Ever since Brave flunked(Its a semi-good movie, not an outstanding one) I wanted to create a thread where we examine and enjoy movies starring a girl or woman as a main protagonist.
Awesome Movies with a girl/woman as the main character.
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Ever since Brave flunked(Its a semi-good movie, not an outstanding one)
Are you an Asian parent?
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This..
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Alien/Aliens/Alien3.
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Lilo and Stich. The Little Mermaid. Beauty and the Beast. Mulan. Tangled. The Princess and the Frog. Snow White. Cinderella. Alice in Wonderland. Let's get out of the Disney mine… The Hunger Games. Million Dollar Baby. Mean Girls. Halloween. Scream. Don't get me started on TV.
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You can't beat A League of their Own!
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Lilo and Stich. The Little Mermaid. Beauty and the Beast. Mulan. Tangled. The Princess and the Frog. Snow White. Cinderella. Alice in Wonderland. Let's get out of the Disney mine… The Hunger Games. Million Dollar Baby. Mean Girls. Halloween. Scream. Don't get me started on TV.
Disagree on Little Mermaid, Snow White, and Cinderella. Everything else is spot on though.
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Terminator 1.
Bayonetta… She's a video game character but she is beyond awesome.
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Silence of the Lambs
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Hmm, let me think…* Shurayukihime
That's what I got from some mild thinking. :V
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Juno
Easy A
Terminator 2 -
One of my faves. Run Lola Run.
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Aimée & Jaguar and Amélie
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One of my faves. Run Lola Run.
Oh, yeah. :) I watched that hundred of years ago, remember I like it but not why… Re-watch is called for!
Some others that has sprung upon my minds...
- Ichi
- Fritt vilt
Also Fritt Vilt II and III, maybe, but I haven't watched them yet. - Cui hua kuang mo aka Undefetable
Famous for this clip:
[hide]
I guess it might not fit in to the "awesome" category flawlessly… :P
EDIT: Also some other movies Cynthia Rothrock stars in, if you're into the likes of Undefetable…
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Black Swan,Hard Candy, Monster
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Spirited Away and Totoro ^_^
Someone will probably disagree, but I always liked Contact.
And doesn't everyone secretly like Thelma and Louise? Actually I don't even remember if I like it, hehe.
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Coraline, Gone with the Wind, Breakfast at Tiffany's, the Red Shoes, Whip it, Clueless
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Disagree on Little Mermaid, Snow White, and Cinderella. Everything else is spot on though.
I disagree with you on Cinderella, as I admired her for being strong against the abuse of her stepmother and stepsisters. Always able to find the little pleasures in life despite being a house slave. But it also showed her weaker moments so that she didn't come off as a vapid, perfect heroine. Only after meeting the prince does her character fall flat a bit.
Anyway, movies:
Anything Miyazaki
10 Things I Hate About You
My Fair Lady
Mary Poppins
Funny Girl
The Parent Trap (original, screw you Lindsey Lohan) -
Off the top of my head, Hope Springs (I count Streep as the protagonist because she initiated things, feel free to disagree).
A lot of the others had been listed already for me.Also Bridesmaids, but somehow that one feels like a cheat.
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Oh yeah, Bridesmaids.
I have to say Mama lol. I really enjoyed it.
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Alien movies(ones I've seen), Brave, Tangled and Lilo and Stitch. Those are my absolute favs, and it's not because of the leads. They are just good movies with characters and stories I liked.
I think I may need to see Caroline agian, becuse I don't remember liking the character all that much. She just seemed like a main character without much to describe. The weird setting of the movie didn't connect to me much either. But yeah, I have to make plans to rewatch it this week.I also need to see a bit more Miyazaki films. I only seen PM, SA, HMC, and Ponyo. Out of those four, I liked Ponyo if for the "at-home" slice of life nature of it. Spirited Away was… I don't know. It was a good fantasy movie, but not a good character driven movie(as in there's more to talk about when it comes to the setting, moreso the people in it).It's been years since I seen it, so maybe I missed something when I was younger. I'm curious to check out Kiki's Dilivery Service and anohter one that slips the mind atm. My sis says they are good.
Aside those, I can't recall much movies as I don't really think about the gender of the mian character,
Edit: I forgot Secret of Nimh! That movie was amazing! It's not often you see fantasy like movies with a mother for the lead.
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I disagree with you on Cinderella, as I admired her for being strong against the abuse of her stepmother and stepsisters. Always able to find the little pleasures in life despite being a house slave. But it also showed her weaker moments so that she didn't come off as a vapid, perfect heroine. Only after meeting the prince does her character fall flat a bit.
I agree that she demonstrates strong character through enduring with a bunch of bitches without succumbing to the urge of slapping them silly. However, I feel she wasn't a very proactive character compared to the stronger female disney archetypes (i.e. Belle/Mulan/so on). She had the want for something "better", but she was barely able to accomplish anything without the assistance of others. In result, she was a bit more passive than Belle who was far more aggressive.
Of course, she is one of the more remarkably stable characters in term of psychological stability (unless you consider talking to animals a weird psychological issue) in dealing with her unfortunate situation. In that case, she is certainly a strong character, but not nearly as aggressive compared to some other Disney female characters.
PS: On a tangent, seems like the horror genre actually has decent female characters that aren't stupid screaming bouncing boobs. Alien(s) being the obvious one, but here are a few others:
The Descent
Drag Me to Hell
Resident Evil (honestly I hate this movie serie, but it does have a "strong" female protagonist)
Silent Hill
Day of the Dead (original)
Night of the Living Dead (90s remake…not the hilarious original)and so on...plenty more, but none come to my head at the moment.
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Let's not forget Sounds of Music !
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Pitch Perfect was a lot of fun (though a part of me still thinks it's racist against asians)
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I agree that she demonstrates strong character through enduring with a bunch of bitches without succumbing to the urge of slapping them silly. However, I feel she wasn't a very proactive character compared to the stronger female disney archetypes (i.e. Belle/Mulan/so on). She had the want for something "better", but she was barely able to accomplish anything without the assistance of others. In result, she was a bit more passive than Belle who was far more aggressive.
Of course, she is one of the more remarkably stable characters in term of psychological stability (unless you consider talking to animals a weird psychological issue) in dealing with her unfortunate situation. In that case, she is certainly a strong character, but not nearly as aggressive compared to some other Disney female characters.
You don't have to be aggressive to be a strong female character. Strength comes in many forms.
Oh! Nearly forgot! Labyrinth!
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Spirited Away was… I don't know. It was a good fantasy movie, but not a good character driven movie(as in there's more to talk about when it comes to the setting, moreso the people in it).It's been years since I seen it, so maybe I missed something when I was younger.
Hmm, while it is true that the focus is on the ghost/god world and all the magic and adventure stuff happening, I still think Chihiro is a good character. She starts out as a whiny crybaby, and in the ghost world learns to rely on and stand up for herself, and at the end she's much calmer, braver and less prejudiced. It's not that prominent, but it is a children's adventure film after all.
I see a lot of people posting horror movies aswell. It's obvious that most horror movies (especially western ones) have a girl or woman as the protagonist: The Ring, The Grudge, Scream, The Exorcist(?), The Birds, Carrie, Paranormal Activity, The Descent (which gets a plus for an all-female cast), The Skeleton Key, El Orfanato, Drag me to Hell, [Rec], etc.
This seems to be the case especially in slasher movies or ghost/haunting movies. When monsters are involved, guys seem to take the lead.
I don't know if it's a good thing. It seems to confirm the "damsel in distress"-scenario (even if they save themselves), or females as the typical murder victim. They're also grateful subjects for emotional backstories. Men in horror movies are more often the hero who saves the day, or the dumbass who baldly ventures into danger and gets himself killed (or survives due to luck/badassery). -
@Mrs.:
This seems to be the case especially in slasher movies or ghost/haunting movies. When monsters are involved, guys seem to take the lead.
I don't know if it's a good thing. It seems to confirm the "damsel in distress"-scenario (even if they save themselves), or females as the typical murder victim. They're also grateful subjects for emotional backstories. Men in horror movies are more often the hero who saves the day, or the dumbass who baldly ventures into danger and gets himself killed (or survives due to luck/badassery).I originally thought this as well, but surprisingly there are a lot of slashers where the female is actually a competent lead instead of being strictly a bouncing pile of eye candy. In fact, I think more women then men are strong protagonists in most well known horror films. In most horror movies that deal with the psyche, children, or ghosts in general, you are pretty much guaranteed a strong female protagonist.
However, with slashers you have:
-Most Nightmare on Elm Street titles
-A few Friday 13ths
-Most Halloween titles (both original and remake)
-Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (not sure about the original, the female protagonist did survive, but she spent most of the time running around and screaming).
-Most Saw titles
-Scream titles
-I Know What you Did last Summer
-Some Final DestinationsYeah there are a whole lot more. The reason why there is the misconception that a girl usually plays the damsel in distress is because this archetype usually appears within the story regardless of whether there is a strong female protagonist or not. This character ends up being so annoying that you end up remembering her damsel in distress archetype over the strong female protagonist's character in the movie. Not to mention, this damsel in distress character probably plays the "eye-candy" as well so no wonder most folks forget that these movies have a strong female protagonists (normally they are not the eye candy focus).
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I originally thought this as well, but surprisingly there are a lot of slashers where the female is actually a competent lead instead of being strictly a bouncing pile of eye candy. In fact, I think more women then men are strong protagonists in most well known horror films. In most horror movies that deal with the psyche, children, or ghosts in general, you are pretty much guaranteed a strong female protagonist.
However, with slashers you have:
-Most Nightmare on Elm Street titles
-A few Friday 13ths
-Most Halloween titles (both original and remake)
-Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake (not sure about the original, the female protagonist did survive, but she spent most of the time running around and screaming).
-Most Saw titles
-Scream titles
-I Know What you Did last Summer
-Some Final DestinationsYeah there are a whole lot more. The reason why there is the misconception that a girl usually plays the damsel in distress is because this archetype usually appears within the story regardless of whether there is a strong female protagonist or not. This character ends up being so annoying that you end up remembering her damsel in distress archetype over the strong female protagonist's character in the movie. Not to mention, this damsel in distress character probably plays the "eye-candy" as well so no wonder most folks forget that these movies have a strong female protagonists (normally they are not the eye candy focus).
I definitely agree that these female protagonists in horror films are strong characters, but then again, all horror protagonists are (or become) strong. I mean, it takes a lot of guts (punintentional) to get through a slasher movie alive. I'm just wondering why it always has to be a woman. Then there's also the emotional/psychological part, as you said, when they have to solve a troubled past or save a child or something like that. And when you think about all these things, despite these female horror protagonists being strong, the ideas are still pretty clichéd and stereotypical: A woman who survives an attack on her life is more special or unusual (and thus a more interesting horror protagonist) than a male one; Women are more often chosen as victims; Women are better at dealing with emotional or psychological situations than men are.
I mean, I would love to see a movie with a chainsaw-wielding female protagonist against clawing zombies. Or a guy who stays in an abandoned boarding school and has to solve the troubles of a young boy that haunts there. Now that would actually be different.And the cliché of the damsel in distress you mentioned is of course very widespread in the horror genre, but along with other clichés, for instance in teenage slashers. That's just a fixed role that's easy to use for horror filler: like the skeptical jock, the wiseguy, or the stoner, you have the eyecandy cheerleader/slut. Sure these clichés had better disappear, but they're not what I wanted to discuss.
Then, there's the question of to which extent you should be looking for character development in a horror story. You have your quality films with a good story, where the characters are unique and the horror is an essential part of them (for instance, Carrie, or The Haunting). In these cases you can definitely recognize a human, fleshed out, female protagonist.
But with most of these popcorn horror flicks, the characters are just vessels for the horror, 'cause the audience wants blood. That's where the cliché characters come in handy, because their stories don't need much thought, and yet people can relate to them in a way. And so the writers can put more effort into thinking of entertaining ways to kill them off. The same with more gory or shocking horror movies. Take the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre: that didn't have a single memorable character, apart from Leatherface himself. Or all the Saw sequels. Taking this into account when looking at all those female protagonists in this kind of movie, it could be that they just choose a woman because they are easier liked by a bigger audience. -
Does the movie Kick Ass count since I feel Hit Girl stole the show in that. She was just so adora-awesome.
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Are you an Asian parent?
What is that supposed to mean?
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Does the movie Kick Ass count since I feel Hit Girl stole the show in that. She was just so adora-awesome.
Sadly, no. Because we'd have to include movies that just have awesome female characters instead of just the being the lead.
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@Mrs.:
Then, there's the question of to which extent you should be looking for character development in a horror story. You have your quality films with a good story, where the characters are unique and the horror is an essential part of them (for instance, Carrie, or The Haunting). In these cases you can definitely recognize a human, fleshed out, female protagonist.
But with most of these popcorn horror flicks, the characters are just vessels for the horror, 'cause the audience wants blood. That's where the cliché characters come in handy, because their stories don't need much thought, and yet people can relate to them in a way. And so the writers can put more effort into thinking of entertaining ways to kill them off. The same with more gory or shocking horror movies. Take the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre: that didn't have a single memorable character, apart from Leatherface himself. Or all the Saw sequels. Taking this into account when looking at all those female protagonists in this kind of movie, it could be that they just choose a woman because they are easier liked by a bigger audience.I think the reason behind including a female protagonist within the horror films is due to convenience of their circumstances. They seem to be easier to write for when you decide to invest in somewhat emotionally driven characters. For example, with horror movies involving kids, it is usually essential to include a female character due to the convenience of having a "mother like figure" that is emotionally sympathetic (i.e. the terrible Haunting remake and the children ghost, or the Ring and child ghost, etc…). It would be a bit more challenging to write a convincing male character like this (though it is not impossible to write a male character this way, but most writers are too lazy and decide that a woman would be easier to write for). This is the exact reason why they changed the gender of the protagonist for the Silent Hill movie.
Likewise, anything with dreams or spirituality (i.e. psychic powers, omens, etc...) are usually demonstrated through a female protagonist as well since it seems convenient because they are more emotionally driven elements of horror.Though this is not always the case since there has been a lot of cases where men deal with children, dreams, spiritual omens, w/e in recent horror movies. Insidious being an obvious example that deals with nearly all the topics described above. However, Insidious is fairly balanced since the female protagonist is more aggressive in fixing the problem, but the male character actually is directly involved with assisting his child in the whole ordeal.
PS Random tangent: In regards to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre...no offense, but did you actually watch it? Naturally Leatherface is obviously going to be memorable, but anyone that has watched the original SHOULD remember these characters:
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AND ESPECIALLY this character
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He's the only handicapped character in horror cinema that you ACTUALLY look forward to getting killed. I don't think there is another film that made me feel ill will towards a guy in a wheelchair. -
@RobbyBevard:
Alien/Aliens/Alien3.
This. Ripley is one of the most–if not THE most--badass women in cinema.
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City of lost children and amelie are two movies I would say are awesome and do have girl/woman as a main character. People could say that Perlman is the main character in city of lost children but I honestly disagree and say that it is the girl/miette. At least a film with a double lead and her character is pretty good.
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Mother
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance
Uh… Heavenly Creatures maybe? -
I think the reason behind including a female protagonist within the horror films is due to convenience of their circumstances. They seem to be easier to write for when you decide to invest in somewhat emotionally driven characters. For example, with horror movies involving kids, it is usually essential to include a female character due to the convenience of having a "mother like figure" that is emotionally sympathetic (i.e. the terrible Haunting remake and the children ghost, or the Ring and child ghost, etc…). It would be a bit more challenging to write a convincing male character like this (though it is not impossible to write a male character this way, but most writers are too lazy and decide that a woman would be easier to write for). This is the exact reason why they changed the gender of the protagonist for the Silent Hill movie.
Likewise, anything with dreams or spirituality (i.e. psychic powers, omens, etc...) are usually demonstrated through a female protagonist as well since it seems convenient because they are more emotionally driven elements of horror.Exactly!
Though this is not always the case since there has been a lot of cases where men deal with children, dreams, spiritual omens, w/e in recent horror movies. Insidious being an obvious example that deals with nearly all the topics described above. However, Insidious is fairly balanced since the female protagonist is more aggressive in fixing the problem, but the male character actually is directly involved with assisting his child in the whole ordeal.
I haven't seen Insidious, was it good? I'm also thinking of Mirrors and Dream House, but those are more "save the family" scenarios.
PS Random tangent: In regards to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre…no offense, but did you actually watch it? Naturally Leatherface is obviously going to be memorable, but anyone that has watched the original SHOULD remember these characters:
! http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_kRuD6zV4Fqs/SnCGijmdGfI/AAAAAAAAANE/4M-sbrOt4e4/s200/the_hitchhiker.jpg
AND ESPECIALLY this character
! http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101124230660/headhuntershorrorhouse/images/4/46/Franklin_Hardesty.jpg
He's the only handicapped character in horror cinema that you ACTUALLY look forward to getting killed. I don't think there is another film that made me feel ill will towards a guy in a wheelchair.Well memorable maybe, but you can't say that their personalities were essential to the plot. You don't really get to know them, and as viewer your opinion and feelings towards them stay pretty superficial. The stress was more on the horror than on the way it influenced the characters. That's more what I meant.
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Such an amazing movie. Just blew me away the first time i watched it.
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@wolfwoof:
Such an amazing movie. Just blew me away the first time i watched it.
Yeah. :) But it's Luc Besson so I wasn't too surprised. Coming to think about it, some of his other movies might qualify. Nikita for sure.
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I would say "the fifth element". I know Willis is the name that comes first in the credits but she is technically the main character of the film. I recall that Jovovich was pretty awesome before doing the RE films that is. Its really a fun film.
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@Mrs.:
I haven't seen Insidious, was it good? I'm also thinking of Mirrors and Dream House, but those are more "save the family" scenarios.
The first half has the best scare moments in any movie I have seen for a long while while the second half is completely ridiculous but has great visuals. It's a good watch if you don't have high expectations for it.
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Oh! Nearly forgot! Labyrinth!
…I'm trying to figure out if I agree with this or not. She's the main character, yes, but she's so damned terrible for 90% of the movie. Plus the whole creepy love stuff with the Goblin King.
Love the movie, though.
[edit] And, of course, the thread is "Awesome movies with a girl/woman as the main character," not necessarily a great main character, so…
sigh
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No, It HAS to be a awesome female main character. If we include movies with lousy protagonists the whole thread is pointless.
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To Kill a Mocking Bird!!!
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Could you elaborate?
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Could you elaborate?
I think the title speaks for itself. If not…shame on your for not watching such a cinematic classic. You should go rent it right now.
Mind you, the movie/story has nothing to do with killing mockingbirds.
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It's a great movies and has a female protagonist what's not to like??? Learn about justice, racism, gender roles and growing up yaaaaaaaaay.
To be fair it's probably not what you want as Scout is more an audience surrogate instead of a proactive action girl or whatever but she's a pretty awesome character in her own right. Plus you get to watch Gregory Peck play a superb performance with an awesome soundtrack to boot.
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I think the title speaks for itself. If not…shame on your for not watching such a cinematic classic. You should go rent it right now.
Mind you, the movie/story has nothing to do with killing mockingbirds.
I still think you should elaborate, especially on WHY the movie is awesome and the Female lead of this movie Awesome.
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Sickvibes already did. Read one post above yours.