Blake Lively returns to the big screen this weekend in The Rhythm Section. Based on the novel of the same name and co-starring Jude Law and Sterling K. Brown, it’s the story of woman who sets out for revenge after she learns that the plane crash that killed her family was no accident.
With this new addition to her filmography, Lively joins aims to join the pantheon of Hollywood’s female action heroes, one that has grown quite a bit since Sigourney Weaver’s heyday. Lucky for you, Sling TV has more than a few of them on tap…
Milla Jovovich
Resident Evil I – VI, The Fifth Element
Jovovich’s career as a purveyor of mayhem and death got a soft launch with The Fifth Element, the cult 1997 sci-fi action film starring Bruce Willis and directed by Luc Besson, in which she and Willis team up to save Earth from a scenery-chewing Gary Oldman. Jovovich then took center stage in 2002 for the wildly successful Resident Evil film franchise. Based on the video game of the same name, the series is a twelve-hour blood bath in which Jovovich battles an endless stream of zombies created by The Umbrella Corporation.
Kate Beckinsale
Underworld, Underworld: Awakening, Underworld: Blood Wars, Total Recall
Beckinsale spent the first decade of her career making dramas, romcoms, and comedies. Then in 2003, she squeezed into a black catsuit, strapped on some giant guns and hunted the werewolves who killed her family in Underworld, which would spawn several sequels. In the midst of that series, she made time to star as Colin Farrell’s wife in the Total Recall remake, a role first made famous by Sharon Stone.
Scarlett Johansson
Lucy, Ghost in the Shell, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Avengers: Infinity Wars, Avengers: Endgame
Few actresses in Hollywood history have straddled the arty-action divide like Johansson. In addition to working with the likes of Sofia Coppola, Chris Nolan, Spike Jonze, the Coen brothers, and Wes Anderson, she has also starred as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow in a bucketful of Marvel movies. She also appeared in Luc Besson’s Lucy, in which she plays a woman accidentally dosed with a drug that gives her superhuman powers, and Ghost in the Shell, which sees Johansson playing a futuristic counter-terrorism agent encased in an experimental armor.
Charlize Theron
Hancock, The Fate of the Furious, Atomic Blonde, Mad Max: Fury Road
Theron won an Oscar for playing serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster and since then has been a superhuman from a galaxy far away in Hancock, gotten Dom to turn against the gang in a Fast film, and gone to war with — or is it for? — the KGB in Berlin in Atomic Blonde. Her best role, however, may be as Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, which you can catch on SYFY this Tuesday, Feb. 4, at 6:30pm.
Jennifer Garner
Peppermint
Jennifer Garner first made a name for herself as super spy Sydney Bristow in JJ Abrams’ TV series Alias. More than a decade later Garner would get back to the business of dispensing rough justice in Peppermint, in which she seeks to avenge the death of her family by killing everyone involved.
Gal Gadot
Wonder Woman, Justice League, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, Fast & Furious 6
Cinephiles with sharp eyes first fell under Gadot’s spell with her appearances in the Fast series (if you haven’t yet seen it, Fast Five is legitimately awesome). She caught everyone’s attention as the best thing in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, where first took on the roll of Wonder Woman, which would lead to her very own franchise.
Jennifer Lawrence
The Hunger Games series, X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse
Like Johansson, Lawrence has kept a foot in both the world of prestige cinema and action movies. When she’s not busy racking up Oscar nods (four so far, with one win), she’s wreaking havoc, either as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games films or as Mystique in the X-Men series.
