The inspiring true story of how Joan Jett turned industry rejection into a rock revolution—founding her own label, breaking barriers, and changing music forever.

You probably know Walter White, Don Draper, and the inmates of Litchfield by name. But the people who actually put words in their mouths? Those names tend to blur by in a tiny white font at the end of the episode. So let’s slow those credits down. Here are 22 writers who quietly built the worlds, characters, and episodes you still think about long after the season ended—and who deserve to have their names lodged in your brain right next to the shows you binge on repeat.

Before he was a symbol—literally—Prince was a one-man creative galaxy who refused to let anyone else hold the map. His battle with Warner Bros. in the 1990s wasn’t just a contract dispute; it was a loud, glitter-covered thesis about art, control, and what happens when a genius decides the entire industry is too small for him. What followed was part performance protest, part legal chess match, and entirely Prince.

The heartbreaking true story of how Eric Clapton’s son inspired ‘Tears in Heaven,’ the song that became both his greatest therapy and his lifelong sorrow.

When directors start shaping a risky narrative, the room usually buzzes with confidence. Once production wraps, real-world pressures creep in, and sometimes that early excitement turns into careful conversations about where the movie dropped the ball.

Some stories are born bingeable and others are built for one big night at the movies. The problem is, nobody told the studios. So we get sprawling epics squeezed into two or three hours, and TV shows that spend six episodes doing what a film could handle between trailers and credits. Here’s a look at the cinematic universes and small-screen sagas that probably turned up on the wrong side of the streaming menu.