Once a year at borg we ask: What makes a great screen heroine? It’s time for borg′s annual look at the Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines in film and television. This is our tenth annual list, highlighting the very best from a slate of fantastic characters on TV and in the movies in 2024, including some good villains, with characteristics to learn from and root for. Determined, decisive, loyal, brave, smart, fierce, strong, savvy, you’ll find no one here timid or weepy, but all rely on their individual skills to beat the odds and overcome any obstacle that comes their way. Do you want to see how roles for women have improved in only the past decade? Here are links to: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015. Some of our selections may be frazzled, put-upon, war-weary, or just human, but all have fought, some against difficult circumstances, others against personal demons (literally, figuratively, or both), and some against sword, gun, laser fire, or disease. And they all show what a tough, kick-ass, often badass, character is about.
This year we salute six women in law enforcement, six triggermen / assassin / mercenaries, six soldiers or ex-soldiers, three (or more) ghosts, three warriors, three criminal masterminds, two journalists, two mob leaders, two time travelers, two techies, a nurse, a rock star, a grifter, an MI6 agent, a superheroine, a waterbender, a former CEO, some antlered folk, and more. Credit goes to both the writers, animators, costumers, other creators of the characters, and the actors and performers that brought them all to life.
And here we go…
Dianne Harewood (Culprits). A legendary criminal mastermind whose very presence, fueled by a secret history and mysterious wealth, commands the respect of the select group of elites she taps to pull off a high-valued heist. But she’s not about money, she’s after revenge. (Hulu)
Tula Harkonnen (Dune: Prophecy). This year we met the strongest, fiercest Harkonnen of the franchise, but we didn’t know it until we saw her backstory via actress Emma Canning. Meek and ruthless? Suddenly Olivia Williams’ quiet sister of the Reverend Mother Valya became someone far more layered then any heroine of Dune yet. (Hulu)
Dove Maloney (Bodkin). Full of drive and determination, she was an orphan raised in a convent who became a journalist, now exiled for protecting a source, and being hounded to return to stand trial. A character Bridget Fonda might have played a decade ago. Best of all she has attitude and carves her own path forward. And she’s cool. (Netflix)
Detective Liz Danvers (True Detective: Night Country). The Old Man trope rarely finds its way into a plot with a woman in the lead, but Oscar-winner Jodie Foster’s Old Woman cop has all the hallmarks. She had reasons for being who she was. Every action for this cop has been done by men for ages, but somehow her bundle of skills and determination were better and so much more fun to watch. (HBO Max)
Zee (The Killer). A hired gun who has been groomed into becoming a decisive killer by a mobster, she can eliminate a room full of targets in a snap. And nobody can move like her–she has style and skills, but she can also feel guilt and is willing to put things right when an innocent gets in the way. (Peacock)
Agent Bianca Pullman (The Day of the Jackal). Lashana Lynch became James Bond once again as this MI6 agent just doing her job, which happens to be eliminating an international assassin. This time audiences got a look at the difficulties of bringing down the bad guys without the resources and the support. Fearless and decisive, she always gets her guy. Nobody does it better? (Peacock)
Lady Raven (Trap). Nobody could have guessed the potential for doing good behind this mega-pop music star. Working with the FBI she adds a concert to her tour solely to help them with a sting, to capture the bloody Butcher terrorizing Philadelphia. When she’s face-to-face with him, she shows she’s smarter and quicker on her feet. (HBO Max)
Eileen “The Rolodex” Sun (The Brothers Sun). The latest and greatest character from Michelle Yeoh is another “Old Woman” role, but you wouldn’t know it. Eileen waited, raising one son nearly his whole life, as her husband raised the other in a life of discipline and crime, used as a weapon of an international underground mob world. But when her husband was believed out of commission, she began to lay the building blocks for her own empire, a network of hairdressers and understanding of battle strategy to get the job and be what she wanted to be for once in her life. (Netflix)
Parker (Trigger Warning). Jessica Alba’s spin on the beat-up and battered around ex-soldier was so much like the 1980s action stars, you may have overlooked her. She has the muscle, she has the moves, she has the experience to take out anyone who gets in her way, maybe not martial arts Bruce Lee style, but her size and speed make her as big a threat as the characters played by the rough and tough male actors who would have been tapped for this role in the past. (Netflix)
Max Mitchell (Wild Cards). Vanessa Morgan’s quick-talking thief isn’t the first thief and grifter given the opportunity to avoid jail time if she helps a cop with his cases, but she might be the first to steal every scene. She also brought the charisma to this new series and created the greatest new hustler/con artist in the style of Leverage. (Warner Bros.)
Emi Maruyama (Tokyo Vice). A high-ranking journalist at the Meicho Shimbun Newspaper and the supervisor of Jake Adelstein, she found the balance between upsetting the way things are in Japan’s officeworker setting while maneuvering her reporting and information to put a dent in corruption at her paper and against the nation’s top criminal enterprise. (HBO Max)
Morgane Alvaro (Haut Potentiel Intellectuel). Morgane is brash and fantastically so. Sometimes a walking nightmare, both in her overuse of animal prints in her fashion, in her inability to tolerate any authority, and in her nonstop stream-of-thought chatter that gets her into all sorts of trouble (she is incapable of tact and civility, at least at first), she is even more like the heroine of Erin Brockovich–similar clothes, similar drive, but also effective in (eventually) getting results, and getting everyone around her on the same page, making her indispensable to the police force. (Hulu)
Grace Hwang (The Brothers Sun). We should have known Bruce Sun’s new girlfriend couldn’t be that cool. Another friend turned ruthless villain, the leader of the Boxer cult almost accomplished her dastardly plan, if not for the knife of June Song for the revenge of her twin sister. (Netflix)
Avatar Kyoshi (Avatar: The Last Airbender). Being dead isn’t going to stop Yvonne Chapman’s spirit warrior from schooling new Avatar Aang on his powers and responsiblities. She knows what is at stake, and reveals to him what will happen if he doesn’t rise to the occasion, all before saving him from an oncoming threat. (Netflix)
Sabrina Clarke (Supacell). Being a nurse in a busy South London hospital is probably reason enough to make this list. But when Sabrina discovers she has telekinesis, viewers began to see the effects of a madman messing around with cells and science to make a new world of super-powered humans. (Netflix)
Jessica Hurney aka Sammy (Abigail). Even better than her role as the star of Lisa Frankenstein, Kathryn Newton’s smart and savvy–and quirky–tech gal was one of the best chances at surviving the kidnapping of a little girl, who ended up being a vampire. (Universal Pictures)
Suki (Avatar: The Last Airbender). Quick on her feet and quick to defnd her people, Suki led of one of the Kyoshi Warrior bands of the Earth Kingdom. Exchanging fighting tactics with Sokka, it’s easy to see she’s the one with the greater knowledge and skill, and a character we hopefully see again in the series soon. (Netflix)
Rose Larkin (Night Agent). A former CEO who lost her company, Rose is not that stereotyped damsel in distress. She’s a badass who participates in every fight scene instead of just watching the boys fight, a refreshing character for the genre. Larkin is smart and knows her way around corporations and social situations, and uses her talents to become the next heroine of spy-fi. (Netflix)
Rose Aguineau (True Detective: Night Country). Only the latest of several great Fiona Shaw creations, the mysterious Rose was almost a mystic herself. She could see dead people, and advised some came to visit, some to tell you something, and some to take you with them and you needed to know the difference. What a fascinating series her backstory would be. (HBO Max)
Anna Cruz aka Joey (Abigail). Lucky for Anna, she has significant skills as a former U.S. Army medic and some empathy to take care of the young Abigail. But it’s her training in hand-to-hand combat that made her a badass survivor of the terror that was a young vampire. (Netflix)
June (Avatar: The Last Airbender). An expert tracker and relentless bounty hunter, June is a mercenary who is successful at getting her prey. Riding and using the benefits of her trusty steed, the shirshu, is only part of the gifts she uses, which include her martial arts skills. (Netflix)
Emi the Gigantron (Ultraman: Rising). The next Baby Yoda? Probably not, but what a great character to drive the plot of one of the oldest superhero and kaiju franchises. Born with the odds against her, her curiosity will have her one day be as great as her mother. She’s already survived one mecha kaiju! (Netflix)
Alexis Kong (The Brothers Sun). Leveraging her inside knowledge of the Suns and her close relationship with Charles, Alexis was able to take down organized crime in Los Angeles. Never without a bag of spicy noodles, Alexis’s rise to power probably won’t stop at the District Attorney’s office, in the series with the year’s highest count of badass women characters. (Netflix)
The Maestro (Doctor Who). A fantastic villain from Jinkx Monsoon. From the Maestro playing the segue on the piano to the opening credits of the episode itself (brilliant!) to a battle with the Doctor playing the piano and the Maestro on violin, you won’t even care The Beatles are being re-created for a Doctor Who episode. Is the Maestro the most ruthless Who villain yet? (Disney+)
Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender). Above all, Katarra was earnest in her efforts to support her brother and Aang, the last Avatar. But her strength was in knowing the importance of her own power and using every resource to continue her training as a Waterbender. (Netflix)
Santa’s Reindeer (Red One). They’re back! If you don’t know it already, all reindeer with antlers in winter are female, and Santa refers to his sleigh-pulling crew as “ladies.” This year they returned to save the day after the Christmas witch of Icelandic mythology kidnaps him to try to remove all the people on the naughty list from the world. (Netflix)
June Song (The Brothers Sun). Despite seeking revenge for her twin sister’s death, June also knew that she needed to find her place in the surviving crime world structure the events of the first season would leave behind. With a renewed series, her finale against Graace Hwang looks to be only the beginning of her own rise to power. (Netflix)
Inga Beatrice aka Specialist aka Psycho (Culprits). We’ve seen years of triggermen and secret ops mercenaries but nothing like Niamh Algar’s Specialist, nobody as effective and decisive. She’s tactical, she’s a hunter, extremely intelligent, fearless, tough as nails, and almost wild like an animal. The only problem was a shift later in the season that made her somewhat less than her potential, but the first episodes created a character worth her own series of books and movies. (Netflix)
Alison “Tosh” MacIntosh (Shetland). With two seasons airing in 2024, Tosh returned to find her footing as the interim boss of her police force in the stark Shetland. But all her training and smarts brought her to become the official department head, where she now calls the shots and leads a new era of the series. (BritBox)
Ruby Sunday (Doctor Who). Although it’s very strange to find a companion for the Doctor who stays around only one season, Ruby Sunday was a fun fresh face who took no time adapting to the craziness of a world with the Doctor. One one segment she had to live out her entire life trying to learn what was behind a mysterious woman she discovered on a visit to the Welsh coast–a visit that coincided with the vanishing of the Doctor. This is a companion we all wanted around for a long time. (Disney+)
Hannah Carson (Quantum Leap). A chance encounter can change the world. That’s what we learned from one of the best sci-fi characters in years. Not a time traveller herself, she believed in Dr. Ben Song, and the results made for incredible television. Audiences saw Eliza Taylor’s Hannah at different points in time over the season, creating dramatic encounters and a storyline as good as any in the original series. (Peacock)
Deputy Liv Baker (Resident Alien). Anyone who could survive working with Sheriff Thompson this long must be forged from something pretty strong. Elizabeth Bowen’s sidekick uses her unique style and dry wit to always get the last word, and this season she pulled herself up as a stronger force in the department and a louder voice to be heard by everyone. (Peacock)
The Women of Woodstone Mansion (Ghosts). Samantha is alive, but she sees the ghosts of those who lived in her B&B. She and the ghosts, including Alberta Haynes, a 1920s singer, Hetty, matriarch of the Woodstones, Flower the 1960s flower girl, along with Patience and Nancy and Stephanie, have experienced some great supernatural hijinks, bridging realities and accomplishing the impossible. (CBS)
Amanda Pharrell (Troppo). Can the act of simply entering a car be heroic? Amanda proved it could. This season we saw the impact of going to jail for 12 years for a murder she didn’t commit, and for being a person who brings bad tidings to everyone she touches–never really her fault. We saw her fighting with herself at every step, more so than you’ve ever seen a woman struggle with anything in any series before, often endangering herself and getting herself into more trouble. She’s gritty, she’s real, she’s incredibly believable. One moment she is almost childlike with glee, the next she is imprisoned in her own thoughts, but she always comes back fighting. (Amazon Freebie on Prime Video)
Blaire Bennett (Ted). Audiences had no better spokesperson for women in 2024 than Giorgia Whigham’s young live-in cousin. In every episode she took responsibility for everyone, whether that’s keeping drugs away from her cousin or encouraging his mom to stand up for herself, her honesty and determination was timeless. With one glance or stare she could set the vibe for an entire episode. (Peacock)
Daisy/Helen Webb (Black Doves). First an opportunist, she used her mercenary training, understanding, and instincts to maneuver herself into becoming the wife of the next Prime Minister. Along the way she tried to get out, but it didn’t work. She didn’t even take a break when she was pregnant to save the friend who trained her, committing herself to what seems like a never-ending life of lies. In so doing she became the next best triggerman of the screen, big or small. (Netflix)
Susie Glass (The Gentlemen). Others tried where Kaya Scodelario’s Susie Glass succeeded, with her confident and oh so cool enforcer for her father’s drug enterprise. But her latest project almost took everything away, giving us the opportunity to watch her build her own empire from the ground up. An incredible role, an incredible character, an incredible performance. Nobody took charge, nobody had the attitude and the power like she did, ultimately making it to the top as she took her enemies down. (Netflix)
And that’s this year’s list of heroines. The roles were performed by an ethnically and geographically diverse slate of talent, including eighteen of color, eight from the UK, nine Asian, three Latina/Hispanic, one Australian, a kaiju, and others from fantasy worlds. We’re not forgetting characters from past kick-ass lists who returned this year, like Laura/X-23 in Deadpool and Wolverine, Beckett Mariner in Star Trek: Lower Decks, Galadriel and Nori Brandyfoot in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Furiosa in Mad Max: Furiosa, Maya Lopez in Echo, Sazz Pataki in Only Murders in the Building, and D’Arcy Bloom and Asta Twelvetrees in Resident Alien.
Keep coming back as we reveal the rest of our Best in TV, Best Movies, and Best Books, and we’ll wrap up the year with our borg Hall of Fame inductees for 2024 and a preview of next year.
C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg
