10 of the most kick-ass female assas­sins in film

In Atom­ic Blonde​’s best scene, MI6 agent Lor­raine Broughton (Char­l­ize Theron) ener­get­i­cal­ly anni­hi­lates a tooled-up crew of vil­lains in a Berlin stair­well. Then the per­ox­ide pun­ish­er tears into the street for a thrilling car chase. Glass shat­ters, guns fire and tyres screech in a sexy sym­pho­ny of Cold War destruc­tion. Broughton is the lat­est in a long line of great female assas­sin in film. Here are 10 of our favourites, from sub­ur­ban moms to mute murderers.

Madeleine is kid­napped, forced into hero­in addic­tion and pros­ti­tu­tion and blind­ed in one eye by her cap­tor. She learns mar­tial arts and trains with guns for a spec­tac­u­lar day of vengeance. Christi­na Lind­berg struts around impe­ri­ous­ly as mute Madeleine in a black leather trench coat – a strong look when accom­pa­nied with an eye-patch. Vil­lains are solemn­ly despatched with slo-mo shot­gun blasts and the kind of kung-fu chops that’d make Bruce Lee wince. Her dis­pen­sa­tion of jus­tice is the best thing about Bo Arne Vibe­nius’ grim Swedish revenge film, which in some scenes has hard­core pornog­ra­phy spliced into it.

After being raped by two dif­fer­ent men in the same day, mute seam­stress Thena snaps and kills a pletho­ra of sleazy scum­bags in pre-gen­tri­fi­ca­tion New York. There’s Freudi­an humour at work in Abel Ferrara’s exploita­tion banger as all but Thena’s first vic­tim are dis­patched using that clas­sic phal­lus sub­sti­tute for inad­e­quates, the tit­u­lar .45. In a superb lead per­for­mance, Zoë Lund (née Tamerlis) is vul­ner­a­ble then for­mi­da­bly fear­some. Mul­ti-tal­ent­ed Tamerlis also co-wrote Ferrera’s Bad Lieu­tenant but trag­i­cal­ly died from a cocaine-relat­ed heart attack in 1999 aged just 37. She only began tak­ing cocaine to rid her­self of a lengthy hero­in addiction.

By the mid-’80s the James Bond fran­chise was look­ing unfash­ion­able. Pro­duc­ers turned to Grace Jones to liv­en up the spy saga and she’s as strik­ing a screen pres­ence as one would expect from her death­less music and spicy pub­lic per­sona. In a View to a Kill Jones plays May Day, the lover of – and killer work­ing for – Christo­pher Walken’s busi­ness despot Max Zorin. She uses an array of weapons to mur­der Bond’s hap­less allies but it’s a sur­prise they were need­ed. A severe stare from Jones is sure­ly enough to put the tough­est foe in the ground.

West Coast hit­woman Irene Walk­er is the per­fect under­stat­ed foil for the Brook­lyn ham­mi­ness of mob trig­ger man Charley Par­tan­na. Kath­leen Turner’s Walk­er is a butter-wouldn’t‑melt wed­ding guest when Par­tan­na (a rather broad Jack Nichol­son) meets her and they fall in love. The pair soon dis­cov­er they are in the same busi­ness and end up work­ing togeth­er. Things go awry pro­fes­sion­al­ly dur­ing a kid­nap­ping but osten­si­bly stay on track domes­ti­cal­ly. The film is some­what flat com­pared to supe­ri­or botched crime tales such as Far­go but is worth watch­ing for Turner’s vera­cious blend of anx­i­ety, con­fi­dence and mendacity.

Nikita’s trans­for­ma­tion from unhinged Parisian junkie teen to sharp­shoot­ing assas­sin is as deft­ly exe­cut­ed as the hit she per­forms from a Venice bath­room win­dow. In Luc Besson’s styl­ish thriller, Anne Par­il­laud has huge fun as the epony­mous killer bit­ing a trainer’s ear and danc­ing man­i­cal­ly while learn­ing her trade under lock and key in a secret gov­ern­ment train­ing cen­tre. She could teach John Wick a thing or two about goug­ing a man with a pen­cil, too.

Kath­leen Turner’s sec­ond appear­ance on this list is a riotous one. Turner’s Bev­er­ly Sut­phin is a mar­vel­lous and sat­is­fy­ing­ly dement­ed cre­ation: a prim sub­ur­ban house­wife façade hides an inven­tive ser­i­al killer. She’ll run you over for crit­i­cis­ing her par­ent­ing, prank call you and shout obscen­i­ties if you steal her park­ing space and may even blud­geon you death with a leg of lamb. John Waters is sec­ond only to David Lynch when it comes to show­ing the ugli­ness behind the pick­et fence and this is his best film. Hilar­i­ous and men­ac­ing like being stuck on a train with a bad drunk.

In her aus­pi­cious big-screen debut Natal­ie Port­man plays pre-teen New York­er Mathil­da. She’s only a trainee assas­sin but promise should be reward­ed. Mathil­da learns life-end­ing ways under the tute­lage of Léon Mon­tana (Jean Reno, play­ing a sim­i­lar char­ac­ter to his role in Niki­ta) after her fam­i­ly are mur­dered by cor­rupt DEA mon­ster Nor­man Stans­field (Gary Old­man on extra­or­di­nary form). Dubi­ous sex­u­al pol­i­tics abound in the rela­tion­ship between Léon and Mathil­da but the film’s black­ly com­ic skill is in its por­tray­al of a child becom­ing metic­u­lous and cold-blood­ed. Con­sid­er­ing Besson’s sub­se­quent fol­lies, it’s a shame he hasn’t revis­it­ed the char­ac­ter of Mathilda.

Sub­ur­ban teacher Saman­tha Caine suf­fers amne­sia until a car acci­dent con­cus­sion kick-starts her return­ing mem­o­ry. Caine is real­ly crack CIA assas­sin Char­ly Bal­ti­more and she soon becomes involved in a dan­ger­ous plot along­side Mitch Henessy, the exas­per­at­ed pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor she hired to help dis­cov­er her old iden­ti­ty. What could have been tired Hol­ly­wood hokum mas­sive­ly ben­e­fits from a fun­ny and tough Geena Davis per­for­mance. She even asks her daugh­ter ​“Should we get a dog?” in the mid­dle of a shoot-out. Shane Black brings his trade­mark smart wit to the screen­play and Samuel L. Jack­son boss­es his role as Henessey.

When blind show­girl Mei is your adver­sary those epony­mous air­borne blades can end up lodged in your throat. She’s also a tough cook­ie with a length of bam­boo. Zhang Yimou’s exquis­ite wux­ia is all the genre clichés allow: sump­tu­ous­ly shot and sharply chore­o­graphed, full of bal­let­ic and nigh-on acro­bat­ic action. Mei (Zhang Ziyi) is part of an under­ground resis­tance move­ment in 859 AD Chi­na and the plot sees two gov­ern­ment deputies who may not be all they seem try to win her affec­tions while under­min­ing the House. But maybe Mei isn’t all she seems either.

Hou Hsiao-hsien’s beau­ti­ful wux­ia, set in ninth cen­tu­ry Chi­na, won the Tai­wanese film­mak­er the Best Direc­tor prize at Cannes. Shy Qi is Nie Yin­ni­ang, the pro­tag­o­nist whose dis­play of mer­cy angers her nun mas­ter. As a pun­ish­ment Yin­ni­ang is forced to kill a cousin she was once due to mar­ry. Along­side Qi’s afore­men­tioned human­i­ty, an under­stand­able rar­i­ty in this pro­fes­sion, her grace and ele­gant dis­patch­ing of ene­mies and poise under pres­sure is a high­light of a jus­ti­fi­ably acclaimed behe­moth of world cinema.