The action movie genre is sometimes thought of as a boy's club, but the beefy, masculine Schwarzeneggers of the world aren't the only butt-kickers in cinema—some of the greatest action heroes are women.
Although the genre certainly was dude-dominated in its earlier years, there have been female action heroes on the big screen for decades and decades, and when you consider that some of the great action heroines are based on old literature or ancient myth, it's clear that ladies have always been ready to fight in fiction. In more recent decades, there have been an increasing number of female-led action movies or franchises.
Here, then, are the 32 greatest female action movie characters, including both live-action and a few animated characters. Several of these characters appeared in multiple movies; they're listed along with the name of the movie they made their debut appearance in. You'll see a couple of actresses appear more than once, because there are a few people—like Michelle Yeoh, Charlize Theron, and Michelle Rodriguez—who are unquestionably among the greatest action stars of all time, regardless of gender.
32. Elizabeth Swann (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)
Over the course of the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies (with a little coda in the fourth film), Keira Knightley's Elizabeth Swann goes from a damsel in distress who has been kidnapped by pirates to a swashbuckling pirate queen. Even in 2003's The Curse of the Black Pearl, which doesn't have Elizabeth wielding a cutlass just yet, she's still more than a match for the pirates(be they supernatural or merely singular, like Captain Jack Sparrow)when it comes to battles of wits.
31. Tigress (Kung Fu Panda)
DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda movies are fun kids flicks, but they're also pretty incredible action movies, using the freedom of animation and the animal-inhabited version of ancient China to showcase some astounding fight sequences. Tigress, as voiced by Angelina Jolie, showcases her skills in several of these. The leader of the Furious Five and the presumptive heir of the title of Dragon Warrior until Po, the Jack Black-voiced Panda, unexpectedly gets the honor, Tigress' arc is fairly complex, too. She's the favorite and among the most talented martial artists in all of China, and the movies do a nice job of giving her agency and respect as she adjusts to being a steadfast ally of the Dragon Warrior rather than the Dragon Warrior herself.
30. Alice (Resident Evil)
Alice, Milla Jovovich's protagonist in a half dozen Resident Evil movies, is not a character in any of the video games that the film series is based on. A cool covert operative who soon becomes involved in a biochemical conspiracy that eventually escalates to a post-apocalyptic setting where she has bioengineered powers herself, Alice is a movie-only creation, but she's a pretty great one. The Resident Evil movies are hardly high art, but they're consistently fun pulp, and Jovovich's heroine is a big part of why that's the case.
29. Andromache "Andy" of Scythia (The Old Guard)
Charlize Theron, one of the all-time action movie greats, plays a character who has been in the action for pretty much all of time in Netflix's The Old Guard. Andromache "Andy" of Scythia was born sometime around 4,700 BCE, but when she became a warrior, she discovered that, for some mysterious reason, she was immortal. As the centuries progressed, Andy found and teamed up with other Immortals and formed a team that fought against injustice through the eras in the shadows. A lot of good action heroes have a sense of weariness to them—think "here we go again." Andy takes that a step further by adding the existential weariness that immortality brings, even as she picks up her axe and charges into the fray for the countless time.
28. X23 (Logan)
Logan was a fitting swan song for Hugh Jackman's performance as the iconic X-Men character Wolverine (until he reprised the role for Deadpool & Wolverine seven years later). The movie, an R-rated superhero with Western elements, also introduced a young female clone of the Mutant, Laura (also known as X23). As played by Dafne Keen, who was 11 years old when the film was shot, X23 is an incredible character. She's simultaneously a little girl who needs the grizzled, cynical Logan's protection, and she's a raging powerhouse with razor-sharp claws. Keen would reprise her role in Deadpool & Wolverine, too.
27. Leeloo (The Fifth Element)
Milla Jovovich, one of the great action actresses, had her breakout role in the 1997 cult classic sci-fi flick The Fifth Element. Opposite Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman, Jovich played Leeloo, a woman who has been resurrected in the 23rd century and who is really the human embodiment of the titular fifth element, an ancient substance needed to defeat a great evil. It's an unusual role in an unusual movie (despite being in English, it's a French film, and you can kind of tell), but Jovovich kicks butt and rocks some iconic costumes in it.
26. Hanna (Hanna)
Though probably better known for her roles in period dramas like Atonement and Little Women, Saoirse Ronan notably played an incredibly deadly girl assassin in the 2011 thriller Hanna. Ronan's title character was raised in the cold wilderness of Finland in secret by her ex-CIA agent father (Eric Bana), and he trained her to be a killer in preparation for an inevitable conflict with Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), the senior agent determined to track her down for reasons that will become clear. It's a gritty, cool, and cold—literally and figuratively—movie. Hanna might be a minor, but she can fight with the grown-up action stars.
24. Nanisca (The Woman King)
Gina Prince-Bythewood, who also directed Charlize Theron to action excellence in The Old Guard, was behind the camera when it came time for Viola Davis to kick butt, too. The Woman King is about the Agojie, a real all-female group of warriors in the West African Kingdom of Dahomey, which existed for centuries. Davis stars as Nanisca, an aging but still extremely strong general who is training the next generation of Agojie while still fighting herself, including taking down slave traders. The Woman King received some earned criticism for the ways in which it tweaked historical fact, but it's still exciting to see Davis, an incredible actor, leading an action movie that highlights a region of the world and a part of history that's often overlooked in big blockbusters.
23. Wonder Woman (Wonder Woman)
Regardless of what you think of the mess that was the DC Extended Universe or the quite bad Wonder Woman sequel, the sight of Gal Gadot's heroine exiting a trench as Wonder Woman boldly stepped into No Man's Land is an all-time great moment in superhero and action cinema. The 2017 movie, the first major superhero movie about a solo female superhero, was a sensation and rightfully so. Diana of Themyscira is a warrior, but she's also deeply compassionate and, despite her demigodess status, human. It's an incredible take on one of the iconic DC superheroes.
22. Elastigirl (The Incredibles)
Pixar's The Incredibles is one of the best superhero movies ever made (if not the best), so of course it makes sense that it should have some great heroines in it. Violet (Sarah Vowell) is a great character who makes good use of her force fields and invisibility powers, but her mom, Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), is a pro. In civilian life, Helen Parr is a force keeping her family together; when she's fighting crime as Elastigirl, her compliance and flexibility—both in terms of her quick thinking and her stretchy powers—are something to behold.
21. San (Princess Mononoke)
Anime legend Hayao Miyazaki's works are so profound and beautiful that it almost seems reductive to call any of them "action movies," yet several of them are undeniably thrilling, set amidst war or featuring exciting fights or chase scenes. Princess Mononoke is one such movie, and San, the human girl raised by the wolf goddess Moro in the forest, is an incredible action heroine. She's strong and fast, and her aptitude in conflict is matched by her internal conflict, as she must decide whether to stand with her adoptive animal family or listen to heed Ashitaka as he attempts to bring peace in a war between nature and humanity.
20. Harley Quinn (Suicide Squad)
The 2016 movie Suicide Squad is a mess (albeit an Oscar-winning mess, as it won the Best Makeup and Hairstyling award). However, Margot Robbie's performance as Harley Quinn, the Joker's ex-girlfriend (who is certainly a bit unstable), is more of a lovable antihero than a villain, and is undeniable. Robbie would reprise the role two more times, leading the Birds of Prey movie and appearing in director James Gunn's The Suicided Squad. Robbie's performance, with a somewhat kooky, exaggerated New York accent, was a bright spot in the first bad movie and only gets better when it's surrounded by better material.
19. Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Edge of Tomorrow)
Tom Cruise stars as Major William Cage, a smarmy public affairs officer who finds himself on the front lines fighting against an alien invasion, and then finds himself doing it again once he's covered in the alien blood and gets stuck in a time loop. Turns out he's not the first person this has happened to, as Emily Blunt's Sergeant Rita Vrataski became a war hero because she once possessed this power. If part of the fun in Edge of Tomorrow comes from watching Tom Cruise go from inexperienced grunt to an ace fighter because he keeps dying and getting a little bit better each time, the other exciting part is watching Vrataski, who is already a total pro and one of the coolest characters in any sci-fi action movie.
18. Neytiri (Avatar)
A common complaint about Avatar is that it's guilty of that old trope where an outsider joins an indigenous community (an alien one, in this case), and quickly becomes "the best" at their way of life. That's certainly true to a certain extent for Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), but don't discount Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), a proud and deadly warrior who shows Jake the ropes, gets in a sick fight with a cool mech, and becomes a fierce mother in the sequels, too.
17. Mulan (Mulan)
Disney's best heroine hails from an ancient Chinese legend. Fa Mulan is a young woman who disguises herself as a man and takes her ailing father's place when the Emperor summons his armies to war against the invading Huns. Mulan, in her alias as "Ping," more than holds her own, and it's her quick thinking that wipes out most of the Hun army. She's very explicit proof that you don't need to be a man to be a hero, and as a result, Mulan is especially beloved by a whole generation of little girls—and admiring boys, too.
16. Ilsa Faust (Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation)
For three movies in the Mission: Impossible franchise, there was a worthy match for Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt, an agent who was able and willing to do extraordinary things to get the job done. Isla Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) was a former MI6 operative who was introduced in Rogue Nation and became a staunch ally to Ethan and the team for the next two movies before she was rudely killed off in Dead Reckoning. Justice for Ilsa, the best female character from one of the best action movie franchises. She deserved better!
15. Jessica Yang (Police Story 3: Supercop)
The line between action movie character and action movie actress gets a little blurry when trying to celebrate Police Story 3: Supercop's leading lady, Jessica Yang, an elite Chinese policewoman who teams with Jackie Chan's Hong Kong cop to take down a drug dealer, is played by Michelle Yeoh—one of the best to ever do it. So when you say the thing that makes Jessica so great are the incredible action stunts, like holding on to the side of a speeding bus and leaping from it to the hood of Chan's car, you're also praising Yeoh. She actually did all those incredible and incredibly dangerous stunts.
14. Naru (Prey)
When Arnold Schwarzenegger defeated a Predator in the original '80s movie, he was among the beefiest slabs of masculine muscle ever to grace the silver screen. Amber Midthunder's heroine in this prequel is a different sort of Predator-killer. Midthunder plays Naru, a Comanche woman who becomes a warrior when she finds herself facing off against the alien hunter. Prey is a fantastically exciting movie, and it's a thrill to see not just a Predator hunting in a different time period, but squaring off against a fresh new opponent, the sort that doesn't get enough representation on the screen.
13. Coffy (Coffy)
Pam Grier plays Flower Child Coffin (a.k.a. Coffy) in this classic 1973 blaxploitation flick, which has her turning from a nurse to a vigilante when she sets out to get revenge on the criminal responsible for her sister's addiction, and soon after, the whole dang system. It's a stylish, gritty, and gnarly good time, and Grier throws herself into the film's righteous violence with gusto, establishing herself as one of the all-time femme fatale character actresses.
12. Motoko Kusanagi (Ghost in the Shell)
This iconic cyberpunk anime follows Major Motoko Kusanagi, a security agent in a futuristic Japan where cybernetic and technological enhancements are the norm. Kusanagi's case is even more extreme; her entire body is cybernetic, with her human consciousness implanted within it. Ghost in the Shell follows the Major as she and her team hunt down a dangerous hacker, blurring the line between humanity and machine in ways that hit close to home for Kusanagi. She has appeared in several other films and TV shows that aren't part of the same explicit canon as the first film.
11. Princess Leia (Star Wars: A New Hope)
What else is there to say about Princess Leia, the iconic Star Wars character portrayed by the late, great Carrie Fisher? Though she didn't wield a lightsaber in any of the movies save for one brief flashback in the last of the sequel trilogy, Leia was an able member of the Rebel Alliance whether she was standing up to Darth Vader's intimidation, infiltrating Jabba the Hutt's Palace, or getting an entire race of teddy bear-like aliens to join the Rebel cause. Leia is one of the most iconic and beloved heroines in all of cinema.
10. Éowyn (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers)
One of the best and most triumphant moments in The Lord of the Rings (in a franchise that is full of great moments) comes when Éowyn, shieldmaiden of Rohan, removes her helmet and declares that she is "no man" before slaying the Witch-king of Angmar. Prophecy said that the Nazgûl leader would not be killed by any man, and Éowyn (Miranda Otto) drove her blade right through that loophole and into his helmet. It's a great payoff for a wonderful character, an able warrior who is respected by her family and people but not given the freedom to be her truest self.
9. Mako Mori (Pacific Rim)
Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) is a truly exceptional character. A Japanese woman who was orphaned when Kaiju attacked and raised by Marshal Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba), Mako wants to prove herself inside the cockpit of a Jaeger and avenge her parents. She partners with Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) to do so, and while Raleigh is ostensibly the main protagonist of the movie, Mako is a fully realized character with a standalone emotional arc. The "Mako Mori" test has become a bit of media criticism slang for people to evaluate whether or not a movie is doing justice to its female characters. That's a pretty impressive legacy, and we haven't even talked about the time she used a giant sword to slice a kaiju in twain in her big robot.
8. Yu Shu Lien (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is full of incredible wuxia action, but the greatest fight scene comes when Michelle Yeoh's Yu Shu Lien, a martial arts master whose sense of duty prevents her and Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-fat) from admitting their feelings for one another, squares off against Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi). Jen, who is also one of the great female action characters, has stolen the legendary sword "Green Destiny," and Shu Lien is honor-bound to get it back from her. Although Jen, who is fighting to escape the destiny society has prescribed for her gender, is supremely skilled, it's clear Shu Lien has her outmatched. Or at least, she would, if not for the sword. It's an amazing fight scene; every strike is exciting and tells you something about these characters.
7. Beatrix Kiddo (Kill Bill: Volume 1)
Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman), known only as "The Bride" until her full name is revealed in the second part of Quentin Tarantino's martial arts epic, was a member of a deadly group of assassins until they turned on her when she tried to leave that life behind. After spending four years in a coma, she wakes up and swears revenge on the four assassins and their leader, Bill (David Carradine). The Bride was an instant action movie icon; a character who at once both embodied and elevated the '70s revenge exploitation movies that Tarantino was homaging.
6. Black Widow (Iron Man 2)
The Marvel Cinematic Universe's first and most important heroine, Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), made her debut in Iron Man 2 but would go on to be a mainstay of the Avengers and several other films in the series. A former Russian super-spy, Natasha defects and becomes an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. before eventually fighting alongside superpowered gods, high-tech robotic suits, and Hulks. Despite having no superpowers to speak of herself, it's a testament to Natasha (and Johansson's performance) that Black Widow never felt out of place amongst the other Avengers. You can make jokes about Hawkeye like that, but not Black Widow.
5. Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)
When Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteered as tribute in the Hunger Games, an annual contest where children and teenagers fight to the death in a dystopian future society, she became an action icon. Skilled with a bow and arrow, extremely tenacious though hardly a ruthless, trained killer (at least during her first games), Katniss is one of the great young adult literature protagonists. Naturally, this translates to being a great movie protagonist, too, and on the big screen, it's engrossing to see her mature and deal with trauma over the course of the film series.
4. Trinity (The Matrix)
When Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) leaps up in the air and performs a kick as the camera rotates around her in bullet time, she changed action filmmaking forever. That alone could make just about anybody a hall of fame character, but Trinity's more than that. Typically decked out in leather and always looking sublimely cool, Trinity radiates confidence, yet, especially in her relationship with Neo (Keanu Reeves), she's very human, unlike the machines that they're fighting against.
3. Imperator Furiosa (Mad Max: Fury Road)
As played by Charlize Theron in 2015's Mad Max: Fury Road and Anya Taylor-Joy in the 2024 prequel, Imperator Furiosa is one of—if not the best—action heroines of the century. A stoic but ultimately deeply empathetic warrior with a prosthetic arm on the wasteland's post-apocalyptic roads, Furiosa breaks free from the tyrannical grasp of Immortan Joe in Fury Road, embarking on a jaw-dropping, movie-length car chase to get his slave brides to freedom. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga didn't enjoy the universal acclaim of the first movie, but Taylor-Joy leads an origin story that might be even more weighty and profound than the thrill of the previous film.
2. Sarah Connor (The Terminator)
When the Terminator, a cybernetic assassin sent back in time from the future, went around asking women if they were Sarah Connor, he might as well have been asking, "are you perhaps the greatest heroine in action movie history?" As played by Linda Hamilton in the first movie, James Cameron's perfect sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and two additional sequels, Sarah Connor is an average woman who turns into a tough-as-nails fighter when she learns that her son is going to be the man who leads the fight against the machine uprising. She's a character who is very much shaped by her status as a mother, but far from limiting her abilities as an action movie protagonist, they only make her a stronger character in every sense of the word.
1. Ellen Ripley (Alien)
Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) made her debut in Alien, which was a sci-fi horror movie. In that 1979 film, she's extremely capable, but it's in the sequel, another perfect action movie directed by James Cameron, that she becomes the figure that many call the best action heroine of all time. Part of what makes Ripley so great is what she isn't. She isn't like the gung-ho space marines, full of unearned swagger and confidence. She's a survivor who takes a young girl, Newt, under her wing, and does everything in her power to ensure that they survive once more—even if that means putting herself into a power-loading mech suit and facing off with a Xenomorph queen.
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