12 Most Prolific Showrunners of the Last 10 Years, Ranked
Christine is a freelance writer for Collider with two decades of experience covering all types of TV shows and movies spanning every genre. With a particular affinity for dramas, true crime, sitcoms, and thrillers, if it's a top TV show, Christine has likely watched it and is eager to share her thoughts. When she's not furiously writing away, you can find her enjoying the next binge obsession with a glass of wine in front of the TV.
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Behind every good TV show is a good showrunner, director, and creator, along with other behind-the-scenes folks who work with on-screen talent. Some of the most prolific showrunners of the last decade have really hit their stride, cranking out hit show after hit show, or focusing in on a small selection of high-quality series.
These individuals are behind some of the biggest shows of the last 10 years. Many of the shows, and the showrunners, have racked up numerous awards. They are often talked about as much as their shows are. One of these people even stars in their own show, while a few others have been behind not only some of the biggest shows of the last 10 years, but of the last several decades.
12 Dan Harmon
Dan Harmon has been working as a writer, producer, and actor for decades, but he gained notoriety as creator and producer of the sitcom Community and as co-creator of the animated sitcom Rick and Morty. Since then, he has been consistently churning out hit shows with a focus on the adult animated genre. One of the most recent is Krapopolis, an adult animated sitcom set in mythical Ancient Greece that tells the story of feuding of humans, gods, and monsters.
Earning Emmys in 2018 and 2020 for Rick and Morty, he has more in store to come, including another adult animated supernatural sitcom series called Haunted Hotel about a woman running a haunted hotel along with her brother's ghost, and the adult animated sci-fi comedy President Curtis about the fictional president handling paranormal phenomenon. While the adult animated space has long been dominated by showrunners like Matt Groening and Seth McFarlane, Harmon is one of the latest to watch.
11 Quinta Brunson
Quinta Brunson has solidified her status as a comedic genius with the multi-Emmy-winning and nominated sitcom Abbott Elementary. Brunson also stars in the mockumentary sitcom about teachers and other staff working in an underfunded public school. She made history as the first Black woman to be nominated three times for comedy, for the show itself, writing, as well as acting. In 2022 for the 75th Emmy Awards, she made history again as the first Black woman to win for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy in more than 40 years.
Along with serving as the creator, executive producer, and co-writer of Abbott Elementary, Brunson was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People back in 2022. She has come a long way from her humble beginnings, creating comedy videos on Instagram and working as a video producer for BuzzFeed Video. Abbott Elementary is considered one of the best sitcoms of the last five years.
10 Liz Meriwether
Liz Meriwether rose to prominence with the massively popular sitcom New Girl, which she created. From there, she created several hit sitcoms, like Single Parents and Bless This Mess. Most recently, she gained attention for The Dropout, a biographical drama miniseries about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, portrayed by Amanda Seyfried (who won an Emmy for her portrayal). There's also Dying for Sex, a comedy drama miniseries starring Michelle Williams as a woman finding herself in the wake of a terminal diagnosis. Furious is a new crime drama starring Emmy Rossum as an FBI agent hunting down a vigilante female serial killer.
Meriwether herself has received accolades for her shows, including an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Dying for Sex. She is next tapped to write a screenplay for an untitled Britney Spears biopic. You can probably sense a theme in her work: feminism is a big part of her focus. Meriwether is a member of the unofficial "Fempire," a group of prolific female screenwriters who are proving their talents behind the scenes, to tremendous success.
9 Dan Fogelman
Demonstrating incredible versatility in his work, Dan Fogelman broke onto the scene with the drama This Is Us, only to follow it up with a completely different show — the post-apocalyptic, political thriller, sci-fi series Paradise, one of the best thriller shows since 2020. Both shows have become major titles of the last decade, This Is Us earning 39 Emmy nominations and four wins through its run and Paradise already receiving 11 nominations for its two seasons to date.
While his sports drama series Pitch was canceled after a single season, it received high praise, so the decision was baffling. Fogelman is also an executive producer of Only Murders in the Building. He's next working on a sports drama series called The Land starring Christopher Meloni, William H. Macy, and Mandy Moore.
Collider Exclusive · Universe Personality Quiz Which Iconic Universe Do You Belong in the Most? Star Wars · Lord of the Rings · Harry Potter · Game of Thrones · Star Trek
Five legendary universes. Five completely different visions of what the world could be — or already was. One of them is the world your instincts, your values, and your particular way of existing were built for. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🚀Star Wars
💍Lord of the Rings
🧙Harry Potter
👑Game of Thrones
🖖Star Trek
01
What gives your life its deepest sense of meaning? Every universe is built around a different answer to this question.
02
Which kind of world do you most want to inhabit? The environment shapes who you become. Choose carefully.
03
How do you prefer your conflicts resolved? The shape of a world's conflicts tells you everything about its soul.
04
Who do you want beside you when things get difficult? Your ideal companions reveal the world you were made for.
05
What is your relationship with power? How you seek, wield, or resist power is the map of who you are.
06
How does your universe treat good and evil? A world's moral architecture tells you more about it than any map.
07
What role would you naturally fall into? Every universe has archetypes. Which one fits you without trying?
08
What do you ultimately believe about the future? The answer to this is the clearest window into which universe already lives inside you.
Your Universe Has Been Chosen You Belong In…
Your answers point to the iconic universe your values, your instincts, and your particular way of seeing the world were built for. This is where you would find your people — and your purpose.
Star Wars
You believe in the cause — in the idea that freedom is worth fighting for even when the odds are impossible and the empire is vast.
- You are drawn to the moral clarity of a universe where hope itself is a form of resistance.
- You'd find your people in the Rebellion — a ragtag coalition of true believers held together by conviction more than resources.
- Star Wars is fundamentally a story about ordinary people choosing to matter in an extraordinary conflict — and that is exactly your kind of story.
- The Force may or may not be with you. But the will to use it for something larger than yourself certainly is.
Lord of the Rings
You understand, in the deepest part of yourself, that the journey matters as much as the destination — and that the world's beauty is worth protecting even at great cost.
- Middle-earth is a world of ancient wonder, deep friendship, and a darkness that only retreats when enough small acts of courage accumulate.
- You would thrive here because you value the fellowship more than the glory — the road more than the arrival.
- Tolkien's universe rewards patience, loyalty, and the willingness to carry something heavy across a very long distance.
- Those are not burdens to you. They are simply how you move through the world.
Harry Potter
You believe that love, loyalty, and doing what's right are not naive sentiments — they are the most powerful forces in any world, magical or otherwise.
- The Wizarding World is a place of wonder hidden in plain sight, where learning is transformative and the bonds you form at school follow you into every battle.
- You would flourish here because you take both the magic and the friendships seriously — and you understand that one without the other is incomplete.
- Harry Potter's universe ultimately rewards those who choose to stand for something even when standing is terrifying.
- That choice — made quietly, without guarantee — is something you understand completely.
Game of Thrones
You see the world clearly — its power structures, its hypocrisies, its brutal arithmetic — and you are not paralysed by that clarity. You use it.
- Westeros is a world that rewards intelligence, adaptability, and the willingness to understand that every alliance is also a negotiation.
- You would survive here — possibly thrive here — because you don't confuse the world as it is with the world as you'd like it to be.
- Game of Thrones is a story about what happens when the idealists and the realists collide. You are sharp enough to know which one lasts longer.
- Winter always comes. You are already prepared.
Star Trek
You believe the future is worth building — that curiosity, cooperation, and the expansion of understanding are not just ideals but the most practical path forward for any civilisation.
- Star Trek is a universe where the questions matter as much as the answers, and where encountering something utterly alien is cause for wonder rather than fear.
- You would belong here because you are fundamentally optimistic about what intelligence and decency can achieve — while being honest about how hard that achievement is.
- The Federation is the universe's most ambitious thought experiment: what if we actually got better?
- You don't just hope that's possible. You think it's the only thing worth working toward.
8 Graham Yost
Graham Yost is the incredible mind who brought Silo to the small screen, one of the best sci-fi shows right now and among the best shows on Apple TV. The Canadian screenwriter has been writing for TV for decades, including for shows like Herman's Head, Band of Brothers, and The Pacific. He also created and executive produced Justified, executive produced The Americans, and in 2016, became head writer and executive producer for the series Sneaky Pete.
While Silo is his biggest project this decade, Yost has also worked behind the scenes as an executive producer for Slow Horses, Justified: City Primeval, and Masters of the Air. Silo may take up most of his time right now, but with that show closing in on its fourth and final season, we expect to see more big things from Yost through the rest of the 2020s and beyond.
7 Eric Kripke
Eric Kripke is one of the most enduring showrunners of the 2000s and 2020s, as well as one who has pushed the envelope with his latest shows. He created the hugely popular and long-running series Supernatural, which made Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki household names. He was showrunner for the first five seasons of the series. From there, he went on to create many other shows, including Revolution and Timeless. But none is as talked about as The Boys.
The satirical superhero series that was easy to spot as a masterpiece after the first 10 minutes is raunchy, gruesome, and explicit, but also heavily politically charged. The show has held a lens up to the current political climate and ruffled a lot of feathers. He kept the momentum going with the two-season spin-off Gen V about a younger group of superheroes (tying beautifully with the original show). Kripke is now working on the upcoming prequel series Vought Rising, which will focus on Ackles' character Soldier Boy. He is leaning fully into this franchise, which has become one of the most subversive of this decade.
6 Shonda Rhimes
When your production company is called Shondaland, you know you're a huge star. Because what's a land without a lot of entertainment to fill it? And boy, has Shonda Rhimes been busy this last decade (and beyond) with some of the biggest shows of late. The juggernaut medical drama that is Grey's Anatomy, one of the longest running drama shows, is her project, for which she serves as creator and head writer. She went on to create the spin-off Private Practice, then delighted fans with the deliciously salacious political thriller Scandal. She didn't stop there with the equally salacious thriller How to Get Away with Murder, both with strong female leads.
That's already an impressive resume and a busy two decades, with Grey's Anatomy having launched way back in 2005. But Rhimes did not stop there, and her latest projects from the last decade are even bigger. The period series Bridgerton has become one of Netflix's most watched shows ever, along with its prequel spin-off Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story. Somehow, somewhere in between all that, she also worked on the crime drama Inventing Anna, starring Julia Garner as Anna Delvey/Sorokin, the scheming woman who fooled everyone by posing as a wealthy socialite. Rhimes shows no signs of slowing down, and you can rest assured that if her name is on a TV project, it's probably going to be amazing.
5 Ryan Murphy
The powerhouse showrunner Ryan Murphy, who collaborated with Brad Falchuk on many projects, is like the father of modern-day television. It started with Nip/Tuck in the early 2000s, but the big breakout was Glee, the musical comedy drama that defined a generation. Pose, meanwhile, shed light on the LGBTQ+ and Black and Latino New York City ball culture of the '80s and '90s.
Murphy went darker with anthology series like American Horror Story, American Crime Story, and the Monster anthology series, all of which have become massive hits. While Ratched and Grotesquerie were both canceled after one season, they were well received and count towards Murphy's 21 shows and counting. More recently, there's an eclectic mix of shows like 9-1-1: Lone Star, The Watcher, 9-1-1: Nashville, and who can forget the ridiculously addictive but short-lived guilty pleasure, eye-candy filled The Love Boat-inspired series Doctor Odyssey? With so many shows still on the go, it's a wonder Murphy has time for anything new. But this year alone, we got The Beauty, Love Story (which earned two Emmy nominations), and The Shards.
4 Shawn Ryan
One of the best when it comes to procedurals and crime dramas, Shawn Ryan created and/or produced The Shield, The Unit, Lie to Me, Timeless, and S.W.A.T.. But what he's most known for in this decade is the smash-hit action crime drama The Night Agent. The series became Netflix's most watched show for its first season. While viewer numbers didn't reach the same heights for Seasons 2 and 3, the show just kept getting better and better. It's confirmed to be ending with its fourth and final season.
Ryan has been writing for TV since the '90s with shows like My Two Dads, Nash Bridges, Angel, and Terriers. His latest project is American Hostage with Jon Hamm and Giovanni Ribisi, which just released on MGM+ in September. It tells the real-life story of Tony Kiritsis (Ribisi), who kidnapped his mortgage broker at gunpoint and called into a popular local radio station, chatting through the ordeal with radio reporter Fred Heckman (Hamm). If there's a new procedural coming, if it's not from Dick Wolf, it's probably from Ryan.
3 Bill Lawrence
A master of tackling comedy dramas that dive into mental health with both Ted Lasso and Shrinking, these two hit 2020s shows are just the tip of the iceberg for the prolific TV producer, screenwriter, and director Bill Lawrence. He also created Scrubs, a popular medical sitcom that returned more than 15 years after it ended for a revival and sequel, as well as Cougar Town and Spin City. Previously, Lawrence wrote for The Nanny and Boy Meets World.
He hit it out of the park recently again with Rooster, a comedy drama starring Steve Carell as author Greg Russo trying to navigate a complicated relationship with his daughter Katie (Charly Clive). Bad Monkey is also his creation, a black comedy crime drama starring Vince Vaughn as former police detective Andrew Yancy who is trying to get back in his boss's good graces. Both shows have been renewed for a second season. Lawrence has pivoted to animation, too, with Clone High, a series about a high school occupied by clones of famous historical figures. In terms of track record, Lawrence has an impeccable one over the last decade.
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