFX tool.

33. Patricia Resnick (Co-Writer) - Quintet (1979)

A frequent collaborator with Robert Altman, Resnick also co-wrote the feminist classic 9 to 5.

34. Diane English (Writer, screenplay), Ursula K. Le Guin (Writer, original novel) - The Lathe of Heaven (1980)

35. Leigh Brackett (Co-Writer) - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Brackett died shortly after turning in her first draft, so what hit the screen is maybe best described as a hodgepodge of the ideas of George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan, and Brackett. Brackett was hired by Lucas not because of her experience as the screenwriter for non-science fiction films such as Rio Bravo, but because of her work as a writer of space operas. Brackett was the first woman to be nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel, for The Long Tomorrow, in 1956.

36. Anne Dyer (Co-Writer, story), Mary Ann Fisher (Associate Producer) - Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

Battle Beyond the Stars was a Star Wars riff from B-movie magnate Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. Mary Ann Fisher would go on to produce or work as a 2nd unit director on numerous New World Pictures sci-fi B-movies in the next two decades, and served as director for 1989’s Lords of the Deep.

37. Marilyn Jacobs Tenser (Producer) - Galaxina (1980)

Marilyn Tenser produced a lot of 1960s and 1970s B-movies, including this parody/homage to Barabarella, Star Wars, and Alien. Galaxina starred Dorothy Stratten, the Playboy Playmate of the Year 1980, who became a victim of femicide by her husband, also in 1980.

38. Elzbieta Kurkowska, Golem (1980)

A prolific Polish editor before and after the end of the Cold War, Kurkowska also edited the science fiction films: The War Of The Worlds: Next Century (1981), O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization (1985), and Ga-ga: Glory To The Heroes (1986)

39. Ivanka Grybcheva (Director) - Prishestvie (1981)

40. Milly Burns (Production Designer) - Time Bandits (1981)

41. Debra Hill (Co-Writer, Producer) - Escape from New York (1981)

A prolific producer, and frequent collaborator with Escape from New York co-writer and director, John Carpenter, Hill also co-wrote and produced the 1996 sequel, Escape from L.A. Hill is also notable as the producer of David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone. 

42. Andre Alice Norton (Writer, original source novel) - The Beastmaster (1982)

While the final film is a sword and sorcery film, the original novel on which it was based, The Beast Master, was a science fiction narrative. Norton’s career, spanning multiple genres and multiple nom de plumes, included numerous science fiction stories and novels, stretching from 1934 until her death in 2005.

43. Wendy Carlos (Composer, with Annemarie Franklin) - Tron (1982)

44. Gabrielle Althon (Co-Writer) - Chronopolis (1982)

45. Melissa Matheson (Writer), Kahtleen Kennedy (Producer) - E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982)

Matheson received an Academy Award nomination for her screenplay on E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. She also wrote a segment for Twilight Zone: The Movie, under the name Josh Rogan, in 1983.

46. Corinne Jacker (Writer) - Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1983)

Based on an original story by John Varley, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank is sometimes considered the first cyberpunk film, and was developed for television distribution.

47. Lizzie Borden (Director, Writer, Producer, Editor) - Born in Flames (1983)

Born in Flames also features future Strange Days writer/director Kathryn Bigelow as an actress.

48. Lynne Littman (Director), Carol Amen (Writer, original story) - Testament (1983)

49. Sophie Schmidt (Editor) - Le Dernier Combat / The Last Battle

The first film directed by The Fifth Element director Luc Besson.

50. Johanna Heer (Cinematographer) - Decoder (1984)

Loosely based on the writing of William Burroughs, and also featuring Burroughs as an actor.

51. Miroslawa Garlicka (Editor) - Seksmisja / Sex Mission (1984)

52. Christy Marx (Co-Writer) - What Waits Below (1984)

One of the most prolific writers and creators of television animation in the 1980s and 1990s, Marx’ science fiction credits include shows including: G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and ReBoot . Most notably, she developed Jem, a show about teenage girl rockstars that use “hologram” technology.

53. Lesley Branch (writer, original, plagiarized novel, The Sabres of Paradise) - Dune (1984)

Dune author Frank Herbert really believed in Mark Twain’s adage “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.” Lesley Branch was a travel writer and a scenic and costume designer for theatre, whose 1960 Orientalist romantic novel The Sabres of Paradise was radically and rapidly plagiarized by Frank Herbert in his 1963-64 serials for Analog magazine that were collected into what became the 1965 novel, Dune. Flash forward to 1984, when David Lynch directed what remains the most visionary adaptation of Herbert’s novel.

54. Martha Coolidge (Director) - Real Genius (1985)

55. Kathleen Kennedy (Executive Producer) - Back to the Future (1985)

Arguably the most powerful woman in American entertainment media in the early 21st century, Kathleen Kennedy co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Steven Spielberg in 1981 and became President of Lucasfilm in 2012. She was in the producer or executive producer role of films including: E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001). Since becoming President of Lucasfilm, she has become synonymous with all things Star Wars, on film and on television.

56. Annabel Jackel (Co-Director) - Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future (1985)

Developed for Channel 4, this is the film that launched the Max Headroom phenomena of the 1980s, which pioneered the idea of an “AI” media personality.

57. Natalya Dobrunova (Editor) - Kin-Dza-Dza! (1986)

58. Carol Spier (Production Designer) - The Fly (1986)

Although Carol Spier’s working relationship with David Cronenberg began in 1979 with The Brood, it’s The Fly where she moved from Art Director to Production Designer. Spier has worked on nearly all of Cronenberg’s films and has had a major role in shaping the aesthetics of body horror and science fiction for over four decades.

59. Gale Ann Hurd (Producer) - Aliens (1986)
    
    Do yourself a favor and watch Gale Ann Hurd’s production documentary on Aliens. It’s four hours of an incredibly smart producer (and wife/creative partner to her husband, James Cameron) laying out an argument for the role of producers in shaping the creative potential of a film. Without Gale’s leadership on both Terminator and Aliens, the world of science fiction on film would look very, very different, today. Gale is also the producer on Cameron’s most “science fiction-y” film, The Abyss. Gale is a prolific producer, and in her four decades of work in that role, she has only produced two feature films directed by a woman, one of them being Karyn Kusama’s 2005 film Æon Flux, which also appears on this list.

60. Susan Seidelman (Director), Laurie Frank (Writer) - Making Mr. Right (1987)

61. Christine Pansu (Editor) - Gandahar (1987)

62. Bari Wood (Co-Writer, original novel Twins) - Dead Ringers (1988)

63.  Julie Brown (Co-writer, Actress) - Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)
    
    Developed by Warner Bros. as a vehicle for Julie Brown, who was bumped to a supporting role in favor of Geena Davis, who went on to found the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, whose research criticizes and informs issues of gender and representation in film and television to this day.

64. Kei Fujiwara (Cinematographer, Art Dept, Lead Actor) - Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

Beyond her role on screen, Fujiwara also served as the cinematographer for some scenes, and constructed much of the film’s iconic props and costumes. Fujiwara was a member of Tetsuo director Shinya Tsukamoto’s theatre troupe, Kaijyu Theatre, and collaborated with him on numerous early films.

65. Tatyana Pulina (Editor) - Visitor to a Museum (1989)

66. Mary Ann Fisher (Director) - Lords of the Deep (1989)

67. Valentina Rydvanova, Dominique Vignet (Producers), Angelika Stute (Executive Producer) - Hard to Be A God (1989)

The first film adaptation of the 1964 novel of the same name by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

68. Margaret Atwood (Writer, original novel) - The Handmaid’s Tale (1990)

69. Solveig Dommartin (Co-Writer, Lead Actor) - Until the End of the World (1991)

Dommartin also collaborated with Until the End of the World director Wim Wenders on the films Wings of Desire, Faraway, So Close, and Tokyo Ga.

70. Catherine Cryan (Co-Writer, Co-Producer) - Future Kick (1991)

71. Catherine Cryan (Writer) - Dead Space (1991)

72. Sally Potter (Director, Writer), Virginia Woolf (Author, source novel) - Orlando (1992)

73. Rachel Talalay (Director) - Ghost in the Machine (1993)
    
    Inexplicably borrows its soundtrack from Predator 2.

74. Annabel Jankel (Co-Director) - Super Mario Bros. (1993)

Adapted from the videogame of the same name, the first feature film adaptation of the franchise included numerous science fiction elements.

75. Kathyrn Bigelow (Director, Co-Writer) Strange Days (1995)

Kathryn Bigelow would go on to become the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director in 1998, for her film The Hurt Locker.

76. Rachel Talalay (Director) - Tank Girl (1995)

77. Ngozi Onwurah (Director, Writer) - Welcome II The Terrordome (1995)

78. Janet Peoples (Co-Writer) - 12 Monkeys (1995)

Adapted from Chris Marker’s 1962 short-film, La Jetée. Peoples’ husband shares a screenwriting credit on Blade Runner with Hampton Fancher, wrote numerous science fiction scripts, and wrote and directed The Blood of Heroes (also known as Salute of the Jugger).

79. Kei Fujiwara (Director, Writer, Producer) - Organ (1996)

80. Lynn Hershman Leeson (Producer, Director, Co-Writer, with Eileen Jones, Sadie Plant, and Betty A. Toole) - Conceiving Ada (1997)

81. Hilary Brougher (Director, Writer) - The Sticky Fingers of Time (1997)

82. Sigourney Weaver (Producer, Lead Actor) - Alien Resurrection (1997)

While Sigourney Weaver became a cultural icon and “the first female action hero” in 1986’s Aliens, by 1997, her importance to the franchise was so critical that she was able to step into the role of producer. Weaver used her willingness to return to the franchise after the “death” of Ellen Ripley to exercise control over the story, the shooting location, and other critical details in a film that is still waiting for the critical examination demanded by its story and theme.

83. Sylvie Landra (Editor) - The Fifth Element (1997)

Landra went on to edit A Sound of Thunder, in 2005.

84. Mimi Leder (Director) - Deep Impact (1998)

Leder, who has had a long career in film and television, being nominated and winning multiple Emmys for her work, was also the first female graduate of the American Film Institute, in 1973.

85. Roberta Hanley (Director, Writer) - Brand New World (1998)

Based on the play Woundings, by science fiction author Jeff Noon, Brand New World also includes a soundtrack composed by Wendy Carlos, of A Clockwork Orange and Tron fame.

86. Lana and Lilly Wachowski (Co-Directors and Co-Writers) - The Matrix (1999)

The Wachowski sisters publicly transitioned following the release of The Matrix, but the film is widely considered to contain metaphors for their emergent transgender identity.

87. Solveig Nordlund (Director, Co-Writer) - Aparelho Voador a Baixa Altitude (2002)

88. Lynn Hershman Leeson (Director, Writer) - Teknolust (2002)

89. Lana and Lilly Wachowski (Co-Directors and Co-Writers) - The Matrix: Reloaded & The Matrix: Revolutions (2003)

Both films were in production concurrently, and released in sequence, six months apart.

89. Ellen Kuras (Cinematographer) - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Kuras, one of the very small number of women who hold membership in the American Society of Cinematographers, was nominated for an Academy Award for her 2008 feature-length documentary The Betrayal (Nerakhoon).

91. Karyn Kusama (Director) - Æon Flux (2005)

Adapted from Peter Chung’s shorts for MTV’s Liquid Television, which later became a series, with the shorts premiering in 1991, and the series terminating in 1995.

92. Lana and Lilly Wachowski (Co-Directors and Co-Writers) - V for Vendetta (2005)

Adapted from Alan Moore’s 1982 graphic novel of the same name.

93. P.D. James (Writer, original novel) - Children of Men (2006)

94. Jennifer Phang (Director, Writer) - Half-Life (2008)

95. Marina Dyachenko (Co-Writer) - Dark Planet / Dark Planet: Rebellion (2008/2009)

Adapted from the novel The Inhabited Island, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, it was the most expensive Russian science fiction film ever made at the time of its production. It was released in two parts, in 2008 and 2009.

96. Ayn Rand (Writer, source novel) - Atlas Shrugged (2011)

The first of three independent films based on Ayn Rand’s objectivist, science fiction novel, with sequels being released in 2012 and 2014.

97. Kristina Buožytė (Director, Co-Writer) - Vanishing Waves (2012)

98. Jen Soska and Sylvia Soska (Co-Directors, Co-Writers) - American Mary (2012)

99. Lana and Lilly Wachowski (Co-Directors, Co-Producers, and Co-Writers) - Cloud Atlas (2012)

Adapted from David Michell’s novel of the same name, Cloud Atlas was the most expensive independent film ever made as of the time of its production.

100. Tatyana Ilyina (Co-Director, Co-Writer) - Ku! Kin-dza-dza (2013)

A remake of Gergory Daniela’s 1986 film of the same title, produced by Mosfilm in the waning days of the Soviet Union.

101. Svetlana Karmalita (Co-Writer), Irina Gorokhovskaya and Mariya Amosova (Editors) - Hard To Be A God (2013)

Based on the 1964 novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, who also authored Roadside Picnic, which was adapted as Stalker by Andrei Tartovsky in 1979, which was edited by Lyudmila Feiginova.

102. Claire Carré (Director, Co-Writer) - Embers (2015)

103. Leonora Lim-Moore (Co-Director, Co-Writer) - Made in Taiwan (2015)

104. Lana and Lilly Wachowski (Directors, Producers, Writers) Jupiter Ascending (2015)

105. Jennfier Phang (Director, Co-Writer), Jacqueline Kim (Co-Writer) - Advantageous (2015)

106. Laeta Kalogridis (Co-Writer) - Terminator Genisys (2015)

107. Ana Lily Amirpour (Director, Writer) - The Bad Batch (2016)

108. Sharon Lewis (Director, Writer) - Brown Girl Begins (2017)

109. Julia Ducournau (Director, Writer) - Raw (2016)

110. Susanne Bier (Director) - Bird Box (2018)

111. Claire Denis (Director, Writer) - High Life (2018)

112. Ruth Carter (Costume Designer), Rachel Morrison (Director of Photography) - Black Panther (2018)

2018’s Black Panther presents an afrofuturist vision that was wholly new to most audiences at the time of its release. Carter’s Academy Award winning work as costume designer on this film moved the aesthetics of afrofuturism into the mainstream vernacular. Likewise, Rachel Morrison, the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for cinematography, is responsible for much of the film’s visual style.

113. Ava Duverney (Director) - A Wrinkle in Time (2018)

114. Christina Hodson (Writer) - Bumblebee (2018)

115. Julia Hart (Director, Co-Writer) - Fast Color (2018)

116. Jen Soska and Sylvia Soska (Co-Directors, Co-Writers) - Rabid (2019)

A remake of David Cronenberg’s 1977 film of the same name. Kim Derko worked as cinematographer, and it was edited by Erin Deck.

117. Mati Diop (Director) - Atlantics (2019)

118. Laeta Kalogordia (Co-Writer) - Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

Based on Yukita Kishiro’s manga Gunnm / Battle Angel Alita.

119. Anna Boden (Co-Director, Co-Writer) - Captain Marvel (2019)

120. Neasa Hardiman (Director, Writer) - Sea Fever (2019)

121. Eleanor Wilson (Co-Director, Co-Writer) - Save Yourselves! (2020)

122. Ana Lily Amirpour (Director, Writer) - Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2021)

123. Cate Shortland (Director) - Black Widow (2021)

124. Margaret Cavendish (Writer, original novel) - The Blazing World (2021)

While the film strays wildly from the source material, Margaret Cavendish’s 1666 book of the same title pre-dates Shelley’s Frankenstein as a novel, and is arguably the first English language work of long-form science fiction.

125. Julia Ducournau (Director, Writer) - Titane (2021)

126. Diana Ringo (Director, Writer, Producer) - Quarantine (2021)

127. Anisia Uzeyman (Co-Director, Cinematographer) - Neptune Frost (2021)

128. Kristina Buožytė (Co-Director, Co-Writer, and Producer) - Vesper (2022)

129. Akela Cooper (Director) - M3GAN (2022)

130. Camille DeAngelis (Writer, original 2015 novel) - Bones & All (2022)

Notes:

1. Although I’ve made some notable exceptions, this list does not fully reflect the incredible creative work that has been done by women in so many critical roles in film, whether it’s the historically strong representation women have had in the fields of casting and editing, or the real scope of the work of women producers. If you look closely at the credits of countless science fiction films that have a male “auteur” at the helm, you’ll find films whose success owes itself in some large part to the work of women in critical, creative, off-screen roles.
   
   This list is intended to find women’s voices in science fiction feature films. Some particularly notable women working in key creative positions have been highlighted, although many, many more could be.
   
   Next time you go to the movies, sit for the credits and look at the leadership of the various production areas of a film. Does a film have a male director, but the majority of production areas were helmed by women? Does a film have a female director, but nearly everyone else in a leadership position is male? I’ll argue that film is a tremendous collaborative medium, and that the ideology of the “auteur” exists as part of a patriarchal structure that limits the kinds of stories that can be told and how they are told.

2. I’ve tried to stay “tight” to the science fiction genre, as we see it reflected in its home medium, literature. Some things on this list have surreal or maybe even “magical” elements. When I evaluate something on those terms, the “thought-tool” I use is: “Is this a story that could fit into the broad definition of science fiction that was accepted during the New Wave era of the 1960s and 1970s? If a man (Ellison, Aldiss, Dick, Moorcock, Herbert, etc… had written this in 1972, would most folks think it was science fiction?”

   Lists of “science fiction films” often include numerous superhero/MCU/DCU films whose themes are clearly outside the genre. We live in an age of high technology. We live in the future, essentially. We live after the dates of countless science fiction stories whose speculations have not (yet) come to pass, or that never will. We often mistake “tech” for science, and the line between the supernatural and speculative science fiction is a permeable barrier, at best.

   Some films have been included because their narratives or worldbuilding seems to relate primarily to technology or science, or because they clearly take place in a distinct and interesting future or an alternate past or even an alternate universe.
   
   Likewise, the border between horror and science fiction is sometimes exceptionally blurry, and some horror films that seem “plausibly science-fiction-y” in the sense that they “ask questions posed within the genre of science fiction” or “the narrative is driven by technological or scientific means/experimentation” are included in this list, particularly within the sub-genre of body horror.

   Generally, what is being avoided are things that radically violate the laws of physics, outside of space travel, which gets a general pass in all but the hardest SF, or clearly employ magic or fantasy elements, especially when deviations from our understanding of how the universe works have zero symbolic or metaphorical value.

3. Because women have had to seek unconventional paths to tell stories in film, the metric I’m using to determine “What is a feature film?” is: “Is it long or substantial enough to be screened in a film theater, on its own, and not as a package of shorts?”

4. This list does not include numerous women who have had prolific careers as television directors or writers, such as Jen Lynch, Deborah Chow, Mairzee Adams, and many, many others. That would require a wholly separate list, constructed differently. But they are acknowledged here. Many of them have directed or written, on the basis of “hours on screen,” far more material than most feature filmmakers do in their entire career, and their influence on both mass culture and science fiction storytelling cannot be understated in “The Golden Age of Television.” As television is still considered a “writer’s medium,” that list would have different metrics.

5. Some films are more notable than others. Some films are more notable for their production histories than their content. This list doesn’t pretend to see all or know all. If you feel that something is omitted or has found its way onto this list mistakenly, please let me know.

6. Content Warnings? This is a long list of films, and it covers a lot of ground and some intimate and intense material. Not every film on this list is a masterpiece, and not every film on this list is easy to watch, and what is hard to watch for one of us isn’t for another. My own triggers are idiosyncratic to the experiences I hold in my own body, as are yours.
   
   If you want to be sure any film is right for you, I encourage you to briefly research the film you’re going to watch before you watch it.