From the rise of feminist porn to BDSM, female porn directors are gaining the recognition they deserve as they change the porn industry from a boys’ club to a place of creativity and female-focused pleasure.
From outdoors and kink to educational sites, names like Erika Lust, Kim Cums, and Nikki Silver are dominating the list of who to watch as they direct some of the most popular porn films of the past decade.
Although the rising popularity of female-directed porn doesn’t mean that it’s a new phenomenon, with female porn directors taking their place in the industry since the 1980s, with notable names like Candida Royalle.
But who are the best female porn directors?
In this article, Adult Site Broker has brought you a guide to the top 10 of the best female porn directors that are currently dominating the porn industry.
Erika Lust
Swedish-born Erika Lust is one of the most prolific names among female porn directors. With her Spanish-owned company Erika Lust Films, she is behind some of the most popular porn movies out there, including her debut, Good Girls.
Her films are shot from the female perspective, depicting porn that reflects the real world, and she is known for employing women in key positions behind the camera.
She currently runs four online cinemas: The Store by Erika Lust, X Confessions, Lust Cinema, and Else Cinema, and runs Thepornconservation.org with her husband, offering educational resources about sex and porn to the younger generation.
Tristan Taormino
Tristan Taormino is a notable figure in the female porn director hall of fame, creating works that focus on female pleasure and anal sex. Under her company Smart Ass Productions, Tristain has directed over 24 feminist-porn films, including her popular Chemistry series and Tristan Taormino’s House of Ass, earning her multiple awards, including the Trailblazer award at the Feminist Porn Awards in 2010. Although she left the industry in 2014, she still works as a writer, activist, sex educator, and radio host, talking about sex worker rights and sex education. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter.
Candida Royalle
Born in 1950, Candida Royalle is one of the most prolific names in the porn industry. Starring in 25 porn films throughout the golden age of pornography before retiring in 1984, she wanted to change the adult industry and put women at the center of the conversation.
Founding Femme Productions, Candida Royalle became the pioneering female porn director for ‘couples erotica’, directing movies that could be shared by couples and changed the game on how women were portrayed in the industry, making the smart girl sexy.
Her films were revolutionary and focused on female pleasure, starting the conversation around desire and female sexuality as they elevated porn to an art form.
Ms. Naughty (also known as Louise Lush)
Ms. Naughty has been making and directing porn since the early 2000s. As a female porn director, she makes erotic films for the ‘straight woman’ that seek to celebrate the vanilla outside of cliches.
As well as ‘unusual or amusing short films dealing with female sexuality’ under her production company Indigo Lush and porn site BrightDesire.com. Her first adult short film, That’s What I Like, won the 2009 Petra Joy Award for first-time erotic filmmakers and was nominated for a Feminist Porn Award.
Kim Cums
Can the outdoors be sexy? Australian Female porn director Kim Cums thinks so with her risque indie porn films.
Starting as a performer in 2013, Kim Cums set up her own production company in 2016 and went behind the camera to direct porn as well as star in it. Her site describes her films as “Award-winning independent porn for lovers of the outdoors, micro-bikinis, and risqué fantasies.”
Her films are fun, flirty, and show that you can have a good time anywhere. She is also one of the leaders in ethical porn, focusing on performer protection, fair pay, and informed consent on her shoots.
Kimberly Kane
Kimberly Kane is a star in the adult industry, starting as an actress in 2003. She officially became a porn director in 2006 at the age of 21 with her debut, Naked and Famous, and worked with Vivid Entertainment and Good Vibrations, producing and directing alternative porn.
Her directorial work has earned her a spot on XCriti’s top 10 list of female directors and an honorable mention at the Feminist Porn Awards. As well as being an award-winning director and star, she is also a Dominatrix and avid gamer and participates in a weekly “Dungeons and Dragons” game with fellow adult-film performers and sex industry workers.
Jincey Lumpkin
A leading figure in the feminist porn movement, Jincey Lumpkin is a notable female porn director in the lesbian porn space. In 2009, she founded Juicy Pink Box, directing 5 movies that focused on lesbian erotica, including Taxi and Boutique, which earned her awards for hottest lesbian vignette in 2011 and 2012 at the Feminist Porn Awards.
Since then, she has become a TEDx speaker and erotica writer through her sites Dark Fantasy Fans and Billionaire Siren Novels, as well as writing for the Huffington Post.
Paulita Pappel
Paulita Pappel is a Spanish director, writer, intimacy coordinator, and curator of the Pornfilmfest in Germany, with over 10 years of directing and filmmaking experience across mainstream and adult films.
In 2016 she released her first director debut with her film Female Ejaculation through XConfessions and founded Lustry.com an amateur porn site and then in 2022 created HARDWERK a production company focused on sex-positive feminist movies where she continues to direct.
Paulita is a leading voice in the feminist porn conversation. Through her movies, she aims to create a new approach to sexuality in cinema, advocating for sex-positivity and consent-based culture surrounding porn.
Nikki Silver
Named the ‘queen of hairy feminist porn’, San Francisco-based Nikki Silver is known for her independent porn films that focus on queer intimacy and body hair. Self-taught, she made her directorial debut in 2013 by launching the site Naughtynatural.com, seeing a gap in the market for female-focused hairy sites.
As a director and performer in many of her movies on the site, she created films described as joyful, authentic, engaging, and feminist, coining the term ‘hippyadventureporn’ to describe them. She is active on Twitter and regularly responds to her fans.
Pandora Blake
Activist, director, and performer, London-based Pandora Blake is number 10 on our list of best female porn directors. On her site DreamsofSpanking.com, her movies are described as “story-based and theatrical, exploring themes of spanking, BDSM and fetish, queer sexuality, and female kinky fantasy.”
As a self-described feminist porn director, her movies involve explicit consent negotiations and real people to blur the lines between fantasy and reality as she looks to reduce the shame and stigma around BDSM and spanking. As well as her site, over the years, Pandora has also collaborated with other feminist porn directors such as Zahra Stardust and Ms. Naughty.
