Madeleine Olnek is an American independent film director, producer, screenwriter, and playwright.

She has written 24 plays and three feature films, including Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, The Foxy Merkins, and Wild Nights with Emily.

She belonged to the Emerging Writers Group at New York's Public Theater and worked with the WOW Café theater in New York where she wrote and directed many plays including, Wild Nights with Emily (1999)[5] and Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (1992).

Olnek received research grants from Harvard University Press and the Guggenheim Foundation to adapt another of her plays into her third feature, Wild Nights with Emily.

It starred Molly Shannon, premiered in 2018 at SXSW, and was nominated for the John Cassavetes Independent Spirit Award.