The 12 Greatest Female Movie Action Heroes

Move over, Schwarzenegger! Women are muscling into the spotlight and kicking derriere

Chris Nashawaty,

AARP

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Published July 03, 2025

Charlize Theron as Furiosa in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)

Jasin Boland/Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

Female action heroes are having a moment. Once the exclusive big-screen domain of he-men like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, action flicks are becoming an equal-opportunity movie genre. Ana de Armas bruised her knuckles right alongside Keanu Reeves, 60, in Ballerina. Prolific onscreen warrior Charlize Theron (Atomic Blonde), who turns 50 August 7, has a new butt-kicking sequel, The Old Guard 2, on Netflix. It's an excellent time to present our list of Hollywood’s most memorable female action heroes.

**Sigourney Weaver in Aliens (1986)**

Current age: 75

Ridley Scott’s 1979 deep-space horror movie Alien, and its still more action-heavy 1986 sequel Aliens marked the true birth of the modern female action hero. As the first film’s sole survivor, Ellen Ripley, Weaver would pave the way for the next generation of actresses looking to follow in her thundering footsteps. The image of Weaver strapped into a mechanical cargo loader and dishing out heavy-metal punishment is indelible.

Where to Stream: Hulu

**Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)**

Current age: 49

Theron was such a hypnotic scene-stealer as hellbent-for-leather Outback warrior Imperator Furiosa in this gonzo action spectacle that halfway through the film audiences all but forgot about Tom Hardy’s title character. To the surprise of absolutely no one who saw Fury Road, it was Furiosa (not Max) whose story became the focus of the franchise’s next chapter, the aptly named 2024 Furiosa.

Where to Stream: Prime Video

**Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)**

Current age: 68

This rock ‘em-sock ‘em sequel remains a fascinating turning point, not just in terms of women as big-ticket action heroes, but in how those women could look. Fans of big-and-loud summer tentpoles went into James Cameron’s gung-ho T2 hyped to see Arnold Schwarzenegger, 77. But all anyone could talk about was how intense — and ripped! — Linda Hamilton was. Her muscular physique spoke to something deeper in the culture about changing notions of femininity, physical beauty, and power. Oh yeah, it’s also one of the greatest action flicks ever made.

Where to Stream: Paramount+

Note: Paramount+ pays AARP a royalty for use of its intellectual property and provides a discount to AARP members.

**Halle Berry in John Wick: Chapter 3 —Parabellum (2019)**

Current age: 58

Berry is no stranger to the action game (see X-Men, Catwoman, and Die Another Day), but it wasn’t until she costarred in this brutal and balletic John Wick sequel that we actually saw her having this much fun while beating the snot out of bad guys. As Sofia Al-Azwar, an assassin who comes to the aid of Keanu Reeves’ John Wick, Berry gives her undeniably lethal combat skills a jolt of perverse joy, unleashing her well-trained attack dogs on the poor souls who made the fatal mistake of messing with the wrong woman.

Where to Stream: Peacock

**Demi Moore in G.I. Jane (1997)**

Current age: 62

It’s hard to think of another female movie star who was bigger in the ‘90s than Demi Moore. But in this rah-rah Ridley Scott action-drama about the first woman soldier to undergo Navy SEAL training, Moore shows a steely toughness that we’d never seen from her before. With her shaved head and countless push-ups in the rain, Moore’s gritty lieutenant proves that she’s every bit the soldier that her male peers are.

Where to Stream: Prime Video

**Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies (1994)**

Current age: 66

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. In James Cameron’s still-sensational action-comedy, Curtis plays a bored housewife who discovers that her husband (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a deadly secret agent. So what does she do about it? She jumps in and joins in the mayhem, of course. We always knew that Curtis was an ace comedian, but in True Lies she got to show off a physical versatility that managed to surprise even her biggest fans. And by the way, that isn’t a stuntwoman hanging from a helicopter on screen, that’s actually Curtis.

Where to Stream: Hulu

Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Current age: 62

Most western audiences first encountered Yeoh in Ang Lee’s 2000 martial-arts masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But it would take two more decades for the Malaysian actress to achieve the same level of superstardom here that she already had in Asia. How did she do it? By turning in a devastating — and dangerous — Oscar-winning turn in this bizarre sci-fi mindbender about a Chinese immigrant who zaps into alternate universes while fighting to keep her family together and save the world in the process. One of the weirdest and most rewarding watches of the past few years.

Where to Stream: Prime Video

**Viola Davis in The Woman King (2022)**

Current age: 59

The Woman King mostly slipped under the radar. It deserved better. The Oscar-winning Davis summons the furies as Nanisca, a righteous 19th-century African general who leads an all-female army of Agojie warriors against the European slave trade to preserve their way of life. Davis juggles battlefield physicality with strategic, political savvy and a fiery intensity that made this performance one of the best of the year. There’s nothing Davis can’t do.

Where to Stream: Hulu

**Uma Thurman in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)**

Current age: 55

Nine years after Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman joined forces a second time to deliver an operatic, two-part epic of revenge that has only gotten better with age. As “The Bride,” Thurman takes on all comers, using her fists, her feet and the cold, unforgiving steel of a samurai sword. Thurman aces every physical challenge that Tarantino throws at her, but she also allows you to see the betrayed, broken heart beneath all of the blood and sweat.

Where to Stream: Fandango At Home

**Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman (2017)**

Current age: 40

The superhero genre can often feel like an exclusive boys’ club with the occasional token member of the opposite sex. But in this rousing franchise starter, Gadot arrived on the crowded comic-book movie scene like a righteous heroine who refused to take a backseat to anyone. Gadot delivers a fierce, star-is-born performance in the dual roles of Diana Prince and her save-the-day alter ego, Wonder Woman. When the film was over, audiences walked out of the theater saying: “Superman who?”

Where to Stream: Max

**Pam Grier in Coffy (1973)**

Current Age: 76

In the drive-ins and grindhouses of the ‘70s, no one could dispense street justice against pimps and pushers with the same panache as Grier, the bold, brassy, take-no-guff star of such blaxploitation epics as Foxy Brown, Friday Foster, and this thrilling revenge movie about a nurse seeking payback from the dealers who got her little sister hooked on heroin. No, there’s no getting around the fact that the camera leers at Grier like a centerfold, but her emotionally devastating performance is a testament to her acting chops.

Where to Stream: Tubi

**Carrie-Anne Moss in The Matrix (1999)**

Current age: 57

Keanu Reeves, 60, goes down a cyber rabbit hole in this dystopian sci-fi game changer about free will, kung fu, and the bleak hidden world that most of us are too blind to see. One of the first fellow revolutionaries he meets there is Moss’ Trinity, a badass in black leather who not only helps Reeves’ digital messiah fulfill his destiny, but also has to go down in cinema history as the flat-out coolest leading lady of action in the ‘90s.

Where to Stream: Peacock

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Chris Nashawaty, former film critic for Entertainment Weekly, is the author of Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story and a contributor to Esquire, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.