From Angelina Jolie to Lucy Liu to Sarah Connor herself, Linda Hamilton, the action movie genre is full of badass female action stars who proved that action movies aren’t just for men. For decades, action cinema was a typically male-driven genre, because the big Hollywood studios didn’t believe they could sell an action film to a wide audience with a woman in the lead role. But in the 1970s, pioneering female action stars like Pam Grier and Sigourney Weaver proved that an action movie starring a woman could not only sell, but also be remembered as an iconic classic of the genre.
For a long time, the type of action star pushed by Hollywood was musclebound men like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. But actors like Cynthia Rothrock and Halle Berry have proven that there’s more than one type of action hero. From Charlize Theron to Zoë Bell, the action genre is full of badass women with iconic roles to their name.
10 Angelina Jolie
Hollywood’s Go-To Female Action Star
For years, Angelina Jolie was Hollywood’s go-to female action star. Whenever a female-led action script popped up, Jolie was the first actor to get a call. This tenure started with her charismatic turn as the title character in the video game adaptation Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and its sequel. She went on to play gun-toting heroines in such hit action movies as the Bourne-style spy thriller Salt, the bullet-bending comic book actioner Wanted, and the high-octane romcom Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
9 Cynthia Rothrock
The Basis For Sonya Blade
Cynthia Rothrock was the basis for the iconic Sonya Blade character in the Mortal Kombat games (although the producers missed the opportunity to cast her as Sonya in the Mortal Kombat movie). She’s a black belt in seven different styles of martial arts and she competed at the top level before becoming an actor. In her career as a movie star, Rothrock has appeared in such films as China O’Brien, Guardian Angel, Honor & Glory, and No Retreat, No Surrender 2.
8 Halle Berry
One Of The First Female Superheroes To Make It To The Big Screen
Halle Berry became one of the first female superheroes to make it to the big screen with her groundbreaking turn as Storm in the X-Men franchise. She went on to play “Bond girl” Jinx, one of the few bright spots in Die Another Day, and in the years since, she’s proven she’s still got it. Berry played Sofia, the manager of the Casablanca Continental and an old friend of John Wick’s, in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. She held her own opposite Keanu Reeves (an impressive feat in itself) as a similarly badass assassin with a pair of canine sidekicks.
7 Lucy Liu
Adept At Playing Both Heroes And Villains
Lucy Liu has starred in such action films as Payback, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, and The Man with the Iron Fists. Liu proved with her turn as Alex Munday in the Charlie’s Angels movies that she’s adept at playing an action hero who’s easy to root for. But she’s also just as adept at playing a great villain who’s easy to root against. Liu faced down Uma Thurman’s The Bride as notorious yakuza leader O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill: Volume 1.
6 Charlize Theron
She Stole The Show From Mad Max Himself
Charlize Theron has appeared in such beloved action movie franchises as Fast & Furious and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She first broke out as an action star with her fierce performance as Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, in which she managed to steal the show from Max himself. Theron followed this up with her turn as MI6 field agent Lorraine Broughton in Atomic Blonde. Atomic Blonde required Theron to do some grueling long-take fight scenes, including one iconic sequence in a stairwell.
5 Zoë Bell
Stunt Double Turned Action Star
Zoë Bell started out as a stunt performer for action movies like Kill Bill (in which she appeared as Thurman’s stunt double) before transitioning into a career as an action star in her own right. In Quentin Tarantino’s carsploitation slasher Death Proof, Bell plays a fictionalized version of herself. Being a star as opposed to a stunt double finally allowed Bell to show her face during her most impressive stunts. She spends the whole climactic chase hanging from the hood of a speeding car.
4 Linda Hamilton
She Terminates The Terminators
Linda Hamilton only has one major action movie role under her belt – Sarah Connor in the Terminator franchise – but that was enough to earn her a place in the annals of action movie history. In the original Terminator movie, Sarah is introduced as a relatable everywoman who gradually morphs into a badass as she’s relentlessly pursued by a killer android. When Terminator 2: Judgment Day catches up with her, Sarah has been training for the cyborgs’ return, becoming a full-blown gun-toting warrior.
3 Pam Grier
A Pioneer Of The Blaxploitation Movement
Pam Grier was one of the key leading ladies of the blaxploitation movement – and, by extension, one of the first women to lead an action movie. She appeared in The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage, and Scream Blacula Scream, but she’s best known for playing the titular vigilantes in Coffy and Foxy Brown. Grier got a much-deserved career comeback when Tarantino cast her as the title character in Jackie Brown, in which she proved she hadn’t lost any of her badassery.
2 Sigourney Weaver
Everyone’s Favorite Alien Killer
Like Hamilton, Sigourney Weaver has only contributed one character to the action movie canon, but that character was so iconic and groundbreaking that it was enough to make her a legend of action cinema. In the first Alien movie, Ellen Ripley is a typical “final girl” who survives the xenomorph’s wrath and casts it out into the vacuum of space. In the sequel, Aliens, Ripley becomes a protective mother when she takes orphaned Newt under her wing. In both incarnations, Ripley is a badass that audiences can look up to.
1 Michelle Yeoh
From Martial Arts Legend To Oscar Winner
Michelle Yeoh initially trained as a dancer, but she found that those skills transferred into martial arts choreography. Yeoh famously performs a lot of her own stunts and has starred in such action movie classics as Yes, Madam, The Heroic Trio, and Police Story 3: Supercop. She played one of the most badass Bond girls, Wai Lin, in Tomorrow Never Dies, and cemented her place on the A-list with the wuxia masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Yeoh won the Academy Award for Best Actress for combining her action movie chops with her comedic and dramatic range in Everything Everywhere All at Once.
