The 100 Best Female Characters in Film

Billie Dawn (played by Judy Holliday) in Born Yesterday: A spectacular early example of the bodacious-bodied ditz-cum-millionaire's bimbo.

Norma Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson) in Sunset Blvd.: The godmother for a society in which everyone's ready for their closeup.

Cruella de Vil (the cartoon) in One Hundred and One Dalmatians: She sounds like Tallulah Bankhead imitating a seal, and is too cool to sing.

The New Mrs. de Winter (played by Joan Fontaine) in Rebecca: A heroine for women who are forced by circumstance to compete with the Ideal Woman without benefit of poise, confidence or the ability to accessorize--which is to say, most women.

Phyllis Dietrichson (played by Barbara Stanwyck) in Double Indemnity: An inspiration or cautionary tale, depending, for women who don't merely like to use men, but like to use them to kill their husbands.

Fran Dodsworth (played by Ruth Chatterton) in Dodsworth: A pinnacle of female vanity, selfishness, pretension, grandiosity, disloyalty, self-delusion and overdressing.

Blanche DuBois (played by Vivien Leigh) in A Streetcar Named Desire: Vain, neurotic, self-deluded, manipulative, weak but tyrannical--you know, Southern.

Isadora Duncan (played by Vanessa Redgrave) in Isadora: A righteously annoying creative pioneer.

Jean Louise "Scout" Finch (played by Mary Badham) in To Kill a Mockingbird: The socially blundering, pre-feminine girl-child of Atticus Finch has curiosity, impatience, combativeness and smarts operating both for and against her as she tries to crack the codes of adult society.

Alex Forrest (played by Glenn Close) in Fatal Attraction: Evidence that nothing is tougher on a marriage, a car or a furry little animal than an unmarried, libidinous, big-city lady editor.

Lisa Carol Fremont (played by Grace Kelly) in Rear Window: The girl too sexy, too refined and too smart not to indulge her boyfriend's fantasy that she's frivolous.

Frenchie (played by Marlene Dietrich) in Destry Rides Again: The ultimate old West saloon gal--sexy, tough and heroic when motivated by love.

Lily Garland (played by Carole Lombard) in Twentieth Century: A minimally talented shopgirl who gets turned by a theatrical Svengali into a self-enchanted virago. Sounds like half of Hollywood to us.

Miss Giddens (played by Deborah Kerr) in The Innocents: Imagine a morally upright, proper 19th-century British woman--Anna from The King and I, say--but one who seethes with sexual repression and religious hysteria. Now imagine her as the caretaker to two very odd, perhaps demonically possessed children.

Holly Golightly (played by Audrey Hepburn) in Breakfast at Tiffany's: What's not to love?

Laurel Gray (played by Gloria Grahame) in In a Lonely Place: The used, smart L.A. beauty who inspires her self-destructive screenwriter/lover to pen the lines: "I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me." This must be how the joke about the Polish actress who slept with the screenwriter got started.

Marylee Hadley (played by Dorothy Malone) in Written on the Wind: Of all the rich, messed-up, cocktail-swigging, didn't-get-enough-attention-from-Daddy-so-I'm-gonna-screw-lowlifes little sisters in big screen history, none does the rumba so thrillingly.

Annie Hall (played by Diane Keaton) in Annie Hall: The apotheosis of hip, dope-smoking, neurotic ditz as ideal modern woman.

Charlotte Haze (played by Shelley Winters) in Lolita: Vulgar, pretentious, horny, cloyingly seductive and terrifying mom who discovers that her middleaged dreamboat has married her in hopes of porking her adolescent daughter. A classic of her type.

Karen Holmes (played by Deborah Kerr) in From Here to Eternity: A bitter, edgy wife who not only grabs at clandestine sex, but screws Burt Lancaster in the Hawaiian surf. A model for our times.

Alicia Huberman (played by Ingrid Bergman) in Notorious: A sinner seeking Cary Grant's assistance in her struggle for redemption, but, more important, the best excuse for a zillion closeups in the history of film.

Jane Hudson (played by Bette Davis) in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?: A has-been movie star serves her invalid sister a dead parakeet and a rat, then takes her to the beach and lets her fry in the sun. Sisterhood for a society in which everyone is ready for their closeup.

Janet (played by Susan Sarandon) in The Rocky Horror Picture Show: It was back in the '70s that she got liberated from her fatuous virtue, and since then good girls have had no excuse for their insufferable ignorance.

Jody (played by Joan Cusack) in Men Don't Leave: Serenely eccentric, winningly bossy and unstoppably blithe, Jody steals teenaged Chris O'Donnell out of his unhappy, fatherless home and takes him into her own home and bed, then cures his grieving, widowed mom. One of film's inexplicable, inimitable good souls.

Kirsten (played by Lee Remick) in Days of Wine and Roses: At last, equality for women in alcoholism.

Sandra Kovak (played by Mary Astor) in The Great Lie: A brilliant, conceited, self-obsessed pianist who hands off her newborn to her friend like last year's gown. A career woman's career woman in the age before cheap Central American labor.

Sugar Kane Kowalczyck (played by Marilyn Monroe) in Some Like It Hot: Best thing that ever happened to a ukulele, Tiny Tim included.

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