Who are the 20 showrunners behind iconic hit TV shows?

Though the eighth season of Game of Thrones  might have left a bitter taste in the mouths of many fans, it’s impossible to deny that showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss nevertheless managed to change the face of fantasy TV with their adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s works. For most of the show’s run, they successfully brought their vision to bear while also largely staying true to the spirit of the original A Song of Ice and Fire series. Since then, they have had success with the series 3 Body Problem, which is currently on Netflix.

Joey Soloway is perhaps most notable for creating and running the series Transparent, which was a true game-changer in terms of the representation of trans people in popular media. Even before they made a splash with Transparent, however, Soloway had already shown that they were a formidable writing talent thanks to their work on a variety of shows, including Six Feet Under and Grey’s Anatomy. For their work on Transparent, they received both popularity and significant critical praise, including several Emmys. 

Liz Feldman has had a very productive relationship with Netflix, and she has been especially successful at crafting black comedies that are both very funny and poignant. Arguably, her greatest success was Dead to Me,  which starred Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, whose lives are brought together by grief. More recently, Feldman has returned to the black comedy genre in her most recent series, No Good Deed, which she also produced for Netflix and which also combines rich emotion with a lot of laughs.

Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson established themselves as a truly remarkable creative team with the production of their hit comedy series, Broad City. This show, which ran for five seasons on Comedy Central, also starred the two of them and offered an earthier, in some ways, more honest version of HBO’s Girls. The two would use this success to go on to achieve more success, with Jacobson creating the series A League of Their Own and Glazer appearing in a number of well-received comedy films. 

Tina Fey is one of those formidable talents who is as successful behind the camera as she is in front of it. In addition to her hilarious performances on Saturday Night Live, she acted as head writer for the long-running sketch comedy series. Moreover, she also served as co-showrunner for the series 30 Rock, on which she was also the star. Since then, she has continued to act, and she also served as the showrunner on the series The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which ran for four seasons on Netflix.

Though Mike White has been in the industry for quite a while, it was really only with the success of his show The White Lotus that he catapulted to Hollywood superstardom. From its very first season, the show demonstrated that it was destined to be one of the sharpest, funniest, and most outlandish shows on television, with its scathing look at the follies and foibles of the wealthy. White has continued to push the envelope with each season, with the third taking the show in new and even more controversial directions. 

Even though it left the air in 2019, Veep  continues to be one of the best political comedies ever made due to its incisive commentary and its wicked and biting sense of humor (to say nothing of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ performance). Armando Iannucci was the creative genius behind the series, and in addition to creating it, he served as showrunner for its first several seasons. Of course, Iannucci’s success isn’t surprising, considering he was also at the helm of the successful British series The Thick of It for several years. 

Not every showrunner can claim to have helmed two successful sitcoms, but Rob McElhenney certainly can. In addition to creating and helming the long-running and consistently hilarious It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, McElhenney created the series Mythic Quest on Apple TV. The remarkable thing about the two series is how radically different they are, which is yet another demonstration of McElhenney’s versatility as both a creator and an actor, as he also stars in both series.

In some ways, Ryan Murphy is a juggernaut of Hollywood. He has stood at the helm of a number of highly successful series in a variety of genres. Among others, he has been the creative mind behind the musical Glee, the horror series American Horror Story, and the crime drama Monster. In addition to these successes, he has also been the showrunner and/or producer for a staggering number of other productions for a variety of networks and streamers, including Fox, FX, and Netflix. There is seemingly nothing that he cannot do.

Netflix has a habit of attracting remarkable talent, and Mike Flanagan remains one of their most successful finds. During his time with the streamer, he was the showrunner for some of its most acclaimed and highly regarded horror offerings, including The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, and The Fall of the House of Usher. In addition to being remarkably prolific — helming a new series almost every year for much of the 2020s —  Flanagan also demonstrated that one doesn’t have to sacrifice quality for quantity. 

The success of HBO’s Game of Thrones inevitably led to a spin-off, in this case, House of the Dragon, which focuses on the Targaryen dynasty and their destructive civil war. Helming the show is Ryan Condal, who helped to create the show with George R.R. Martin himself. While the show has had its ups and downs during its two seasons, it remains a powerful and sprawling piece of epic fantasy TV. Much of its success can be attributed to Condal, who has done a remarkable job of wrestling Martin’s fictional history Fire & Blood into dramatic form. 

After some moderate success working in TV throughout the 1980s, Vince Gilligan achieved worldwide fame after becoming the showrunner for the beloved Breaking Bad.  The series marked the continuing ascent of the figure of the antihero, focusing as it did on Bryan Cranston’s Walter White, a chemistry teacher who becomes a drug lord. This catapulted Gilligan into the realm of successful showrunners, and he has carried that success into the spinoff, Better Call Saul, which became yet another success for him.

Greg Berlanti is one of those producers who is a force of nature in Hollywood. His rise to prominence truly began when he became the showrunner for Dawson’s Creek, but it wasn’t long before he was able to make his mark on a truly staggering number of TV shows. He has had a particularly fruitful partnership with the CW, for whom he has developed several series, including Arrow and The Flash. He is also notable for developing the hit series You, which began at Lifetime but has since become one of the most popular series on Netflix.

British writer Jesse Armstrong has had a remarkably successful career in TV, particularly when it comes to screenwriting. Arguably, his greatest success, however, was as the showrunner for the acclaimed HBO series Succession,  which focused on the powerful media magnate Logan Roy (played by Brian Cox) and his children, all of whom scheme against one another to get control of the company. In addition to writing several of the series’ most beloved episodes, he also brought out some remarkable performances from the various members of the cast, including Jeremy Strong.

Few women in Hollywood wield as much power as Shonda Rhimes, who has achieved remarkable success in the world of TV. She is particularly notable for being the showrunner for Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal, which established her as a real player in an industry dominated by white men. In addition to helming three very successful series, she has established herself as a powerful producer, and her production company has been responsible for numerous other successful series, including How to Get Away with Murder and Bridgerton. 

In addition to starring in the hit sitcom Abbott Elementary (portraying optimistic and somewhat naive teacher Janine Teagues), Quinta Brunson is the co-showrunner for the series as a whole. Thanks to her vision, the series has become one of the funniest shows on television. Just as importantly, it is also a remarkably optimistic series, allowing the viewer to spend time with teachers who genuinely care about their students and are doing their best to make a better world for the children under their care.

Michael Schur can truly be said to have helped to reinvigorate the sitcom for the late 2000s and 2010s. Under his showrunning ability, a number of hit sitcoms have become true classics of the genre, ranging from the sunnily optimistic Parks and Recreation to the more slapstick (yet somehow very earnest) Brooklyn Nine-Nine. He has proven remarkably prolific and versatile, and he is the creative genius behind such thoughtful and heartwarming series as The Good Place and, more recently, Man on the Inside.

Based on Robert Jordan’s sprawling fantasy series of the same name, Amazon’s The Wheel of Time is truly epic in scope, focusing on a young man named Rand al’Thor as he accepts his destiny as the messianic figure known as the Dragon. Showrunner Rafe Lee Judkins deserves a lot of credit for even attempting to bring Jordan’s work to the screen, but so far, he has drawn out the most compelling and TV-worthy moments from the novels and brought them to remarkable life. Now in its third season, the show continues to raise the bar in terms of what fantasy TV can be.

The Simpsons is an American institution. Throughout its thirty-six seasons, it has managed to tap into the American subconscious and uncannily predict the future. It was the brainchild of Matt Groening, who, in addition to serving as the showrunner for its beginnings, has also created several other notable animated TV series, including Futurama and Disenchantment. As a result, he can truly be said to be one of the most influential and successful figures working in adult animation.

Ronald D. Moore has proved to be a remarkably versatile showrunner. In addition to bringing Battlestar Galactica back to life with an updated version of the story, he was responsible for developing Diana Gabaldon’s hugely popular Outlander novels for Starz. As if all of this weren’t enough, he was also the showrunner for the Apple TV+ series For All Mankind. Time and again, Moore has shown himself to be one of TV’s most adept and versatile creators of science fiction television.