Alien’s Ellen Ripley wasn’t the first female action hero, but she was the one who changed the way people think about women in mainstream cinema. Tough but tender, by-the-book yet creative when it matters, desperately vulnerable but capable of pulling off her own rescue, she embodied a new kind of role for women: the multi-faceted female lead that earns a huge fandom specifically by giving viewers something fresh and new. Hollywood tends to play it safe and try to follow in the footsteps of success, which has left women with a lot of naggingly familiar roles over the decade, pun intended. But since Ripley proved there was a mainstream appetite for diverse types of female roles, there have been an increasing number of groundbreaking characters expanding those traditional boundaries. Here are 50 of our all-time favorites, in chronological order: The roles with audacious intentions, unconventional characterization, and an active interest in expanding the onscreen possibilities of female stars.
(A few notes on curation: We tried to limit ourselves to one role per actress, where possible, and we decided to leave out animation altogether: In a medium where an actress can play a spider, a toy, a hippo, or a fish, it’s easier to dodge gender bias and traditional roles, meaning there were too many possible options to count. We started our count with Alien’s release in June 1979. We welcome your additions to the list.)
1. Thana, Ms. 45 (1981)
Rape-revenge stories are often risible as horror, because of their unseemly mix of righteousness and exploitation; I Spit On Your Grave, to name the most prominent example, is a grotesque repurposing of the same nudity and gore that could be expected of other lurid drive-in horror movies. Abel Ferrara’s Ms. 45 subverts the formula by making the victim mute and having her odyssey serve as a potent metaphor for the threats women encounter every day on the streets of New York. After being raped twice on her way home from the Garment District, Thana, a mute seamstress, kills her second attacker and transforms herself into an angel of vengeance. As played by the late Zoë Lund, a model/filmmaker who later collaborated with Ferrara on Bad Lieutenant, Thana doesn’t just seek out revenge on a specific attacker: Her mission expands to mankind more generally. There’s a madness to it, but a fantasy element, too: Thana, a woman who can only “speak” through violence, is speaking for all women who’ve been victims. [ST]
2. Victoria, Victor Victoria (1982)
Julie Andrews is a singular onscreen presence: Viewers will never forget they’re watching Julie Andrews, and Victor Victoria uses that to its advantage. Written and directed by Andrews’ husband, Blake Edwards—who, just a year earlier, had given Andrews her first nude scene with S.O.B.—this gender-swapping musical sex farce plays with identity in a way that could never be as successful without such a known quantity at its center. Introduced as the destitute but talented soprano Victoria, Andrews pretends to be “Victor,” a man who is a female impersonator. Victor lets Victoria achieve her dream being a cabaret singer, albeit one who has to sustain the illusion she’s a man offstage. It’s a Blake Edwards sex farce, so plenty of gender-based romantic confusion ensues—mostly involving Victoria and Chicago club owner King (James Garner), but also Victoria’s gay confidante Toddy (Robert Preston). Released the same year as Tootsie and The World According To Garp, and a year before Yentl, Victor Victoria was part of Hollywood’s short-lived wave of cross-dressing-centric features, but few films have played with taboos surrounding both gender and sex as freely as Edwards and Andrews did in what became their most successful collaboration. (It was nominated for seven Oscars, including a Lead Actress nod for Andrews, and the couple revived it as a Broadway production in 1995.) For an actress who made her name playing kindly nannies, it was an unusual, welcome departure—and a slightly uncomfortable one. [GK]
3. Celie, The Color Purple (1985)
Pam Grier doesn’t get enough credit for her pioneering roles as an action heroine, years before Alien. In part, that’s because she was working in the edgy, un-prestigious blaxploitation genre, which lacked critical recognition and social cachet. And in part, it’s the outgrowth of a racist sidelining of the black narrative: Outside of blaxploitation, it was extremely rare from the dawn of film through the 1980s to see black women headlining major studio releases, the occasional Carmen Jones or The Autobiography Of Miss Jane Pittman aside. Celie in The Color Purple was a breakout role for comedian Whoopi Goldberg in her narrative-film debut, but it was also a breakout for black women in terms of its scale and sensitivity. A period piece set in turn-of-the-century South, it follows Celie (Goldberg) from her childhood, sold into marriage and worked like a slave by her abusive, rapist husband (Danny Glover), to the adulthood where she learns to stand up for herself and have confidence in her own abilities. Directed by Steven Spielberg, adapted from Alice Walker’s bestselling, Pulitzer-winning novel, produced by Warner Bros., and half-recognized by the Academy (it pulled 11 Oscar nominations and no wins), it’s an unabashedly mainstream, prestige-picture experience. But it’s rare to this day for the way it puts a young black woman at center stage, focuses on her internal life and personal growth, and lets her define herself not through suffering, but through personal connection, pride, and even humor. [TR]
4. Audrey, a.k.a. Lulu, Something Wild (1986)
Manic? At times. Pixie? The haircut certainly qualifies. Dream girl, though? Audrey—who calls herself Lulu for more than half of Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild, until she’s forced by circumstance to reveal her real name—ultimately does liberate uptight businessman Charlie (Jeff Daniels) from his drab, purely functional existence, but she does so in a way that’s frequently more terrifying than endearing. From the moment she poses as his waitress to bust him for running out on a check at a diner, Audrey is in complete control of the situation; it’s no coincidence that their first sex scene has her on top and him handcuffed to the bed, and only a mild surprise when she stops midway through to phone his office, forcing him to explain his absence to his boss. Something Wild is the rare film that has a male protagonist, yet is almost entirely driven by its female lead, with the ostensible hero just struggling valiantly to keep pace. Good luck to him. [MDA]
5. Dorothy Valens, Blue Velvet (1986)
There’s an easy contrast to be made between Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), the two women who enter the life of protagonist Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, but the film refuses to make it. Sandy seems like an archetypal girl-next-door, and Dorothy a femme fatale whose allure draws Jeffrey deeper into a dangerous world. But Dorothy’s also a damsel in distress, a mother who dearly wants to be reunited with her stolen son, and genuinely attracted to Jeffrey. She’s a woman who resists easy definition, and one whose surface reveals little of what lies beneath, just like the town in which her story unfolds. It’s a difficult role to play, and a lesser actress might have gotten swallowed up by the contradictions. But Rossellini makes the character more intriguing, and more moving, with each new complication thrown her way. [KP]
6. Jane Craig, Broadcast News (1987)
In the 1980s, movies and television alike became fascinated by a new breed of businesswoman: the tough-talking, power-suited careerist, always competing with her male colleagues by working harder and being meaner. Writer-director James L. Brooks and actress Holly Hunter subverted this emerging cliché with Broadcast News, a comedy that presents Hunter’s Jane Craig as a complicated person with wit, desire, and neuroses that make her more nuanced and better-rounded than her competing love interests (a sweet-but-dim hunky anchor played by William Hurt, and a sharp-but-awkward reporter played by Albert Brooks). Brooks and Hunter don’t try to turn Jane into a representative of anything other than herself. She’s an accomplished network-news producer who’s great at micromanaging the day’s itinerary, but short-sighted when it comes to what’ll make her happy outside the office. It’s fun to watch her, whether she’s solving problems in the control booth, or scheduling time to sob in her bedroom. [NM]
7. Annie Savoy, Bull Durham (1988)
There were plenty of romantic comedies in the 1980s, but not many women like Annie Savoy, the “Church Of Baseball” devotee played by Susan Sarandon. Deep into a multi-year project in which she takes a minor-league player of the Durham Bulls under her wing for tutelage in what it takes to succeed on the field and in the bedroom, she’s smart, self-assured, and has no time for games. Part of the challenge of the role—and a challenge Sarandon meets beautifully—is trying to find a way to make Annie’s romance with veteran slugger “Crash” Davis (Kevin Costner) seem convincing without making Annie give up any of her independence. But that struggle is hardwired into a movie that’s fundamentally about characters who stay true to what gives them joy and meaning, but also learn to bend under the influence of time and circumstance. She ends the film having changed her approach to relationships without regret or remorse, and without changing who she is. The Church Of Baseball accepts many different forms of worship. [KP]
8. Wanda, A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Even today, it’s hard to find women’s roles as enthusiastically sexual as Wanda in A Fish Called Wanda—at least, without any implication of moral failing or regrettable mistakes implying narrative disapproval. The centerpiece of Charles Crichton and John Cleese’s crime comedy is an unrepentantly greedy con artist who uses sex to manipulate men and gain their trust, but that archetype is older than noir fiction. There are three twists here, separating Wanda from generations of tramps, vamps, and femme fatales. First, sex isn’t just a weapon for Wanda: She’s a lusty woman who enjoys the act even if she doesn’t have much affection for her partner. Second, her body isn’t her only weapon: She’s smart and cunning, quick with a quip or an improvised Plan B when Plan A doesn’t work. Third, Cleese’s script doesn’t judge her for her appetites or her behavior. Some of that comes from Jamie Lee Curtis’ warm, bright performance, which makes it hard not to love her. But most of it is on the page: The story openly admires Wanda instead of slut-shaming her or punishing her. She’s a sexual powerhouse who doesn’t have to play madonna or whore, or any of the other usual regressive stereotypes. [TR]
9. Tracy Turnblad, Hairspray (1988)
Writer-director John Waters has always taken a pure delight in embracing everything the mainstream finds grotesque, which has led to some pure gross-out moments in his films, and plenty of ridiculous camp. But there’s a sort of pure wonder to his iconic character Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake), an unabashedly fat girl who’s also the most stylish, progressive, and positive kid in the movie, to the point where the shrews who attempt to fat-shame her just look waspish and jealous. In an industry obsessed with thinness, Tracy was an early model of rare heroism and inclusion for, as Tracy puts it, the “pleasantly plump or chunky.” Long before Rebel Wilson and Melissa McCarthy stepped up to challenge Hollywood’s only-one-size-should-fit-all rigamarole, Tracy Turnblad was subverting the narrative by pushing integration, open-mindedly embracing everyone around her, and using her fashion sense and sweet dance moves to win competitions and boys’ hearts. It’s telling that coming up on 30 years later (plus a film reboot, and countless stage revivals), Tracy and her enthusiastic, unashamed embrace of “big, blonde, and beautiful”—and the film’s casual acceptance of her unconventionality as no barrier to success—still feels transgressive. [TR]
10. Thelma and Louise, Thelma & Louise (1991)
It’s impossible to separate these two characters, distinct individuals though they are. As a unit, they represent one of American cinema’s headiest feminist statements, precisely because their response to male oppression and predation is simultaneously indefensible and completely understandable. Neither Thelma (Geena Davis) nor Louise (Susan Sarandon) is a plaster saint—each is a credibly screwed-up woman, caught in a situation she couldn’t have foreseen, and Oscar-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri unmistakably adores them both in all their flawed, rabble-rousing glory. Decades later, people still argue about whether their final decision is liberating or defeatist, but that seems academic compared to the perverse excitement of watching meek Thelma transform herself into a Bonnie with no Clyde, or to the cathartic power of Louise, confronting Thelma’s would-be rapist—who claims, “We were just having a little fun”—snarling “When a woman’s crying like that, she isn’t having any fun!” May those words finally register someday. [MDA]
11. Sarah Connor, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Until The Terminator’s final scenes, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) spends much of the film in terror, running from the relentless killing machine determined to kill her. The Sarah Connor of Terminator 2 has changed. Though clearly the same character, she’s used that fear as fuel, and has spent her time preparing to fight against a threat she’s sure will return. Hamilton bulked up for the role, and while her physical transformation is remarkable, it’s her newfound determination that redefined the character for James Cameron’s sequel. After the Ripley of Aliens, she’s the definition of the badass female action hero. But the Sarah Connor of T2 is best understood as a continuation of the Sarah Connor of The Terminator. Having seen all she’s seen, she could have given up. Instead, she’s gotten tough. Sometimes that’s the only other choice life supplies. [KP]
12. Clarice Starling, The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)
If written and directed as a more straightforward thriller, The Silence Of The Lambs would have been about a hunt for a serial killer, using a young recruit and another serial killer. As adapted by Ted Tally from the Thomas Harris novel, it’s the story of young FBI recruit Clarice Starling trying to prove herself to her superiors, and outwit the murderer who’s taken with her. But as directed by Jonathan Demme—with tight, lingering psychological-portrait close-ups, evocative shots of the diminutive Jodie Foster surrounded by male law-enforcement agents who pay her no mind—Clarice Starling is a pillar of righteousness whose primary struggle isn’t with either of the film’s killers, but the system she (and we) can already tell will chew her up. It’s a role that engages with a subsumed, exhausting sexism and requires Foster to underplay a constant struggle between a desire for justice and the awareness that her enemies are on all sides, and always will be. [GV]
13. Songlian, Raise The Red Lantern (1991)
There’s a reason this was the movie that shot Gong Li to stardom and typecast her as the untouchable, amoral femme fatale. Watching Songlian’s descent from naïve student to a seasoned, wretched concubine pitted against other women for any gesture of worth from the master of the house is a classical tragedy that, in the moment, feels so all-consuming as to reach through the film to the actress. Though Zhang Yimou is ostensibly directing a period piece, modern feminist and political subtext roils just under the surface, and Songlian’s attempt to defy her circumstance, and her increasing viciousness, drags such destruction in its wake that she begins to take on a nearly supernatural aspect. It’s a doggedly unsympathetic performance that Zhang Yimou offers half as a dare—if this were you, wouldn’t you strike out?—and her downfall is more tragic for how much of herself she loses in the process. But still, not all: Songlian’s eventual ruin is as great and total as her power. But even after it’s all over, we see her wearing her school uniform—another act of defiance, at the very last. [GV]
14. Catherine Tramell, Basic Instinct (1992)
Paul Verhoeven’s wink-and-a-nod noir carries so many femme-fatale stereotypes, it reads like a bingo card: ice queen, promiscuous and unfaithful bisexual woman, obsessed ex, vindictive ex, murderous ex, defiant criminal who smokes in the interrogation room. But amid the breathless hand-wringing about Catherine’s sexual audacity and ruthless killing streak, the movie pulls its own risky con by making the audience admire her. Not only is Catherine literally the author of events, her unflappable calm isn’t the sort of ice that breaks in the arms of a good man. The aspect of her character that’s entered legend is her utter, unflagging disdain for men. Uncrossing her legs in the interview room is perhaps the moment that most famously condenses it, but from start to finish, Catherine is a walking misandrist death sentence—and the way the film encourages viewers to root for her seems designed to make men a little uncomfortable. Good. [GV]
15. Ada McGrath, The Piano (1993)
Jane Campion and Holly Hunter are both vocal feminists who’ve spoken regularly about the woman-empowering messages deeply embedded in their work. Campion writing Ada McGrath, Hunter’s Oscar-winning role in The Piano, as a non-speaking role was an unorthodox and fascinating choice, one that lesser director (or actress) wouldn’t be able to pull off. Campion provides Ada—a mute Scottish widow forced to travel overseas and marry a man she’s just met—with voiceover dialogue that paints a picture of her internal life. This peek into her mind, coupled with Hunter’s nuanced, intimate performance, makes Ada one of the most layered, complex, and wholly original female characters of the past few decades. Most significantly, Campion allows Ada to develop and awaken sexually, eventually possessing the rare agency and confidence to control and enjoy her sex life—an extramarital sex life, no less. Though her actions don’t go completely unpunished, her ultimate fate is that of a pleasurable and happy life with the man she loves. [RH]
16. Beverly R. Sutphin, Serial Mom (1994)
Beverly R. Sutphin likes order. She likes manners, charm, respect, and nice neighbors. She likes a clean kitchen, a home-cooked meal, an orderly garage. She also likes murder. Plenty of homicidal mamas have popped up in movies over the years, but Beverly’s bloodlust comes from a different place than, say, Betty Broderick’s or Norma Bates’. She’s driven to kill by a desire to keep things neat. Bonkers as she is—and Beverly is bonkers—her singular dedication to protecting her family from potential pain (or just general annoyance) is oddly inspiring, and the lingering sense of humanity underneath her prim façade keeps her from crumbling into parody. And the subversive way she turns a regressive housewife role, and 1950s-stereotype housewife obsessions with cleanliness and a smile, into something darker feels like a reproof against the stereotypes as a whole. With a permanent smile fixed on her impeccably made-up face, Beverly (mostly) hides her true murder-y nature as she goes about her daily routine. She’s terrifying and comforting by turns, but always so original that it should be illegal. (Well, it is.) [KE]
17. Bridget Gregory, The Last Seduction (1994)
The noir model of the hapless male patsy and the smart, manipulative femme fatale has been around for decades, but classic noirs were always about the patsy, not the paramour—in part to keep the plot secret from the schmoe who doesn’t see all the angles, and can’t anticipate which twists are coming. John Dahl’s brilliant, joyously trashy neo-noir The Last Seduction finds a way to make the femme fatale the point-of-view character without giving away the game: Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) is duplicitous enough even to hide her plan from the audience, when she isn’t making it up as she goes along. Bridget is the kind of uncompromising anti-hero men get to play more often than women: She’s utterly selfish and ruthless about getting what she wants, and that attitude extends to the sack. (Or the car, or the wall behind the local bar: She’s not shy about her needs.) But she’s also so creative, clever, and about exercising that selfishness that she’s more fun than spooky. Like Catherine in Basic Instinct, she’s a have-it-all fantasy for women, the darkest kind of aspirational model, but one written with admiration and respect rather than censure. The Sam Spades and Philip Marlowes of the world have to scramble to keep up with the women who pretend to love them, but they find ways to call the shots in the end. They wouldn’t stand a chance against Bridget. [TR]
18. Carol White, Safe (1995)
In a breakthrough performance—and still her signature role, one Oscar for Still Alice and many other brilliant turns later—Julianne Moore plays a Stepford Wife-type who’s cursed by a dangerous sensitivity and brittleness, but also possessed of hidden resolve. Though Todd Haynes’ Safe is a period piece, set among the elite class in 1980s Los Angeles, it seems more like science fiction, both in its eerie, hermetic atmosphere and in its anticipation of how the modern world would become more confusing and environmentally toxic. Carol White (Moore) is a housewife seized by a debilitating panic attacks that leave her wheezing or with a bloody nose, but her doctor cannot figure out what’s bothering her. She pursues treatment at an isolated desert haven that claims to cure people with “environmental illnesses,” but the cure is worse than the disease. Haynes intended Safe as an AIDS metaphor, but now it seems more attuned to a shift in the culture, where women like Carol are dissatisfied in their assigned roles, and take difficult steps to change their lives. [ST]
19. Ruth Stoops, Citizen Ruth (1996)
Women in comedies are rarely allowed to be as hilariously awful as men—there are few female equivalents of, say, Borat or Bad Santa. The title character of Alexander Payne’s debut feature comes delectably close, however. Venal, selfish, irresponsible, and untrustworthy, Ruth Stoops has only one quality that redeems her in anybody’s eyes: She can get pregnant. Payne turns her into a puppet manipulated by equally ludicrous organizations on both sides of the abortion debate, but Ruth herself, as embodied in a no-holds-barred, utterly fearless performance by Laura Dern, remains pathologically focused on getting high, or on exploiting her situation in a way that will make her rich, so she can keep getting high. Payne and co-screenwriter Jim Taylor never worry for a second about whether Ruth is sympathetic or “relatable,” or about whether she makes a strong female role model. (She does not.) They only worry about making her indelibly, shockingly funny—an approach other comedy writers should emulate. [MDA]
20. Bess McNeill, Breaking The Waves (1996)
Women’s suffering has always been a primary focus for Lars von Trier, rooted in the spirit of The Passion Of Joan Of Arc, a silent tale of persecution by his countryman and aesthetic godfather, Carl Dreyer. And Bess McNeill, the innocent at the center of Breaking The Waves, suffers plenty: Her passionate devotion to her husband yields enough suffering on its own, especially when he’s away working for months at a time on a oil platform, but it gets worse when an accident leaves him paralyzed, and his bitterness curdles into a degrading request. Bess, played in an astounding debut by Emily Watson, doesn’t open herself up to abuse passively. Instead, she asserts her decency and goodness in a bleak, pitiless world that consistently rewards her abiding faith in God with punishment. Bess’ relationship with God is complicated—and He speaks through her in Old Testament voice—but she has the steadfastness and power to bend the transcendent to her will. [ST]
21. Marge Gunderson, Fargo (1996)
In Fargo, the seven-months pregnant Marge Gunderson (played in an Oscar-winning performance by Frances McDormand) has a belly so huge, it’s difficult to focus on anything else when she enters the room. Combined with her Minnesota-nice accent and pleasant demeanor, Marge’s condition is specifically calibrated to subvert, but not undermine, her extremely capable police work, as she doggedly (but politely!) untangles the events that left three dead bodies along the side of the road in Brainerd, Minnesota. In theory, Marge’s physical state could translate as vulnerability, or something to be overcome on the way to kicking ass and taking names. But in the capable hands of McDormand and Joel and Ethan Coen, Marge’s pregnancy simply amplifies her no-nonsense approach to her work, and her life: Upon seeing the crime scene, Marge is briefly overcome by nausea, before shaking it off and stating, “Well, that passed. Now I’m hungry again,” the way only a woman who’s been battling with her own body for months could. Marge represents a different kind of female badass, one whose toughness extends from a pronounced internal determination, rather than the anger, greed, and feelings of inadequacy that motivate the various fools and villains who surround her. She’s not just good police, she’s good people, and the fact that her goodness doesn’t stand in her way is what makes her a great character. [GK]
22. Jackie Brown, Jackie Brown (1997)
When Quentin Tarantino adapted Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch into his third feature, Jackie Brown, he changed his heroine’s skin from white to black, gave her a new surname inspired by one of cult film’s most prominent black female roles, then cast her with the same woman responsible for that inspiration: Pam Grier, the undisputed queen of 1970s blaxploitation features, including Foxy Brown. A flight attendant for a sketchy airline, Jackie resorts to smuggling money into Mexico for gun-runner Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson), treading the same morally dubious territory as the characters with whom Grier made her name, but with the focus turned from titillation toward real characterization. Jackie is sexy and tough—she’s played by Pam Grier, after all—but also conflicted and vulnerable in turn, particularly once bail bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster) enters the picture. Via Jackie, Grier brings a maturity and resonance to Jackie Brown that makes it one of Tarantino’s more understated (and underappreciated) efforts. It’s a role only Grier could have played—because it was written for her, but also because it’s so specifically calibrated to her unique presence and personal history. The role of Jackie required Grier to call to her past without echoing it, and in the process, it let her find new depths of an archetype she helped create. [GK]
23. Karen Sisco, Out Of Sight (1998)
Sure, U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez) falls for handsome, charming bank robber Jack Foley. Give her a break, he looks and acts like George Clooney. While Karen does agree to Jack’s “time out,” from their respective jobs, enabling Steven Soderbergh’s brilliant cross-cutting of sex and seduction, she never forgets her duties. Sisco acts on her feelings but remains loyal to her profession, because she’s the kind of a woman who’s deeply touched to receive a SIG Sauer .380 semi-automatic handgun as a birthday present from her father. (She can also more than hold her own against threatening men, as beautifully summarized by the “You wanted to tussle. We tussled” scene.) Loving Foley doesn’t mean she won’t arrest him if he insists on going through with the heist he’s planning, and it doesn’t mean she won’t shoot him if he resists arrest. She isn’t the romantic interest in his romanticized criminal hijinks: She’s an action hero who can recognize Clooney’s charms, act on the dictates of her heart, and not be softened or sidelined. She’s subversive because she doesn’t let love redefine her: She’s too well-defined for that already. [MDA]
24. Tracy Flick, Election (1999)
Over the course of her film career, Reese Witherspoon has come to specialize in characters whose polished, sweet surfaces—informed by her Southern upbringing—belie an inner grit. That specialty can be traced back to one Tracy Flick, the antagonist of Alexander Payne’s biting 1999 high-school comedy Election, who’s gone on to become a cult hero for so-called “difficult women” and those who love them. Tracy is inarguably Election’s “bad guy,” tormenting ineffectual Civics teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) with her overzealous determination to become student-body president, no matter the cost. (And oh, are there costs.) Tracy is no angel, but she believes her actions serve a higher purpose, which is the sort of moral relativism that fuels dangerous acts of ambition, and makes for a compelling, multifaceted villain who’s as easy to love as she is to hate. It’s an ambiguity Witherspoon clearly relishes, imbuing Tracy’s resolute pluck with just the right hint of wild-eyed mania to suggest she’s not as in control—of herself, or of those around her—as she’d like to believe. [GK]
25. Manuela, All About My Mother (1999)
All About My Mother marked a turning point for director Pedro Almodóvar. He’d been moving in a less-playful direction for years, but this is the film that proved definitively he could move viewers now as deeply as he’d amused them in the past. All that hinged on Cecilia Roth’s performance as Manuela, whose grief-driven odyssey gives the film its shape. A nurse and single mother, Manuela loses her loving teenage son early in the film, then sets off for Barcelona to inform the boy’s father: a transvestite named Lola (Toni Cantó) who never knew of the boy’s existence. In the process, Manuela becomes entwined in the complicated lives of diverse characters, remaining the still, damaged center of the melodrama swirling around her. It’s a lot to ask of any performance to more or less embody the way women persevere in the face of tragedy, but Roth both rises to the challenge and keeps the character from becoming more symbol than flesh. She watches and helps, but never gets lost in the stories of those around her. She has her own burdens to carry, and Roth never lets viewers forget that. [KP]
26. Asami Yamazaki, Audition (1999)
Takashi Miike’s unnerving fusion of Yasujiro Ozu-style tentative romance and Lucio Fulci-style grindhouse horror plays so many mind games that it’s hard to say with any certainty whether the film’s female lead even exists—and if she does, how much of what occurs in the movie really happens. It doesn’t much matter, in any case. What’s important is that Asami, the aspiring actress unaware that she’s auditioning for the role of a phony film producer’s second wife, represents two opposing male fantasies, and that she makes them seem equally ludicrous. Initially chosen because she comes across as demure, compliant, and downright self-abnegating, Asami is eventually revealed—whether in reality, or just in the protagonist’s imagination—as a sadistic she-devil intent on barely symbolic castration. (Ankle, meet piano wire.) The giddy viciousness of her second incarnation implicitly underlines how absurd her original demeanor was; there might be an actual woman in there somewhere, but the film’s whole point is that the “hero” can’t see her. [MDA]
27. Rosetta, Rosetta (1999)
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Palme d’Or-winning second feature film immerses viewers in the chaotic life of the title character, a teenager who just wants a steady job and a stable home environment. Sympathetic but not always likable, Rosetta is a high-strung, frighteningly driven person who lives in a crummy trailer park with her alcoholic mother, and is willing to screw over friends and family alike if it’ll get her closer to her idea of security. The Dardennes employ their usual style, using handheld cameras, tight close-ups, and follow-shots to get into the head of a person at the end of her tether. The effect of that approach—coupled with a no-frills performance by Émilie Dequenne—is to create a remarkably intimate portrait of someone who rarely talks, which forces the audience to think along with this woman who’s desperately poor and stubbornly angry. [NM]
28. Brandon Teena, Boys Don’t Cry (1999)
There are several reasons Brandon Teena (birth name Teena Brandon) is a daring role, and much of the lasting impact of Boys Don’t Cry is how deftly the movie navigates each one. Transgender issues weren’t as openly discussed in pop culture in 1999 as they are more than 15 years later, which might have led to a focus on specifics over character. But writer-director Kimberly Peirce skipped any after-school special explanations, and instead structures her film as a wrenchingly intimate portrait of Brandon’s lived experience, where every conversation is fraught with the terror of discovery. Brandon’s relationship with Lana Tisdel (Chloë Sevigny) could have focused entirely on Brandon’s fear of discovery. But Peirce writes and shoots their romance by focusing on low-key intimacy and understanding, rather than lingering on its specific sexual contact. And though in the movie’s pivotal scene, Brandon suffers horrific violence, Peirce shows his terror and humiliation unflinchingly, but without turning him into a victim. Brandon Teena was daring just for living in a world with all this stacked against him; Boys Don’t Cry is carefully constructed to remind audiences of that. [GV]
29. Erin Brockovich, Erin Brockovich (2000)
Brassy, bossy, and downright domineering, Erin Brockovich is the cinematic equivalent of the reality-television trope “I’m not here to make friends.” She’s here to get the job done, no matter what the job is. Feeding her kids? Done. Busting balls? Check. Unearthing a state-wide conspiracy that hurts people—good, regular, hard-working people, just like Erin—and taking everyone to task in the process? You know it. Although Erin works her sexuality to get what she wants—a tight skirt there, a pulled-down top there—she remains consistently in control of what she’s putting out there, fully aware that she’s using it for her own ends, and unashamed about the way she likes to dress. Still, her personality is couched in immaturity, and even her can-do spirit can’t hide the fact that she’s got some serious growing-up to do. That comes at a price, as Erin grapples with disappointments—personal, professional, legal—on the way to saving both her clients and herself. [KE]
30. Betty/Diane in Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Within a movie (and a career) full of audacious, risky creative choices, Mulholland Dr.’s morphing character Betty/Diane stands out as a particularly brave and unorthodox female role. She’s an emblem of something larger—David Lynch and Naomi Watts use her to build up and deconstruct the myth of Hollywood, both paying homage to it and criticizing it for its illusory nature, its inherent deceit, and its emptiness, especially as it pertains to women. Betty/Diane marks one of David Lynch’s richest and most complex creations; over the course of just a few hours, she drifts in and out of a velvet dream world, straddling fantasy and reality while trying to solve a murder case, falling in love with a woman she’s just met, descending deep into the darkest corners of her own mind, and eventually ending her own life. Betty/Diane would have been a meaty role for any actress, but Watts tears every last bit of flesh straight from the bone, transforming effortlessly from a near-stereotype of an Old-Hollywood actress—bubbly, naïve, starry-eyed—to a corrupted, jaded cynic who’s been broken by the industry and lost love. The part works within the film’s surface narrative—her story reads as real and heartbreaking—but it’s also a bottomless metaphorical well, one that fans will draw from and argue about for years to come. [RH]
31. Morvern Callar, Morvern Callar (2002)
Lynne Ramsay’s 2002 adaptation of Alan Warner’s novel Morvern Callar spends virtually every moment with its title character, a Scottish grocery clerk played by Samantha Morton. But for all the time viewers have in her company, Morvern remains a mystery. She finds her boyfriend’s body, a suicide note, access to his money, a mixtape, and the manuscript of a novel. She responds by dismembering the body, ignoring the note’s instructions, claiming the novel as her own, and going on vacation. That only sounds callous in description, though. Morvern spends much of the film endlessly listening to to the mixtape, immersing herself in her boyfriend’s headspace via the melancholy mixed messages of songs from Can, The Velvet Underground, and Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, whose duet “Some Velvet Morning” provides the film with its mysterious keynote. It’s a challenge to play someone so distant, maybe even from herself, but Morton makes Morvern simultaneously compelling and elusive. She may be driven by grief, opportunism, shock, or some combination of the above. It’s never clear. Some things remain unknowable no matter how much closeness a film and its lead create. [KP]
32. Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 (2003-2004)
Beatrix Kiddo, aka The Bride, contains multitudes, moreso than any other action heroine (or heroine, period) in recent memory. Over the course of Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and 2, while literally doing cartwheels around peers both male and female, Beatrix flits back and forth from vengeful assassin to vulnerable victim to warm, loving mother. She’s simultaneously a sexually free, emotionally empowered woman; a violent, unrepentant warrior; and a raw, exposed nerve. It’s a stunning role, both on and off the page—Thurman and Tarantino make sure to hit every possible emotional (and physical) note befitting a woman who’s been manipulated, brainwashed, raped, nearly murdered multiple times, then robbed of her own offspring. Not once do the films undermine Beatrix, or suggest that because she’s a woman or a mother, she’s incapable of kicking major ass. In fact, both facts are painted as an asset. Imagine! Underneath both films’ action/thriller exteriors, there’s an important point being made about how women—just like men!—are capable of being complex, multi-layered beings. And also graphically murdering entire crowds of assailants. [RH]
33. Vera Drake, Vera Drake (2004)
Vera Drake is the sort of role for which phrases like “quietly devastating” were coined. It’s no surprise Mike Leigh cast Imelda Staunton; she brings deep inner life to most of her characters. But in this case, that character and the part were inextricably tied. Leigh works largely through rehearsal and improvisation, so his ensemble builds their characters organically from the inside out. At the outset, Leigh knew only that he wanted to incorporate his own childhood, and that he wanted Vera to be an abortionist (something kept secret from most of the actors, to preserve their shock at Vera’s hidden life). It’s on a different plane of intimacy—and one of much less security—than working from a script, but it allows each actor the spontaneity to be bold, even in small moments. The immersive result makes Vera an unforgettable character, whose secret is the least of her defining traits. Vera’s unflinching kindness in the face of hard times feels like both her armor and her deepest self, and as built by Staunton right from the clay, the effect is softly profound. [GV]
34. María Álvarez, Maria Full Of Grace (2004)
The phrase “drug mule” puts in the starkest possible terms what happens when human beings are used to transport illegal drugs from one place to another: They’re reduced to animals, unthinking vessels for illicit business. The thrill of watching María Álvarez in Maria Full Of Grace is that viewers are intensely aware of her humanity at every moment, as she struggles with a job that first preys on her desperation, then requires her to make good decisions in a seemingly impossible situation. Writer-director Joshua Marston establishes the high stakes—an unwanted pregnancy, an offer to make a little money as a courier from Colombia to the U.S., the terrible consequences of failure—and leaves the rest to Catalina Sandino Moreno, a first-time actress, who gives a performance of great vulnerability and equally great resolve. She’s victimized by social circumstance and some cruel twists of fate, but she’s never a victim.
35. Ensemble, Offside (2006)
Iranian director Jafar Panahi has paid a high price for his political daring in making films that question the politics and social mores of his native Iran: Confined to his house and banned from making more movies (though he’s made three since his house arrest started), he’s become a low-key cause célèbre in international filmmaking. Looking at films like 2006’s transcendent, funny Offside, it’s easy to see why Iran’s government considers him a subversive and a threat. The film concerns a group of women individually caught trying to sneak into a major sporting event, Iran’s World Cup qualification match against Bahrain. (Panahi shot the film in the stadium during the actual game.) Women are banned from attending sporting events in Iran, but this group defies the law as well as cultural expectations and gender stereotypes: They’re all enthusiastic sports fans, and as they appeal to the young soldiers holding them for transport to prison, they mount a noisy, rebellious group argument for why petty statutes shouldn’t keep them from expressing their patriotism and cheering on the home team. Their tactics for getting into the game, and for manipulating the soldiers when they fail, are all funny. The punishment they face isn’t. The film is transgressive in all the right ways: It portrays the women as diverse and specific, but also united in a just cause, and collectively representing the diversity of an entire generation actively resisting being held back by narrow-minded sexism. As they stand up for themselves, they start to look like revolution in drag. [TR]
36. Juno MacGuff, Juno (2007)
It’s Juno’s attitude that sets her apart, not her situation. Accidentally pregnant thanks to an ill-timed roll in the hay (read: playroom) with her immature best pal, 16-year-old Juno has to decide what’s best for her and the little nugget taking hold of her body. Uninterested in cliché and hellbent on doing what’s best, she considers her options, weighs the consequences, then makes her own decision. She’s got reasoning and logic down pat, but she also has a maturity that’s rarely reflected in the lives of teens on the big screen. Sure, Juno is quirky—hello, hamburger phone—and she doesn’t always make the most appropriate choices—hello, Mark Loring—but that’s not what makes her special. It’s that she can blend those quirks with an honesty and practicality that eludes most of her age range, if not people 10 or 20 years older than her. [KE]
37. Otilia, 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days (2007)
In 1987, near the end of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s rule in Romania, the atmosphere of intense paranoia and suspicion accompanying his regime reached a fever pitch. Cristian Mungiu’s Palme D’Or-winning drama follows two college students through this dread-soaked environment as they seek out an illegal abortion. As an advocate for Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), the friend who’s looking to have the procedure, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) bears all the pressure of hiding their intentions from nosy hotel clerks and officials, protecting Gabita from the coercive black-market creep who performs it, and keeping both of them safe. It’s such a pressure-cooker situation that 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days often plays as much like a thriller as a drama, anchored to a character whose loyalty, conviction, and compassion pierces through the forces of oppression that oppose these friends at every turn. [ST]
38. Verónica, The Headless Woman (2008)
To a certain extent, Lucrecia Martel’s The Headless Woman is about the oblivious narcissism of the wealthy and privileged. In a moment of distraction, Verónica, played by Maria Onetto (Wild Tales), runs into something with her car. It could be a dog, it could be something or someone else, but her instinct is to flee the scene rather than take responsibility for whatever she might have done. In her typically suggestive style, Martel (The Holy Girl) spends the remainder of The Headless Woman catching the twitches of guilt and uncertainty that register on Veró’s face, which is outwardly placid as she continues to go about her affairs. Though her response to the accident is to retreat to a state of extreme detachment, Veró is and isn’t the bourgeois zombie she appears to be; the insistent tug of her conscience makes her human and mysterious, and Martel succeeds in bringing depth to a character who by most measures would be dismissed as monstrous. [ST]
39. Julia, Julia (2008)
The cult of Tilda Swinton has many sources—her breakthrough in Orlando, her unimpeachable cool in films like Michael Clayton and Only Lovers Left Alive, her alien oddness in Snowpiercer, her willingness to pop up in auteur pieces like Béla Tarr’s The Man From London—but she’s never given a more full-bodied performance than the one in Julia, which stands as her (and director Erick Zonca’s) homage to the lunatic spirit of Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes. As Julia, Swinton sinks her teeth into the larger-than-life role of a foul, vulgar creature whose heart still thumps mightily under the alcoholism, greed, desperation, and moral lapses that plague her. After going broke, Julia agrees to a scheme to kidnap a fellow AA member’s son and demand a $2 million ransom from the kid’s wealthy grandfather. Things don’t go remotely as planned, of course, but the situation gives Swinton space to reveal both the rotten and noble aspects of Julia’s character, much in the way Rowlands did for Cassavetes’ Gloria. [ST]
40. “The mother,” Mother (2009)
One of the best tragic movie heroines of recent years, the unnamed elderly mother in Bong Joon-ho’s psychological thriller Mother goes to extraordinary measures to protect her mentally challenged adult son Do-joon when the local police accuse him of murdering a teenage girl. As the mother (Kim Hye-ja) plays detective to try and vindicate her boy, Bong explores the small southern town where she’s lived and worked for years, and gradually exposes the guilt she feels for not having thought enough about what’ll become of Do-joon as they both get older. There’s a reason why both the film and its main character have such a generic name. Mother uses the form of the mystery genre to touch a raw nerve deep within nearly all parents, who worry they’ve brought somebody into the world who’s not just a burden on society, but a dangerous one. But the mother is also a daringly specific and unusual character: an older woman, a defiant one willing to stand up to her entire community, and a complicated figure who simultaneously represents the warm, protective maternal influence and the ruthlessness and selfishness it can become. The way the role subverts and plays on Kim’s long career of playing warm, popular Korean mom figures is just an added bonus. [NM]
41. Ree Dolly, Winter’s Bone (2010)
Like The Last Seduction, Winter’s Bone flips the script on noir mystery films and finds a new direction for appealing old tropes, but it takes a very different tack: Instead of focusing on the femme fatale, it ditches her altogether, and turns the gumshoe into a teenage girl. Seventeen-year-old Ree Dolly (played by Jennifer Lawrence in her breakout role) runs the household for her mentally ill mother and two younger siblings in the Ozark backwoods, keeping them clean and fed even in an environment of desperate poverty. When their survival depends on her tracking down their irresponsible absentee father, she goes about it just like Sam Spade would: asking uncomfortable questions, refusing to take no for an answer, and taking the occasional beating that shows she’s getting too close to the truth. Part of what makes Winter’s Bone memorable (besides Lawrence’s mesmerizing performance, and Debra Granik’s crisply chilly direction) is the way it plays on such familiar noir-mystery signifiers, while making them almost unrecognizably new. But the other half of the equation is Ree’s unusual blend of politeness and ferocity, as someone who hates asking anyone for anything swallows a certain amount of her pride to keep the rest of it intact. Based closely on Daniel Woodrell’s novel, Winter’s Bone offers a hero cinema has seen many times before—but not as a woman, let alone such a young, desperate, flinty one. [TR]
42. Alike, Pariah (2011)
It may be too soon to declare that we’re entering some kind of golden age of complex teenage girls on the big screen—maybe more like a bronze age, or a copper age—but the rise of films like Pariah and upcoming offerings like Diary Of A Teenage Girl and Fan Girl signal that the multiplex is becoming less preoccupied with the kind of glitzy, glammy teen stuff that dominated the 1990s, and might be opting for richer features that take the shine off the high-school experience. In Pariah, 17-year-old Alike has to navigate far beyond the typical realms of teenagehood, grappling with her burgeoning sexuality and her deeply disapproving mother, while also mucking through regular life. Her joys are deeply felt, her disappointments wounding, and she approaches her complications with an authenticity few characters ever approach, even in far more pleasant circumstances. As Alike struggles to be her best, most real self, she doesn’t realize she’s already there, deftly presenting her reality to the world, even if she (like her mother) isn’t ready to see it. [KE]
43. Martha, Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
What happens at the end of Martha Marcy May Marlene? We could argue about it for hours, and that’s primarily thanks to an opaque but deeply felt performance from Elizabeth Olsen and a boldly enigmatic script from director Sean Durkin. Martha, a troubled young woman who’s recently escaped the clutches of a cult (or has she?), is unflinchingly strange, ignorant of social norms, and totally paranoid (or is she?), so much that she starts to frighten those around her. She gets in bed with her sister and brother-in-law while they’re having sex, she swims naked in broad daylight, she flies in and out of moods she can’t seem to control. The audience is primed to sympathize with her, but also to fear her unknowability—can we trust her? Can she trust herself? We never really find out, which is what makes the role and the film so haunting and compelling. Martha is a woman losing her grip on reality (…maybe), who’s fragmented, unmoored, and morally ambiguous, but who’s neither obviously punished for it nor redeemed. It’s a role that goes outside the usual character boundaries, not just for women, but for narrative film in general. [RH]
44. Lisa Cohen, Margaret (2011)
The salvation of Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret stands as one of the great triumphs of critical advocacy, but even given the film’s tortured production history and the wounds apparent in its theatrical cut, the power of Anna Paquin’s performance as Lisa Cohen should have been self-evident. Lisa is a tempestuous 17-year-old New Yorker who witnesses a distracted bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) accidentally running over a pedestrian, and struggles over what to do. Does she tell the truth, condemning a blue-collar guy with a family to unemployment and possible prison time? Or does she lie to protect him? That decision is the moral fulcrum on which Lonergan’s ambitious coming-of-age story pivots, with Lisa representing youthful idealism and innocence, and the indulgence and self-involvement that goes along with it, too. Doing the right thing is important to Lisa—and difficult in the compromised world of adults, which frustrates and enrages her—but she frequently steps out of bounds. Lonergan and Paquin give her the fullest possible airing. [ST]
45. Mavis Gary, Young Adult (2011)
In an environment where filmmakers seem to struggle far more with making female characters relatable and irreproachable (and pretty from all angles, with a narrow idea of what that means) than they do with male characters, it’s still entirely refreshing to come across a female character as remorselessly petty and vindictive as Mavis in Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody’s black comedy Young Adult—and vanishingly rare to see such a character as a protagonist. Mavis is the star of her own story, in which she evaluates her life, finds it wanting, and decides to leave the big city (of Minneapolis, mind you) for her Minnesota hometown, where she plans to win back her high-school sweetheart by breaking up his marriage and persuading him to abandon his new child. Mavis is one of those rare cases that prove how desperately audiences want to identify with a lead character, regardless of awful intentions or awful behavior: Charlize Theron makes Mavis entertaining and appealing even when she’s acting abominably. But Reitman, Cody, and Theron are all way out on a limb with this story, which acts like a hilariously poisonous corrective to the schmaltzy tradition of “getting back to slow, fulfilling small-town life” movies, and embraces the most edgy and regrettably funny sides of cynicism. They’re all being daring just by never giving in to sentiment. But at the same time, they’re wickedly smart about what drives characters like Mavis, and how they affect everyone around them. [TR]
46. Frances Halladay, Frances Ha (2012)
Given that writer-director Noah Baumbach tends to make sour, cynical (albeit hilarious) comedies, odds are that the bulk of the credit for Frances Ha’s generous spirit belongs to its co-writer and star Greta Gerwig, who plays the heroine as scatterbrained but well-meaning. Baumbach and Gerwig don’t excuse their struggling young New York dancer Frances Halladay for being impulsive, sloppy, and presumptuous—not to mention certain that her inability to grow up and get her shit together is endearing to her eternally patient friends. But they also recognize that Frances has a good heart, and that her screw-ups don’t really hurt anyone but herself. Where a lot of modern popular culture either mocks urban hipsters or treats their quirks with annoying reverence, Frances Ha is more honest about this particular character’s strengths and weaknesses, and is more refreshingly optimistic about the future of Frances’ generation. [NM]
47. Maya, Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Inspired by a real-life (and still anonymous) CIA agent, Zero Dark Thirty’s Maya personifies the conundrum of what constitutes heroism and bravery within the world of terrorism, particularly once torture is factored into the equation. Played by Jessica Chastain in an Oscar-nominated performance, Maya approaches the United States’ post-9/11 hunt for Osama bin Laden with a messianic fervor that spans a full decade, during which time she grapples with the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques and how they function within a broader investigation that hits dead end after dead end. Over the course of Kathryn Bigelow’s film, Maya transitions from idealistic newcomer to hardened fanatic, the sort of woman who, in Bigelow’s own words, “we rarely see in motion pictures, one who is professional and dedicated, obsessive but not neurotic or sexually dysfunctional, a woman capable of mistakes in judgment and capable of crossing moral lines in the line of duty and yet utterly self-sacrificing and dutiful in the name of protecting the nation—in short, a fully human rendition of a civil servant, and a bundle of contradictions.” It’s a loaded, politicized role that asks viewers to parse moral questions and assumptions they may not be fully comfortable with, and Chastain engages with her difficult character head on, all while maintaining an authentic emotional core that surfaces in the film’s poignant, disquieting final moments. [GK]
48. Adèle, Blue Is The Warmest Color (2013)
Blue Is The Warmest Color made headlines for its more sensational aspects: It’s an electric, torrid lesbian romance; it’s three hours long; it includes a 10-minute sex scene between two women; its director, Abdellatif Kechiche, drove its two leads to tears and exhaustion on a regular basis. But it rests in the collective cultural memory as much more. It’s an unapologetically dramatic teenage love story that doesn’t over-romanticize or undercut its protagonists’ profound emotions. And it’s a sprawling, ambitious coming-of-age tale that marked the arrival of a fresh, promising new talent: Adèle Exarchopoulos, who won critics over with her take on Adèle, a malleable 15-year-old who falls madly in love with a woman and grapples with her sexual identity. What’s most remarkable about the role is that Adèle, a vulnerable, malleable teenage girl (i.e., Hollywood’s lowest-regarded demographic), is given the space and the respect to grow at her own pace, to enthusiastically gobble up plates of pasta, to lie unenthused beneath the enthusiastic machinations of one of her male suitors, to bury herself in novels, to experience her first orgasm, to stress about throwing the perfect dinner party for her lover—in other words, to be a fully realized, multi-faceted young woman, one who’s treated as deserving of 180-plus minutes of development. It shouldn’t be so rare to see a young woman’s narrative playing out so languidly, and with so much reverence and sensitivity. But it is. [RH]
49. “The woman,” Under The Skin (2013)
It’s never clear whether the unnamed alien “woman” in Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Michel Faber’s novel Under The Skin is actually female, of if “she” has just taken that form because it’s the easiest way to seduce lunkhead men into her deadly jelly-trap. Regardless, Scarlett Johansson’s performance—and Glazer and Walter Campbell’s script—do more with the heroine’s femininity than use it to portray her as a sexy monster. Under The Skin creates a sense of disorientation in the audience, showing what our world would look like from the perspective of someone extraterrestrial (or perhaps extra-dimensional… the creature’s origins are kept vague). But the film is also partly about Johansson’s character learning how to be a convincing human woman—by observing how other ladies dress and behave, and by figuring out how easily men can be captivated by someone who smiles at them and repeats whatever they say. It’s a twist on the old woman-as-mystery, woman-as-monster trope, one that thoughtfully examines what femininity means, and how it affects people of all genders, or none. [NM]
50. Amy Dunne, Gone Girl (2014)
Plans rule Amy Dunne’s world. Foisted into fame at a young age, as the muse for her parents’ wildly successful yet vaguely chiding kiddie-book series, Amy has always had an idea of what the future should look like (bright) and how she would get there (professional striving, a paid-for apartment, some kind of gallant gentleman). When her world is turned upside down, she reacts in the only way she knows how: By making a plan. Meticulous to the point of insanity, so clever it’s unnerving, coldly ruthless to a degree that’s endlessly surprising, Amy takes aim at her new future with laser-like focus. Unlike other scorned women, Amy isn’t driven by emotion—at least, not the kinds of emotion audiences would expect from someone in her situation. Instead, she latches on to a pragmatism that’s so crisp, it fails to recognize outcomes that don’t see her winning. By rejecting the expectations that have marred her life so far—the Cool Girl bit and all that—and embracing her (totally unsettling) abilities to get things done, Amy prevails. She’s an unrepentant anti-heroine for the ages. [KE]
Special note: This week’s podcast goes deeper into how we curated this list, what inspired it, what we were looking for when we assembled it, and our absolute personal favorites on the list. You can listen to it here, or look for The Dissolve Podcast on your favorite podcast platform.