#10 – The Bride, Kill Bill

Obviously she’s on this list. OBVIOUSLY. Because at BFF we know what our readers want. And what they want is MORE UMA THURMAN.

Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill tells the story of a nameless woman (referred to only as “The Bride”) who is attacked and almost killed on her wedding day. When she wakes from her coma, she seeks vengeance (the kind that involves everybody getting extremely dead). But although she does kill a LOT of people, the BFF team doesn’t think the Bride is all that special, seeing as she’s surrounded by a load of other butt-kicking women: Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) and crazy schoolgirl Gogo. You remember her. She wielded a mace.

Best line: “Those of you lucky enough to have your lives, take them with you. However, leave the limbs you’ve lost. They belong to me now.”

#9 – Eowyn, The Lord of the Rings

Eowyn (Miranda Otto) is introduced in The Two Towers and quickly proves herself to be quite adept at sword-wielding (although she sucks at making soup WOO FOR SUBVERTING GENDER STEREOTYPES). In the third film she rides to the Battle of Minas Tirith disguised as a man, takes down a whole oliphaunt single-handedly and THEN goes and kills the Witch-king of Angmar. Although that is mainly because she’s a woman. Does that mean any woman could have stuck her sword in his face and he would have kicked the bucket? They should have got Galadriel down there to do it. Or Legolas.

Best line: “I am no man.”

#8 – Leeloo, The Fifth Element

Milla Jovovich is always running about beating people up (see Resident Evil, Ultraviolet, The Three Musketeers). In BFF’s opinion, though, her finest butt-kickery took place in Luc Besson’s sci-fi romance The Fifth Element where she played one of the elements. The fourth element? That sounds right.

In the film, Leeloo – otherwise known as Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat – doesn’t take shit from no one. In one scene Corben Dallas (Bruce Willis) tries to kiss her and she pulls a gun on him and says “Never without my permission” in alien language (making her officially the face of Space Feminism). She also beats up countless bad guys and the film ends with her saving the world. The only reason she doesn’t place higher on this list is because SPOILERS! she has to be kissed by Corben before she can do the world-saving. The SFS (Space Feminism Sisterhood) would be ashamed, Leeloo. Somewhere, a green alien lady is burning her space bra and weeping tears of liquid nitrogen from her third eye.

Best line: “Senno ecto gammat!”

#7 – Libby, Double Jeopardy

Double Jeopardy centres on a legal loophole stipulating that no person can be tried for the same crime twice. Remember that, because it’s about to crop up in a SERIOUS way. The film opens with Libby (Ashley Judd) being convicted of her husband’s murder, following his suspicious disappearance. Whilst serving her time in prison, though, she SPOILERS! discovers he is still alive and has faked his death due to money problems. Naturally, Libby is a bit miffed and when released on parole, she hunts her hubby down in order to ACTUALLY kill him – a crime for which she can no longer be tried (Do you follow? It’s a film for the legal-minded, so you might have trouble). Libby is just so badass as well. Look at her in this picture, escaping from a car filling with water like it’s no big deal. Libby laughs in the face of drowning/no good men everywhere.

Best line: “I haven’t felt this good since the day my husband died.”

#6 – Juno, The Descent

The Descent is a 2005 horror film from Neil Marshall, following the exploits of an all-female group of spelunkers (it’s a word) who get lost in a cave system and soon discover they are not alone (there are flesh-eating Gollum things down there who want to eat them SAD FACE). Juno (Natalie Mendoza), alongside main character Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) – sadly pipped to the post by Juno’s awesomeness – must find a way to battle themselves and their companions out of the caves. Along the way, Juno not only does some crazy cave clambering, she also kills a whole bunch of Gollums using only her fists and pure womb rage.

Best line: “Fucker!”

#5 – Charly Baltimore, The Long Kiss Goodnight

If you haven’t seen the terribly underrated The Long Kiss Goodnight, you should go away, punch your cat in the face, cry and then watch The Long Kiss Goodnight. Written by Shane “Lethal Weapon” Black, the film centres on amnesiac housewife Samantha Caine (Geena Davis) who, following a head injury, begins to remember fragments of her past life. SPOILERS! It turns out she used to be an assassin and there are people out to kill her (don’t you hate that? SUCH a drag). With the aid of private detective Mitch (Jackson) Samantha pieces together her old life and in the process reverts to her past self: peroxide blonde Charly Baltimore who can put a sniper rifle together quicker than you can say “man I wish I could put a sniper rifle together that quickly”. Great moments include Samantha discovering she can chop vegetables like Gary Rhodes on speed, and her beating the ever-living crap out of tons of unsuspecting bad guys.

Best line: “Life is pain. Get used to it.”

#4 – Hit-Girl, Kick-Ass

She’s small, she’s purple-haired, she’s the spawn of Nicolas Cage – you guessed it, it’s Hit-Girl! Chloë Moretz’s character appeared on our screens in 2010’s Kick-Ass and is mainly memorable for saying a very bad word which starts with the same letter as “caravan”.

In Matthew Vaughan’s Kick-Ass, Hit-Girl is one half of a father-daughter crime-fighting duo with Big Daddy (Cage). There’s not much else to say other than that she’s an eleven-year-old girl who, instead of sitting at home crying on a photo of Justin Bieber and eating candy, goes around killing everyone.

Best line: “OK, you caravans…let’s see what you can do now!”

#3 – River Tam, Serenity

It’s Joss Whedon time, you caravans (sorry, we’re getting over tired). We all know Joss loves his tough women, but perhaps his finest butt-kicking, bigscreen creation is River Tam, who first appeared in the TV series Firefly but really came into her own in Serenity, where fans finally got to see what she was made of. SPOILERS! She’s made of kicking and punching.

In Serenity, River (Summer Glau) and her brother Simon Tam are taken in by the crew of a small trading ship. Before long, everyone onboard has become embroiled in the Tams’ dark past and have to elude capture by both the government, who wish to retrieve River, AND flesh-eating space monsters. In the end, it’s up to River and her super awesome fighting skills to save the day.

Best line: “They want us alive when they eat us.”

#2 – Sarah Connor, Terminator 2: Judgement Day

“Duh duh duhhhhhhhh duh duh duhhhhhhhhhhhh” – Terminator theme, duh.

Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) is one of the most interesting female characters in film history. FACT (it’s science, we checked). Why, we hear you say? Well, because in the first Terminator film she’s a wuss with big hair. By the second film, though, she’s done a Madonna and got all muscly and has a ponytail – far more efficient in a combat situation. BFF’s fave Sarah Connor moment occurs in the second film when she escapes from her cell in the psychiatric hospital by totally punching her way out. She can also do pull-ups. Lots of them. We here at BFF once tried to do pull-ups but too many people died in the process, so we never spoke of it again.

Best line: “You broke my arm!” – doctor
“There are 215 bones in the human body. That’s one.” – Sarah Connor

#1 – Ripley, Alien series

This list could only have ended one way. We all felt it in our hearts, didn’t we? “And you should always follow your heart” – the alien, Alien.

Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley (otherwise known as “Ripley” because she’s a boss) is the ubercool heroine of Ridley Scott’s Alien series. It would be pointless to try and explain exactly why Ripley is so cool. She just is! Look, just LOOK, at all the awesome things she does over the course of the four Alien films:

The defence rests, your honour.

Best line: “Get away from her, you bitch!”

If you think we’ve missed off any important ladies from this list (and we know one of you is going to say Trinity, so come on, let’s get it over and done with) OR if you hate women and want this list to die, then please feel free to comment below. In the case of the latter, we could just cut the crap and settle this with a few punches. Your choice, CHAUVINIST PIG.