Best Horror Movie Final Girls

Ten women who were last to leave the party and took the knife with them.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A rustic cabin in a forest clearing with an elevator shaft opening into the ground beneath its cellar, a giant hand rising out of the earth behind the trees.

    10. Dana Polk

    The Cabin in the Woods · 2012

    Assigned the role of the Virgin by a facility that stages horror movies for ancient gods, she is meant to be the last one standing. Sigourney Weaver explains the plan to her. Dana declines, and the world ends. Ripley, it turns out, now works for management.

  2. A birthday cupcake with one lit candle on a dorm-room nightstand, an identical row of cupcakes repeating behind it into the distance, a cracked pacifier on the floor.

    09. Tree Gelbman

    Happy Death Day · 2017

    A mean sorority girl murdered on her birthday by a killer in a baby mask, who wakes up on her birthday and gets murdered again, until she solves it. Jessica Rothe makes her worth rooting for by the third death. Cost $4.8 million, made $125.5 million. Many happy returns.

  3. An empty canoe drifting on a misty lake at dawn, a machete lying in the bottom of the boat, a row of camp cabins on the far shore.

    08. Alice Hardy

    Friday the 13th · 1980

    Adrienne King, cast for her naturalistic acting, outlasts the counselors, takes Mrs. Voorhees's head off with a machete on the lakeshore. Then the lake objects. Part 2 kills her in the opening scene with an ice pick, reportedly over salary. Summer camp has no loyalty.

  4. A kitchen blender, a meat tenderizer and a screwdriver laid out on a farmhouse dining table set for a family dinner, a fox mask hanging on the back of one chair.

    07. Erin

    You're Next · 2011

    Meets her boyfriend's family at an anniversary dinner invaded by men in animal masks. Erin grew up on a survivalist compound and answers with a meat tenderizer, screwdrivers and a blender. Made for $1 million, shelved two years, grossed $26 million. Never meet the parents.

  5. A rotary telephone on a hallway table in a snowy sorority house, its cord running up the staircase to an open attic hatch, Christmas lights strung along the banister.

    06. Jess Bradford

    Black Christmas · 1974

    Olivia Hussey plays a sorority student who has decided on an abortion and will not be talked out of it by her boyfriend or anyone else. The obscene calls turn out to be coming from inside the house. Bob Clark made this, then A Christmas Story. He contained multitudes.

  6. A ringing cordless phone on a kitchen counter, a stovetop popcorn pan swelling on the burner and a sliding glass door open to a dark lawn.

    05. Sidney Prescott

    Scream · 1996

    Randy lays out the rules for surviving a horror movie, starting with no sex. Sidney breaks that one and survives anyway. Neve Campbell's screen test was filmed first so the rest had to beat it. It was the top-grossing slasher until 2018. Rules are for supporting characters.

  7. A pickup truck speeding away down an empty Texas road at dawn, a chainsaw lying on the asphalt behind it, a farmhouse small on the horizon.

    04. Sally Hardesty

    The Texas Chain Saw Massacre · 1974

    Marilyn Burns shot seven days a week, up to 16 hours a day, in heat up to 110 degrees, and per Gunnar Hansen's memoir her finger got cut for real at the dinner table. She escapes in the back of a pickup, laughing like someone who has earned it. She has.

  8. A coffee pot and a mug on a bedside table beside a wind-up alarm clock, a tripwire stretched across the bedroom doorway with a sledgehammer rigged above it.

    03. Nancy Thompson

    A Nightmare on Elm Street · 1984

    Heather Langenkamp beat 200-plus actresses. Nancy drinks coffee to stay awake, rigs the house with booby traps, drags Freddy into the real world and turns her back on him. The film cost $1.1 million and built New Line Cinema. Her boyfriend, Johnny Depp, does not make it.

  9. A pet carrier strapped into a seat of a small escape shuttle, a round window behind it showing a starfield and a distant ship bursting apart.

    02. Ellen Ripley

    Alien · 1979

    Written as a man until Alan Ladd Jr. asked why Ripley couldn't be a woman; the script called every part unisex. Sigourney Weaver, the last actor cast, in her first lead. She blows up the ship, gets to the shuttle and goes back for the cat. Four cats played Jones. Priorities.

  10. A wire coat hanger and a kitchen knife lying on the floor of a slatted closet, the door half open, a carved jack-o'-lantern glowing on the dresser beyond.

    01. Laurie Strode

    Halloween · 1978

    Jamie Lee Curtis's film debut, for $8,000. A babysitter who notices the man across the street, then fights him off with a wire coat hanger and his own knife. Debra Hill cast her partly because her mother was in Psycho. Horror runs in families. So does surviving it.

Honorable mentions

  • A movie theater screen showing a lake at a summer camp, a film reel and a machete lying on an empty front-row seat, smoke curling from the projector booth.

    Max Cartwright

    The Final Girls · 2015

    Her late mother was the scream queen of an 80s slasher called Camp Bloodbath. At a screening, Max and her friends fall into the movie, where she gets to meet her mom again and keep her alive past the script. Taissa Farmiga, Malin Akerman. Sweeter than it has any right to be.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A bag of coffee beans beside a portable radio and an envelope of plane tickets on a tropical hotel balcony, a storm rolling in over the sea.

    Julie James

    I Still Know What You Did Last Summer · 1998

    Survives the first film, then whispers Rio as the capital of Brazil for a radio contest, wins a trip to the Bahamas and leads her friends to a killer. The capital is Brasília. The film sits at 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. Every final girl needs a geography teacher.

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