Ten of Toughest Female Characters in Movies
We’re used to seeing male movie characters beat the hell out of people, but it doesn’t happen as often with the women. There are some girls, though, that can not only hang with tough dudes, they could probably kick their asses, too. Tough girls turn me on something fierce, so it wasn’t too difficult compiling a group of truly bad ass women from movies. After the jump, take a look a ten of the most dangerous, toughest, bad ass women to appear in movies. Every one of them could render me a quiverring, crying pile of mush:
Ellen Ripley – Alien Movies
Ellen Ripley can handle pulse rifles and flamethrowers and doesn’t take sh*t from anyone. She’s killed an alien queen, which makes her inclusion in this article mandatory. Any person – man or woman – who can kill an alien is pretty bad ass.
Sarah Connor – Terminator Movies
Knowledge of the future war between man and machines transformed Sarah Connor into a ripped, dangerous woman. Sarah’s son John becomes the leader of the human resistance in the future, and Sarah being a total bad ass helped shape John’s character and turn him into humanity’s savior.
Beatrix Kiddo – Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2
A cool theme in the Kill Bill movies is that many of the deadly and powerful characters are women, and the toughest of all is Beatrix Kiddo. Hellbent on revenge, Kiddo seeks to hunt down and kill the members of her former team, the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Everyone in the squad is a trained killer, but Kiddo and her Hanzo sword make quick work of anyone whose path they cross.
River Tam – Serenity
River looks like a delicate flower, but this psychic teenager can crush you throat while beating the crap out of seven other guys at the same time. Even Reavers are no match for a pissed off River Tam. As a side note, I feel like Serenity is incredibly underappreciated.
Yu Shu-lien – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
This scene says it all. I’m at half mast after watching that clip.
Eden Sinclair – Doomsday
Searching for a cure for the Reaper virus in Scotland, Eden Sinclair encounters barbaric, psychotic, weapon-wielding cannibals determined to kill her. She’s able to avoid the fate a memeber of her team suffered — getting cooked alive and then eaten — and manages to escape alive. But not before killing some of the barbarians, including one by decapitation.
Alice – Resident Evil Movies
A genetic alteration gave Alice advanced strengh and speed, giving her the ability to fight numerous foes at once. It wasn’t until later in these series of movies that Alice evolved into a complete bad ass, developing telekinesis and psychic abilities to go with her already increased physical abilities.
Miho – Sin City
Deadly little Miho is a mute, so she lets her swords and shuriken do the talking. Nobody wants to get on Miho’s bad side, especially men. She’ll kill you before you can even realize you’ve been attacked, and it’s always going to be bloody.
Fox – Wanted
Fox is tatted up and can bend bullets. If she talks dirty, then that’s pretty much my ideal woman.
Mallory Knox – Natural Born Killers
Mallory Knox was molested by her father and neglected by her mother, so at least there’s some logical reason why she murdered them. As for all her other numerous victims? It’s simply because she gets off on it. Mallory is not someone you want to come across.
What? No Selene from the Underworld series? It’s a vampiric Kate Beckinsale with guns and black spandex for fuck’s sake!
Here are a few lesser known but worthy suggestions.
1) Tura Satana as Varla in Faster Pussycat Kill Kill.
2) Brigitte Lin as Lian Nichang in The Bride With White Hair and its sequel.
3) Mieko Kaji in the two Lady Snowblood films.
4) Pamela Anderson in Barb Wire
5) Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye
This list should end after Ripley and Sarah Connor. Everyone else is a pretender. Fox was another “Look its Angelina Jolie playing Angelina Jolie with a gun” Movie. Its like most of Brad Pitts movies the last few years(with exceptions). Angelina Jolie never lets you forget that she is Angelina Jolie while watching her in a movie.
Why should Sarah Connor and Ripley be the only ones on this list? Because they weren’t super models trying to play the token tough chick role.
Sarah Connor is delicate and soft in T1 and grows into a fighter. In T2 she has the look of someone in good physical shape, not a model with big breasts.
Serenity sucked. Firefly sucked.
Milla is more badass in the Fifth Element imo.
“What? No Selene from the Underworld series? It’s a vampiric Kate Beckinsale with guns and black spandex for fuck’s sake!”
what are you, 14?
I second Kate Beckinsale’s Selene from Underworld. Your language in describing her however makes you sound like the 14 year old.
Leather, not spandex, although I agree that this list is incomplete without her.
Trinity from The Matrix was pretty bas ass too.
Salma hayek – Once upon a time in mexico?
I loved Beatrix Kiddo in “Kill Bill”, but I think that Gogo Yubari should also be there. Her scenes were short, but memorable.
the most bada ass woman in all the movies is Azumi from the movie with the same name.
Hey “Scott”, drop dead you ignorant asshole, insulting Firefly and Serenity like that, who the hell do you think you are? Damn idiot, I wish I could smack some sense into this guy in person, I really would. Here’s a thought: next time you feel an opinion coming up, shut your trap and avoid embarrassing yourself in public. I would insult you further, but it would really be a waste of my time, as it’s a waste of EVERYBODY’S time to read your post and than having to sacrifice precious minutes of life pointing out your stupidity, but hey, it’s definitely a public service someone’s gotta do it.
Dax interesting input from your end. But I am inclined to agree with Scott on this one.
Mr. “pro”, I get the joke, I really do!
But I’ve got no caffeine on my system today, so by all means son, “incline” away! I suppose it’s an opinion…of sorts. Just for the fun of it, care to defend your point?…or at least try anyway…
Dax J, at this point, not really.
Instead:
Scott, care to elaborate on your earlier comments about firefly and serinity?
Mr. “Pro”, I hear you loud and clear (so to speak).
But nice deflection by the way, well done! Still I can only assume Scott can’t move much further away from the “suckiness” argument…We live we hope.
Care to say who’s your favorite (in or out of the list)?
Yu Shu-lien finished, but if you really want to get into it bad ass women. The actress from Lady Snowblood, Chocolat (Thailand based action movie with scenes so intense they hurt just to even watch) or even the Women from My Young Auntie. Pam
Grier does all kind of hard ass and making it look good.
Michelle Yu was doing action when most of these girls were sucking on their thumbs and playing dolly. She also just happens to be hot not some trumped up model. Don’t get me wrong because Ripley and Sarah Connor are awesome characters.
Everyone else bubble gum but fun.
You would be remiss in not mentioning, Tamara Dobson aka Cleopatra Jones, Pam “Foxy Brown” Grier, Vivica Fox, Queen Latifah, Kimberly Elise, & Jada Pinkett Smith all 4 of whom were in the movie “Set if Off”, & Vonetta McGee(GOD BLESS HER).
Hey Dax, I know this is two years later, but dude, you’re coming off like a major asshole. It’s the Internet, not everybody is going to like the same things that you are. It’s juvenile to think that they should. I kinda liked Serenity and I’ve not seen more than a few episodes of Firefly (of which there aren’t many), but if Scott doesn’t like it, that does nothing to my enjoyment of the film. Obviously there are probably more people out there who don’t like it than there are who do. Not that they dislike it, but I’m willing to bet a large majority will look at you puzzled and not know what you’re talking about. The series lasted less than a full season and the movie (to the uninitiated) won’t make them think about the series (due to a different title) and the movie didn’t do mad money at the theater.
Vasquez from aliens was by far the most realistically portrayed bad ass female character in a movie
Have you not seen Stiletto starring Stana Katic??? OMG you think those girls are kick ass watch Stiletto and then re-do the list.I cant believe there was no mention of it or Stana…COMEON!