Female characters have long found themselves confined to roles designed to please the male gaze or simply support a male lead’s story, resulting in tropes that feel so far from reality.
However, over time, gender studies have progressed, and we’ve gotten films presenting women who are complex and multifaceted. A very important shift in cinema is the rise of morally gray female characters who feel flawed but layered and real. Here are 12 movies featuring problematic women we love for challenging patriarchal ideas of female morality.
12. Black Swan (2010)
When the New York City Ballet Company takes up Tchaikovsky’s ‘Black Swan’, they turn to Nina Sayers to portray the protagonist who must be both the innocent white swan and the dark black swan.
Disciplined and restrained, Nina perfectly fits the role of the White Swan but struggles to show the sensual darkness of the Black Swan. With a rookie rival appearing and overwhelming pressure from the director, Nina starts to lose her grip on reality. The more she tries to embrace her dark side, the more she descends into madness.
Related: How ‘Black Swan’ Stole Its Most Terrifying Themes From This Eerie Anime
11. Hustlers (2019)
The film tells the story of a group of New York City strippers who team up to scam their Wall Street customers out of money. They romance and drug the stock traders and CEOs who visit their club, then steal their credit cards.
Solidarity and sisterhood keep them together as they navigate a world where they are constantly being exploited. What is stopping them from flipping the script and becoming the perpetrators themselves?
10. Ocean’s 8 (2018)
The world of cinema has given us many cunning male thieves, but that stage belongs to women in ‘Ocean’s 8’. After getting out of prison, Debbie Ocean immediately goes back to her life of crime.
She devises a plan to steal the Cartier Toussaint diamond necklace right from the Met Gala. To do that, Ocean teams up with seven accomplished and equally troublesome women to invade this high-society event.
9. Cruella (2021)
Set in 1970s punk-rock London, Cruella takes up the tragic past of the titular Disney villain. It follows the innocent and downtrodden Estella Miller’s morally ambiguous journey to becoming Cruella de Vil.
All Estella has seen in her life is classism, success for the privileged, and struggles of orphanhood. She finds her daring side in the persona of Cruella de Vil, who helps her to defy these social hurdles and become a celebrated fashion designer.
8. Princess Mononoke (1997)
This animated masterpiece brought us a very complex female antagonist to life. Ashitaka makes a journey to the west in order to cure his cursed hand, but instead becomes embroiled in a conflict with Lady Eboshi, the infamous leader of a neighboring town.
Lady Eboshi is actually a visionary leader who builds a utopian sanctuary for social outcasts. But this comes at a great cost of destroying nature and spiritual balance. Her character is marked by a conflict between compassion and ruthlessness.
7. Birds of Prey (2020)
Also known as the ‘Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn’, ‘Birds of Prey’ gave us one of the most iconic contemporary female villains. After breaking up with the Joker, Harley Quinn finds herself threatened by the crime lord Roman Sionis.
Quinn gathers a team of female miscreants into one chaotic alliance. Though they always resort to many criminal activities, together they tell a tale of female revenge filled with villainous charm and unpredictable morality.
In Case You Missed It: The 25 Best Female Villains in Movies and TV
6. Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2 (2003, 2004)
This Quentin Tarantino classic introduced us to The Bride. After waking up from a coma, a bride realizes that she was shot on her wedding day and left for dead. The culprit behind it is a group of assassins and their leader, Bill.
The traumatized woman becomes an assassin herself, heading to Tokyo to battle the yakuza. We will forever remember Uma Thurman in that eye-catching yellow suit with her weapon-wielding techniques that made the Bride a cultural phenomenon.
5. I Care A Lot (2020)
Rosamund Pike is a truly versatile actor, with a knack for making any morally gray character completely captivating. In ‘I Care A Lot’, she takes up the role of conniving Marla Grayson.
Marla is a court-appointed guardian for senior people, who is, in reality, manipulating and stealing their assets. As easy as she is to hate, Marla blurs the line between right and wrong when we realize she is actually mirroring our society’s moral decay.
4. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)
When Blomkvist heads on to investigate a decade-old disappearance case, he recruits the help of Lisbeth Salander, a morally complicated hacker. Because the film is based on the novels of Steig Larsson, the literary background makes Lisbeth’s character so well-rounded.
She has seen much horror in her life and from her own guardian. Though she seems like a shy and introverted person, when the time comes for her to take revenge, nothing can stop her. She is driven by avenging violence against women and doesn’t shy away from taking unconventional paths to pursue justice.
3. I, Tonya (2017)
The film explores the life of figure skater Tonya Harding, including her difficult childhood, competitive jealousy, and fame. ‘I, Tonya’ itself states that it is based on unreliable comments and interviews with Harding and her ex-husband.
The main story that the film revolves around is the assault on fellow athlete Nancy Kerrigan. But it takes up this sensational event from a totally different point of view to reframe the narrative around Tonya. And we get to see a different side of the story, where Tonya appears both as a victim and a perpetrator.
2. Promising Young Woman (2020)
Carey Mulligan stars in ‘Promising Young Woman’ as Cassandra, a troubled woman who is being haunted by her friend’s death. After much contemplation, she sets out to seek retribution on men who wrong women.
At night, she visits local bars as a seemingly vulnerable victim, hunting for male predators. She wants to “right” the wrong but isn’t afraid to take some wrong actions to do so. The movie brings up many debates around rape culture, vengeance, and gender dynamics, forcing the audience to confront these topics from an uncomfortable perspective.
1. Gone Girl (2014)
This movie gave us the amazing Amy Dunne, who has long been an unsettling but equally prominent female character in cinema. When Amy disappears under suspicious circumstances, her husband Nick Dunne becomes the prime suspect in the case.
Through unreliable narratives, we see the whole case of Amy’s disappearance unfold before our eyes, and moral rights and wrongs start to bleed into each other. Amy Dunne becomes the epitome of female rage and vengeance, exploring gender dynamics and unsettling human tendencies.
You Might Also Like To Read: Top 15 Female Revenge Movies Of All Time You Shouldn’t Miss
