The 100 Best Female Characters in Film

Lara (played by Julie Christie) in Doctor Zhivago: What other heroine has incited passion, madness, betrayal, revolution, thousand-mile treks through snow, poetry and bestselling theme music?

Mabel Longhetti (played by Gena Rowlands) in A Woman Under the Influence: Whereas there are a thousand times more serial murders on-screen than there are in real life, the reverse is true of nervous breakdowns. Mable has such a dilly it almost compensates for the imbalance.

Wilma Dean Loomis (played by Natalie Wood) in Splendor in the Grass: A one-girl argument against parental meddling in teen romance.

llsa Lund (played by Ingrid Bergman) in Casablanca: The kind of celluloid creation who ruins guys for real-life women.

Mama (played by Irene Dunne) in I Remember Mama: This warm, enduring, protective Norwegian mom struggles to make a decent life for her family in San Francisco, setting a terrifying standard for women forced to play this role in real life.

Marge the Police Chief (played by Frances McDormand) in Fargo: She can crack a case, build up her man's self-esteem, capture a killer and speak out for human decency, all while in an advanced state of pregnancy and at sub-zero temperatures.

Martha (played by Elizabeth Taylor) in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?: One of the crudest, funniest, most self-destructive and venomous harpies in the history of film. An early glimpse of how Elizabeth Taylor looks in the morning.

Maude (played by Ruth Gordon) in Harold and Maude: The character who poses the question, Why kill yourself when you can have sex with an 79-year-old woman instead?

Terry McKay (played by Irene Dunne) in Love Affair. The earliest and best version of this thrice-created character who's proof that women who are down on romance are the most likely to meet the love of their lives.

Evelyn Mulwray (played by Faye Dunaway) in Chinatown: That most fascinating of creatures, an honest liar. When the tarnished beauty doesn't let her sordid past keep her from dressing spectacularly, making a last stab at trusting a man, or dying to protect her child, she becomes a tragic heroine.

Ninotchka (played by Greta Garbo) in Ninotchka: A delightful prototype of today's Russian woman--an overnight, overdue convert to capitalism and glamour.

Scarlett O'Hara (played by Vivien Leigh) in Gone With the Wind: Hollywood's one-woman argument for PR-stunt talent searches.

Sugarpuss O'Shea (played by Barbara Stanwyck) in Ball of Fire: Who'd have thought a Snow White knockoff could be so sexy?

Kitty Packard (played by Jean Harlow) in Dinner at Eight: "I read a book the other day. Do you know that the guy said machinery is going to take the place of every profession?" says this '30s blonde bimbo supreme. Another character looks her up and down and says: "Oh, my dear, that's something you'll never have to worry about."

Sarah Packard (played by Piper Laurie) in The Hustler: "The girl" in this smoky, gritty, booze-guzzling classic about pool sharks raises passivity to an art form.

Mildred Pierce (played by Joan Crawford) in Mildred Pierce: A '40s, martyr-style working mom who's a mystery to any late '90s working mom, but an inspiration to female impersonators everywhere.

Ruth Popper (played by Cloris Leachman) in The Last Picture Show: She may be a dirty-dishwater Mrs. Robinson, but at least she sleeps with Timothy Bottoms instead of Dustin Hoffman.

Rachel (played by Kelly McGillis) in Witness: From strapping farm widow and obedient adherent of a marginal antimodern, pacifist religion to luminous maiden straight out of de la Tour to passionate heretic and soul-changing lover. All in one season.

Rachel (played by Lillian Gish) in The Night of the Hunter: Cinematic proof that little old spinsters are children's and civilization's best defense against bad parents and psychopathic, homicidal, fundamentalist charlatans.

Norma Rae (played by Sally Field) in Norma Rae: We like her, we really like her.

Nurse Ratched (played by Louise Fletcher) in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Without this spiteful, power-abusing psychiatric head nurse in our collective imagination, how many more of us would have succumbed to the lure of going nuts?

Raymond's mother (played by Angela Lans-bury) in The Manchurian Candidate. The mom other paranoid males only think they have.

Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) in Alien: A woman so cool, so smart, so brave and so beautiful that she can move in after the guys have failed and blast the bejesus out of a gnashing, drooling outer-space killing machine and look sensational in bikini underpants? Plus she risks her life for a puttytat? The ultimate role model for the Millennium.

Mrs. Robinson (played by Anne Bancroft) in The Graduate: This lacquered, restive suburban barracuda elevates The Graduate from a museum of '60s romantic blather into a genuine classic.

Rosemary (played by Mia Farrow) in Rosemary's Baby: We are all indebted to Rosemary for making it perfectly clear that if you grow up a good Catholic girl, and treat others as you would have them treat you, you'd better not marry an actor.

Sally (played by Susan Sarandon) in Atlantic City: This oyster shucker, who's hell-bent on becoming a croupier, has such an inventive way with a lemon that she prompts ancient Burt Lancaster to pop a woody.

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