Staff Inquiry: Girl Power – Our Favorite Heroines

With Wonder Woman going strong, the recent trailer drop for A Wrinkle in Time, and Atomic Blonde on the horizon, ’tis the season for ladies to kick butt. That’s got us excited here at Film Inquiry, and we’re celebrating by listing off some of our favorite cinematic heroines.

Whether they have super powers or not, all these women (and girls) command the screen and take us on journeys we’ll never forget. The breadth and variety of our picks shows just how complex our heroines have become, and as time marches on, they’re only getting more numerous. We can’t wait for the next great heroine, but for now, these are the standouts.

Stephanie Archer – Rey, Star Wars: The Force Awakens

When thinking of my favorite movie heroes of my childhood, one of the strongest memories is of Luke Skywalker. I wanted so much to be a Jedi knight, wielding my luminescent saber and fighting for the light side of the force. While there was already a royally strong female presence within the trilogy, Luke was the only Jedi.

With the release of she broke through the boundaries of expectations and representations of women in film.

She is smart, resourceful and a driving force, diving into conflict, unafraid to fight and face the trials and tribulations around her. The only fear, which makes her even more relatable, is the fear of herself and the power within her to be something more than she ever thought possible. Yet, she is brave enough to take the chances that came her way and seize the future as her own – whether it is escaping the reach of the dark side, taking the first steps in her training, or letting go of a family she knows will never return.

Her kind heart and resounding influence have instantly made her an indispensable addition to the Star Wars universe, a solid role model for girls around the world and one of my favorite heroines in film.

Ryan Morris – Kate Macer, Sicario

When it comes to thinking about the whole “strong female character”, most people imagine a woman who kicks ass and knows her way around a fight. That’s fair enough – there’s a handful of them on this list and they’re all awesome characters. When it comes to cinema heroines, though, the one that drifts to the front of my mind is Sicario’s Kate Macer. Played with steely-eyed grit by Emily Blunt and written expertly by Taylor Sheridan, Macer smashes the strong female character archetype in powerful ways, proving that badass film heroines don’t necessarily need to come out on top to make them strong characters.

Macer is beaten a lot in Sicario, and not only physically. She pretty much loses every step of the way – if she isn’t being choked to death by her hitman and saved by her male colleague, she’s getting shot by another male colleague purely for working out his lies and trying to do the right thing – but never does she give in. It sounds like a cliché, but Blunt plays Macer phenomenally well. This cliché turns into Macer’s character, rather than the other way around. She always fights back, she never submits to doing anything she doesn’t believe in – she’s a woman who knows and understands herself perfectly, and refuses to change because it would fit others better.

Well, that is until she signs away her right to speak the truth when faced with a gun to the throat. Then, and only then, does she back down. But then Macer has a chance. She pulls out her own gun and aims it at the man who has put her through all of this trauma, but does she pull the trigger? Of course she doesn’t. She’s better than that. She knows that, and so do we.

Nathan Osborne – Katniss Everdeen, The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games franchise was a sturdy, defining piece of cinema in and of itself, but it was Katniss Everdeen, the inspiring female lead, who sealed the deal and ensured the franchise was a success, standing out for all the right reasons. Across the four films (originating from three novels), Katniss Everdeen develops from a naive and innocent girl into a powerful and brave rebellion leader and woman before our very eyes.

Charging from the front with a determination to right the wrongs of the Capitol, she not only becomes a symbol of hope but actively participates in the fight for justice; from her involvement in the 74th and 75th Hunger Games to the charge on the Capitol (where she personally seeks to assassinate President Snow), every step of the way is defined by Everdeen’s talent, skill and general kick-ass behavior.

Even more admirable about Miss Everdeen is her reluctance to consider herself a leader. We forget that, over the events of the series, Everdeen faces devastating loss and damage of her own – but still gallantly acts in the best interest of the collective. Everdeen did not ask (and certainly would not choose) to become the Mockingjay herself. It’s her self-sacrifice, confidence, and ability to demand the attention of the districts, fueling them with the fire needed for change, which is inspiring.

She leads from the front, not for fame or glory, but because she understands the need for the greater good – a future that will benefit all. Portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence’s career-defining performance, Katniss Everdeen will go down in the history books as one of the greatest female heroines, just as cinemas started embracing and showcasing them. I’d argue, it was Katniss Everdeen that ignited that uprising.

Linsey Satterthwaite – Imperator Furiosa, Mad Max: Fury Road

Charlize Theron has played many strong female characters throughout her career; her statuesque frame and ice cool demeanour commands an air of authority and assurance, but in Mad Max: Fury Road she created an iconic heroine for the cinematic ages – Imperator Furiosa.

With her shaved head smeared with oil and a metal arm, she cut a fierce figure amongst George Miller’s post apocalyptic wasteland that’s already brimming with arresting characters. Betraying her tyrannical overload Immortan Joe and stealing his most prized possessions, she sets out on a perilous journey to her homeland, a force of nature behind the wheel of her war rig. When Max joins her, they create an alliance built first upon necessity, which turns into mutual respect. Crucially, Max is never there to overshadow her, and it is still Furiosa’s story leading the charge.

She is the visual embodiment of steely determination, eyes locked on the formidable gauntlet she must traverse, using resources and her physical and mental wiles to reach her destination. When she finds out the fate of her promised land, it is a devastating moment. Furiosa roars at the world for denying her the home she remembered. But then she picks herself up and continues on, the warrior in her refusing to give up. She rides on to her fate, to be the one to end the reign of repression at the hands of Joe.

There is talk that the next installment will focus on Furiosa’s backstory, but she has already blazed onto the screen as a fully formed character. However, more screen time for her is something to relish, as when I left the cinema after Mad Max: Fury Road it was Furiosa’s name that rung out in my memory.

Hazem Fahmy – Amale, Where Do We Go Now?

In choosing a character for this feature, I wanted to focus on a heroine whose gender was at once critical to her status in the plot as well as to the film’s overall thematic drive. Having decided this, picking Nadine Labaki’s Amale from her 2012 sophomore feature, Where Do We Go Now, was an absolute no-brainer. The film is a scathing yet haunting exploration of the intersection of political and patriarchal violence. In a remote Lebanese village during the country’s bloody civil war, a previously cohesive and loving Muslim-Christian community suddenly finds itself being torn apart by the larger conflict around them.

In this chaos, the men, shockingly, prove themselves idiotically hot-tempered, allowing decades of coexistence to shatter rather than attempt discourse. As the owner of the village café, which also serves as the village’s prime social hub, Amale decides to take action. While the men let the situation escalate, the women, led by Amale, step up to heal the community’s divide by any means necessary, even drugging the men with hash pastries at one point so that they may dispose of all their weapons. Amale’s arc exemplifies the bizarre emotional, and often manual, labor with which masculinity burdens women.

What is perhaps most poignant and powerful about Labaki’s performance and script is the degree to which she captures the injustice of that burden through Amale. At the beginning of the film, we see her happily running her business and eyeing the village painter who frequents her café. But this is soon disrupted by the men’s foolishness and she finds herself forced to intervene, not out of some sense of duty, but rather out of a fierce love for her home that trumps everything. And she never lets the men forget that. What could be more heroic?

Eric Bernasek – Veronica Sawyer, Heathers

It’s hard to imagine a movie like Heathers getting made today. It’s actually hard to imagine that it ever got made at all, being the story of a teenage Bonnie and Clyde who murder the most prominent members of their high school’s aristocracy. They frame the deaths as suicides, only to find that their peers who had been feared and loathed in life are celebrated after death.

The 1988 teen movie features poisoning, gunplay, and an unsuccessful plot to blow up the school, as well as frank depictions of real suicide, bulimia, teen sex, and substance abuse. The violence in particular would likely prevent Heathers from appearing in theatres in 2017, but, roughly a decade before the Columbine High School massacre, the fact that the film attacked high school hierarchies with satire and pitch black humor made it possible for writer Daniel Waters and director Michael Lehmann to get away with murder. (Proving once again that, these days, TV is where risks get taken, the film is being re-made as a ten-episode series for the small screen, slated to premiere on TV Land in 2018.)

At the center of the story is Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder), a seemingly reluctant social climber and a peripheral member of Westerberg High School’s clique of mean girls, the Heathers. When she joined the in-crowd she had aspirations for popularity but was clearly ill at ease with the effects that popularity had on her conscience and her peers. Fear of the group’s leader, Heather Chandler (Kim Walker), keeps Veronica from giving it all up. But when new kid Jason Dean (Christian Slater) shows up at Westerberg, Veronica sees an opportunity to break from her personal status quo, and the not-completely-accidental death of Heather Chandler serves as the catalyst for her killing spree with J. D.

Sure, Veronica isn’t a conventional heroine, nor is she an anti-heroine per se. But as the film’s protagonist, whose catharsis results in a complete rejection of Westerberg’s deeply entrenched status system, Veronica comes to heroism by way of self-evaluation and internal change. This involves her bravely rejecting not only the abuse and manipulation of her best friend but the abuse and manipulation of her new boyfriend as well. At a time when teen movies were codifying high school status systems and passively interrogating them, in Heathers, Veronica Sawyer completely blew them up.

Emma Snape – Diana Prince, Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman might feel like an obvious answer, this summer in particular, but Diana Prince is rightfully an icon, and she’s exactly the type of hero we needed in 2017. Wonder Woman is one of the oldest and most recognizable superheroes in American media, and one of the most famous and prominent female characters of all time. Wonder Woman premiered in DC Comics in 1941 and had her own television show in the ’70s, but despite her long-running history, had never starred in her own film until this June.

Patty Jenkins’ much anticipated Wonder Woman isn’t the first big screen solo film for a superheroine, but that doesn’t diminish the importance of the film: this is the first time we’ve gotten to see a superhero blockbuster led by women in front of and behind the camera, and that’s still a breakthrough on both fronts. After seeing the huge success of her long-awaited film, it’s safe to say that Wonder Woman is one of the greatest of film heroines, not to mention one of the greatest heroes of American media.

What makes Wonder Woman special is that she is unabashedly earnest, that the driving forces behind everything she does are love, compassion, and respect. Yeah, she can throw a tank (and it was incredible when she did), but as pop culture becomes increasingly dominated by the super powered set, throwing tanks no longer sets a hero apart. Instead, Wonder Woman is one of the greatest heroes we have because she walks into No Man’s Land when a woman asks for her help, because she leaves her home as she refuses to wait while innocent people die, and because when she’s given the chance to kill a woman responsible for the deaths of hundreds, she chooses compassion.

Wonder Woman matters as a hero because, over the arc of her first film, she believes in the inherent goodness of humans, and when confronted with war and the evil that humans choose, instead of losing faith she realizes that goodness is a choice that must be made. The message that Diana teaches is that each of us have the ability to do good or evil, and we all have the power and responsibility to make that choice for ourselves. Wonder Woman chooses to be a hero because she believes in the best people can be. And I, for one, am looking forward to the next Wonder Woman movie.

Dylan Walker – Ellen Ripley, Alien

What can possibly be said about Ellen Ripley that hasn’t already been said before? Headstrong, badass, and intelligent, Ripley isn’t just a great female character, she is one of the greatest characters in all of film.

Introduced in director Ridley Scott’s seminal 1979 science fiction masterpiece Alien, Ripley was never originally presented as the protagonist of the film; instead, she is introduced as just one of the crew. Much of the audience at that time would never have assumed that Ripley would turn out to be the last survivor and the protagonist of the piece, and would have expected Captain Dallas to be the final survivor.

In doing this, Ripley completely subverts the audiences’ expectations and presents herself not just as a strong female character but the strongest character in the film, regardless of gender. By the end of the film, she has no one left to save her; no strong male character is going to come back from the grave to rescue her. She does it all alone. As Winona Ryder, who became involved in the franchise with the dreadful Alien: Resurrection, said: “I had never seen a female character like that. It was the first female action hero that I had and that any of us had.”

James Cameron’s excellent 1986 sequel, Aliens, further bolstered Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley as the toughest character around the hypermasculinity of the Marines, who soon devolve into hysterics after their first encounter with the xenomorphs. Ripley remains calm and collected as the Marines bicker and panic amongst themselves, debating what they should do – of course Ripley comes up with the solution of nuking the entire site from orbit, defying bureaucratic opposition. In Aliens, Ripley also sees herself becoming a parental figure to the orphaned Newt, putting her life ahead of her own. And by Alien 3 Ripley has become a Christlike figure, sacrificing herself for the betterment of mankind.

It’s no wonder that Ripley ranks so highly on polls of the best film characters of all time, and why she is my personal favourite character in film.

David Fontana – Sarah Connor, Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The first two films of the Terminator series are still acclaimed to this day, in part due to the Arnold Schwarzzeneger factor and James Cameron‘s breakthrough special effects. Yet, the driving force and most memorable presence within the film is arguably that of Sarah Connor, played to strong-willed perfection by Linda Hamilton.

Perhaps the most relatable aspect of Connor is that she doesn’t start out as a hero. In the first Terminator film, she is simply a young college student who, after hearing about several women with her name getting murdered, unwittingly ends up in a fight for her life, being relentlessly pursued by the time-travelling robotic Terminator (Schwarzenegger), who believes her future son to be of crucial value in an eventual war with the machines. Though helped along by Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), Connor eventually proves worthy of standing on her own, especially in the film’s final moments.

It’s in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, though, that both Sarah Connor and Linda Hamilton really shine. Now with her son a teenager, Connor has been locked away after attempting to bomb a computer facility, intent on destroying the possibility for Skynet to become self aware. After her no-holds-barred escape, Connor continues her attempts to prevent the dismal future, doing so not only for her own survival but specifically for her son’s.

It’s her combination of hard-edged survival skills learned through the years since the first Terminator attack, coupled with her mothering instincts for John, that make Connor such an incredibly strong character. Hamilton also plays the character as flawed, due to some questionable decisions that she makes in her attempts to prevent the future, but she’s ultimately kindhearted and warm despite her overwhelming desire to do what needs to be done.

James Cameron, who also further developed the character of Ripley in Aliens, is clearly no stranger to strong female characters. His adoration for his women characters such as Sarah Connor is evident in his work, showing, above all, that they are worthy of standing shoulder to shoulder with the heroes of the world.

Chris Watt – Clarice Starling, The Silence of the Lambs

There’s a very good argument to be made for calling Clarice Starling the best female character in the history of cinema. Strong, independent, intelligent, beautiful, the protagonist of The Silence of the Lambs would appear to have it all, including an inner drive to succeed in her chosen profession, and enough guts to stand face-to-face with a killer and appear unfazed by a head in a jar.

Of course, if this were a personals ad, then perhaps such attributes would be a bit of a fine line for anyone to cross, but what makes Clarice so interesting is her humanity, her compassion often fighting tooth and nail with her practicality. Assigned the task of gathering information from an infamous cannibal serial killer, she feels for the victims yet wants to understand their murderer. She even charms the man who should be her nemesis, and yet Lecter has more courtesy than the many other sane men who surround her, all of whom see only the pretty young girl, not the tough resilient hero that she is.

Clarice is damaged goods, a woman in pain, whose loss of her father when she was a child has never left her mind. She feels compelled to carry on the work he did, as a law man, by going all the way to the FBI. It’s all in that elevator shot, in the opening scene of the picture. Clarice’s tiny frame surrounded by men the size of the trees, or how director Jonathan Demme shoots her from above, in a room teeming with male officers who look at her with scorn for having seniority over them.

Above all, it’s in the performance. Jodie Foster was always good, but in Clarice she found her career icon, the perfect storm of actor and part, and she gives it her all. Clarice deserved nothing less.

Chloe Walker – Olive Hoover, Little Miss Sunshine

Between a suicidal uncle, a drug-addicted grandfather, and a silent son, the Hoover family are not a happy bunch. They don’t even seem to like each other all that much. The one person that does not extend to is 7-year-old Olive. They all love Olive.

So much, in fact, that when she unexpectedly gets a place at a beauty pageant at far-off Redondo Beach, they all agree to hop into a broken-down VW camper and make the long journey with her. Without Olive in that cramped VW, it’s easy to imagine the Hoovers killing each other, but her kindness and relentless optimism keeps them all together.

Chubby and bespectacled, Olive isn’t your typical child beauty pageant star, and Little Miss Sunshine proves this is an unequivocally good thing. Her now famous finale routine is so weird that the audience do not respond well. A grown adult would curl up in terror at the hostile reaction she gets, but Olive just keeps on doing her strange little dance.

Her family, despite being exhausted from the long and difficult journey, are so inspired by her bravery that they all get on stage and join in. There are jeers, and the auditorium rapidly empties, but they don’t care anymore because she has taught them all that it doesn’t matter if the world’s against you. As long as you have your people (whether that be friends or family), and are kind and courageous, then you will be just fine. And that’s why she’s my heroine.

Brian Walter – Paikea Apirana, Whale Rider

My favorite movie heroine has no special powers. She has never round-housed or head-butted a bad guy, and she has never rocketed into the air or dropped any clever, carefully crowd-tested one-liners. She’s Paikea, played with striking, potent directness by then 12-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes in Niki Caro’s marvelous 2002 film Whale Rider, based on Maori writer Witi Ihimaera’s national treasure of a short novel, The Whale Rider.

Paikea has to save not just her family but her entire world from falling apart. Her grandfather, Koro, is the patriarch of their tribe, which is consecrated to the whale since a boy named Paikea first rode one in the legendary past out at sea. In the centuries since, the tribal leader has always been male, and the aging Koro insists that the chief who will eventually replace him also be male.

The problem? His one grandson, Paikea’s twin brother, did not survive birth, leaving Koro with an anguished, estranged son who refuses to follow in his father’s footsteps and a granddaughter whom Koro loves but who cannot (in Koro’s patriarchal world) ever succeed him as the leader of the whale riders. So he angrily sets out to mold a new chief from the sparse and mostly unpromising group of young boys left in their dwindling little seaside community, stubbornly ignoring the unmistakable fitness of Paikea, who has eagerly embraced all of the tribal traditions he has taught her.

Fortunately, Paikea is filled with too much love and life to just give in. Chanting sacred songs in traditional dress, mastering weapons skills that Koro insists the boys alone should learn, diving deeper than the boys to save Koro’s whale-tooth talisman, she demonstrates her gifts over and over again. Finally, fatefully, the apocalypse arrives as all the whales in the harbor strand themselves on the beach to die, forcing Paikea to bravely fulfill the old prophecy by urging a great bull back out to sea with her astride, forcing her grandfather finally to see hope where he has refused to look at all.

Uniting body, mind, and spirit in a magnificent display of imaginative courage and wonder, Paikea, almost miraculously, thaws the rage-frozen heart of a patriarch she has loved and who loves her but who has also slighted her for her whole life. A vital green root shooting up from ground gone fallow and arid, her triumph fosters a tempered, measured hope for a future built finally on inclusion, not on the helpless, killing perpetuation of rigid, artificial hierarchies. The film ends beautifully with Koro and Paikea together, past and future finally united, embarking seaward in a gleaming traditional craft hallowed by ceremony and powered by men and women of the tribe rowing powerfully and singing side-by-side.

Years have passed since I last watched the film, but I can’t think of a screen heroine who has ever inspired me more than Paikea, the magnificent young Whale Rider.

Amanda Mazzillo – Elle Woods, Legally Blonde

My choice for favorite heroine is Elle Woods from the 2001 film Legally Blonde. When this film came out, I was just a kid, and I was happy to see someone surprising everyone with their intelligence. I watched this many times, wrapped up in blankets, smiling as Elle proved her worth, while being kind to everyone she met. If she didn’t understand something about another person right away, she made sure to learn, so she could better help her new friends with proving their own worth.

Seeing this at 8 years old was probably not the best idea, but it made me fully understand my potential and the importance of friendships. When Elle did not get back with the boy she was supposedly trying to impress, I knew this film and this character would remain important to me throughout the years. The film did have another romance, but its friendships and character growth were the much more important aspect of the film, and they are what I still remember to this day.

I love all sorts of female characters showing their varying types of strength in film, but even more seeing a character break from what outsiders think of her, while still remaining her true self. Elle’s love for all things pink, glittery, and girly never once took away from her drive to show her worth as a law student. In the second film, we see her go even further in her career, while never forgetting her personality or her friends. If Elle ever came back in another film, I hope she is aiming even higher.

At times, Elle seems like an exaggerated version of Leslie Knope from the television series preppy, smart, and determined character at its center.

Alice Murray – Shosanna Dreyfus, Inglourious Basterds

As is evident in many of his on-screen creations, Quentin Tarantino loves a female heroine as much as the next person. But whilst several audiences will rush to claim that The Bride – the leading lady of his infamous Kill Bill saga – perpetrates the most powerful tour de force woman of any of his movies, they need to spare a thought for Shosanna Dreyfus.

Although perhaps not the most central character of Inglourious Basterds, Shosanna Dreyfus proves in merely a few scenes that she’s certainly the most memorable.

The film begins with what is arguably one of the most tension-fueled scenes in cinema history. Shosanna’s family are brutally murdered whilst hiding under the floorboards of a farmer’s cottage in Nazi-occupied France during World War II. Being the only one who manages to escape, Shosanna plots her justified revenge.

As the narrative unfolds and addresses a handful of other storylines, Shosanna proves to be the most intellectual, quick-witted, and resilient character throughout the entire movie. Whilst the film itself is a stroke of genius and creates an alternate history that we all wish had been the reality of the Nazi’s bitter end, Shosanna is the consistent frontrunner.

Mélanie Laurent brings her to life in spectacular fashion, and this is never more obvious than in the final few scenes as Shosanna lures every noteworthy Nazi into her private cinema. Thanks to a cunning plan she has previously envisaged, she manages to lock them in and makes the bold decision to burn her cherished cinema to the ground in order to prevail.

Although she gets shot herself before the drama unfolds, she still pulls it off and truly makes her strength visible. The last thing the Nazis see before their deserved death is the image of her gratified face, laughing contently as she finally reveals her “Jewish vengeance” to them. Not only does she put an end to the war and to a group of foully evil fascists, but she also proves in a matter of minutes that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Alex Arabian – Leia Organa, Star Wars

More commonly referred to as Princess Leia, and more recently General Organa, she is one of the most influential female characters in the history of film. Daughter of Queen and Senator of Naboo Padmé Amidala and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, Leia Amidala Skywalker was born out of tragedy and betrayal. Twin sister of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, Leia was adopted by close friend of Padmé’s Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan after Padmé passed away during labor, losing her will to live after seeing Anakin turn to the dark side and become Darth Vader.

Leia grew up Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, but, after being captured by Darth Vader (not knowing her relation to him), she joined the Rebel Alliance with Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. She played an active role in destroying the death star, exterminating the Sith, and, subsequently, defeating the authoritarian Empire and restoring order to the galaxy. Leia would later marry Han Solo and have a child, Ben Solo.

In his attempt to rebuild the Jedi, Luke trained Ben, acquainting him with the ways of the force, which is strong in him given Leia’s lineage. Under Supreme Leader Snoke of the First Order, Ben betrays Luke, destroys the Jedi trainees, and becomes Kylo Ren in a second wave of Sith Lords. This betrayal destroys Leia and Han’s relationship and sends Luke into exile, much like Yoda did after losing to Emperor Palpatine.

Already a decorated war hero, Leia becomes General Organa of The Resistance to the First Order. Even after witnessing her own son murder Han in cold blood, Leia perseveres. She’s endured a life of heroism, loss, and tragedy, yet she remains undeterred. Entire generations looked up and still look up to Princess Leia, equal parts intelligent, tough, kindhearted, and incorruptible.

The late Carrie Fisher’s indelible portrayal is not only iconic, it is eternally blissful. Princess Leia’s journey hasn’t ended. Her character will take more of a forefront in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It will mark Carrie Fisher’s last film. However, she will live on forever through the character of Leia and will continue to inspire countless generations long after we have all left this galaxy, joining her in one far, far away.

Those are our favorite heroines. What are yours?