Wonder Woman on Screen — 1974 to Today

For nearly forty years, Wonder Woman on screen was effectively one person: Lynda Carter. The 1975 ABC series cast such a long shadow that it took until 2017 for any other live-action Wonder Woman to lodge meaningfully in popular culture. The animated portrayals are a richer story — a continuous voice tradition that runs from the Super Friends era through the modern DC animated films — but the live-action history is essentially three chapters: the 1974 false start, the Lynda Carter dynasty, and the Gal Gadot revival.

This page tracks every Wonder Woman on screen, in chronological order. For the broader character context, see the Wonder Woman hub.

Live-action

Cathy Lee Crosby (1974)

The first attempt at a live-action Wonder Woman was a 1974 made-for-TV film that almost nobody now remembers. It cast Cathy Lee Crosby — a tennis-pro-turned-actress — in a strikingly off-model take. The costume was a blue, red, and gold tracksuit. The character had no powers in the conventional sense, played more as a secret agent than an Amazonian demigoddess. The film was conceived as a backdoor pilot for an ABC series; the network passed.

Crosby's Wonder Woman is a cultural footnote rather than a real piece of the lineage. The 1974 film is hard to find today and rarely discussed.

Lynda Carter (1975–1979)

The series that defined the role for two generations debuted in 1975 with the made-for-TV film The New Original Wonder Woman. Producer Douglas S. Cramer cast Lynda Carter — a former Miss World USA — after seeing her in a small TV part. Carter was 23.

The series ran for three seasons and 60 episodes:

• Season 1 (ABC, 1975–76) — Set during the Second World War, faithful to William Moulton Marston's original premise. Diana Prince served as a yeoman in U.S. military intelligence, transforming into Wonder Woman to fight Nazis.
• Season 2 (CBS, 1977–78) — The series moved networks and jumped to the present day. Diana now worked for the IADC (Inter-Agency Defense Command). The wartime cast was retired or written out.
• Season 3 (CBS, 1978–79) — More of the same, with a more contemporary thriller register.

Lynda Carter brought a particular combination of physical presence, sincerity, and warmth that made Wonder Woman work on television in a way no previous adaptation had managed. The transformation sequence — Diana spinning to a flash of light and emerging as Wonder Woman — became one of the most parodied and beloved bits of 1970s American TV. The theme song ("Wonder Woman, all the world is waiting for you / And the power you possess") is permanently lodged in the collective memory.

For more on the show itself, see the Wonder Woman 1975 TV series page. For Carter's career broadly, see Lynda Carter.

Adrianne Palicki (2011, unaired)

In 2011, NBC commissioned a Wonder Woman pilot from David E. Kelley, the showrunner behind Ally McBeal and Boston Legal. Adrianne Palicki was cast in the title role. The pilot was filmed but never aired — NBC declined to pick it up to series. The script's contemporary corporate-CEO take on Diana, the costume design, and the tone all received critical mauling when behind-the-scenes footage leaked. This was the closest Wonder Woman came to live-action television between Carter and Gadot, and it failed before it could premiere.

Gal Gadot (2016–2021)

Wonder Woman returned to live-action — and arrived for the first time in a major theatrical film — when Gal Gadot was cast for the DC Extended Universe. She debuted in:

• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016, dir. Zack Snyder) — small but memorable role; Gadot is widely credited with being the highlight of an otherwise polarising film.
• Wonder Woman (2017, dir. Patty Jenkins) — her first solo film; a critical and commercial triumph that broke a long box-office trend of female-led superhero films underperforming. See the 2017 film deep-dive.
• Justice League (2017, dir. Joss Whedon) — the theatrical cut.
• Wonder Woman 1984 (2020, dir. Patty Jenkins) — the sequel, set in the 1980s; received a mixed-to-disappointing reception after the heights of 2017.
• Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) — the four-hour director's cut released to HBO Max.

Gadot was the de facto ambassador for the character throughout the 2016–2021 phase of the DCEU. Plans for a third Patty Jenkins-directed Wonder Woman film were scrapped after the leadership change at DC Studios in 2022.

The future (post-2024 reset)

DC Studios, under James Gunn and Peter Safran, rebooted the DC film universe starting with Superman (2025). Wonder Woman has been confirmed as part of the new "DCU" continuity, though casting has not been announced as of this writing.

A separate Paradise Lost television series — focused on Themyscira and the Amazons rather than Diana herself — was announced for HBO/Max in 2023.

Animated

The animated Wonder Woman has had more continuity than the live-action version, with several voice actors becoming definitive across long runs.

Susan Eisenberg (2001–2006, and intermittently since)

Eisenberg voiced Wonder Woman across the Justice League (2001–04) and Justice League Unlimited (2004–06) animated series in the DC Animated Universe (DCAU) — the Bruce Timm and Paul Dini era. Her run is, for many fans, the definitive animated Wonder Woman: capable, principled, with a gravitas that held its own against Kevin Conroy's Batman and George Newbern's Superman. She has reprised the role intermittently in later DCAU productions and tie-in projects.

Keri Russell (2009)

Russell voiced Diana in the standalone animated film Wonder Woman (2009), a critical favourite that adapted George Pérez's 1987 origin story and is widely considered one of the best DC animated films.

Cobie Smulders (2014)

Smulders voiced Wonder Woman in The Lego Movie (2014) and several spin-offs, in a comic register entirely separate from the canon.

Rosario Dawson (2014–2020)

Dawson took the role across multiple DC animated films starting with Justice League: War (2014) and continuing through the "DC Animated Movie Universe" (the New 52-derived continuity that ran across roughly 15 films). Her Diana skewed younger and more impatient than Eisenberg's.

Stana Katic (2019)

Katic voiced Diana in the animated film Wonder Woman: Bloodlines (2019).

Other notable voices

• Susan Spafford (1973), in Super Friends.
• B.J. Ward (various, late 1970s through 1980s).
• Keri Russell again in some video-game tie-ins.
• Maggie Q in Young Justice (2010 onwards), as a guest appearance.

The pattern

Three generations have grown up with three different Wonder Women. Carter is the icon for anyone who watched television in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Eisenberg is the icon for anyone who came up on Cartoon Network in the 2000s. Gadot is the icon for the post-2017 generation. None of them has displaced the others — the three exist in cultural superposition, and which one springs to mind first depends entirely on the age of who you ask.

For the fuller character context, see the Wonder Woman hub and Wonder Woman costume evolution.