Top 5 Badass Women

There has been no short supply of strong women in movies lately. It looks like Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman is going to cement itself in box office history. Not only that, but we now have Charlize Theron, who just got done playing the villain in The Fate of the Furious, starring in Atomic Blonde, where she is doing her own stunts. In honor of that, I’m going to look at the top 5 badass women in movies. There were a lot to pick from, so it was tough to get it down to five. I hope no one I left off the list comes after me.

Eowyn (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King)

A bit of a deep pull, but stick with me on this. Eowyn spends all her screen time begging her father to let her go fight with Aragorn but he refuses, so she dresses as a male soldier in order to fight. Then, when the Witch King of Andmar takes out her Dad, she puts herself between him and the Nazgul where she promptly cuts off the beast’s head. Even then the Witch King takes her by the throat and tells her "No man can kill me," to which she replies, "I am no man" and then does what literally no other person on the battle field can do. That line all by itself is badass and is the reason she finds herself on this list.

Hit Girl (Kick-Ass)

She may be young, but Hit Girl has a mouth like a sailor and isn't afraid of a little bloodshed. In fact, her character is responsible for the most of the violence in the movie. It was shocking to see a 13-year-old on screen kill so many people and say such vulgar things, so much so that parents’ groups complained to the studio. The second movie suffers from too much repetition, but Hit Girl is still the most memorable part of either story. This character steals the show and helped launch the career of a promising young actress in Chloe Moretz. 

Yu Shu Lin (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon)

Not only is the character a badass, but the actress who plays her, Michelle Yeoh, is a badass in her own right by doing her own stunts. She actually tore her ACL during the early filming of this movie, had to fly to the US get it repaired, and then would fly back and forth to work on the non-action scenes while getting physical therapy. Once her knee was fixed she went back to doing her own stunts. Yeoh shows off all her martial skill by taking on another worthy female actress in Zhang Ziyi. However, I’m picking Yeoh because she wins the more interesting fight, and without the Great Sword of Destiny on her side. 

The Bride (Kill Bill)

She was the first person I thought of when thinking of this list. The Bride pushes herself to be strong enough to take out the gang of assassins who tried to kill her; she breaks out of a coffin by punching a wooden board from 6 inches away, and in the best scene of the movie set she takes on an army of Crazy 88s. Kill Bill is full of unnecessary blood splatter, and is also probably one of the best movies of Quentin Tarintino's already legendary career.

Ripley (Aliens)

Sigourney Weaver is the first modern female action hero and the one every female action star is measured up against. Sure she survives the Xenomorph threat in the original movie, but in this one, she takes the fight directly to the Queen. The yellow exoskeleton is iconic, the line "Get away from her you bitch" is perfect, and Sigourney Weaver became the most well-known woman associated with the science fiction genre because of this movie and this role. That is the definition of badass.