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15 Female Action Heroes Who Can Kick Some Serious Ass

This weekend, Scarlett Johansson will slip out of her skin-tight Black Widow catsuit and into some more agreeable, casual fabrics for Lucy, but one thing that definitely won't be changing in the actress' new role is her ability to kick serious ass - and look damn good doing it. So, in honor of Johansson and of Lucy as a whole, the writing staff here at We Got This Covered has taken on the thrilling task of looking back through movie history to uncover the most physically adept, bruisingly smart and just plain badass women of cinema. We're not saying it was an easy task - in fact, we had so many viable candidates for this list that we eventually decided to expand it from ten to fifteen entries. And some of our staff put forward entries both exciting and unconventional - get ready for some surprises.

14) Sidney Prescott – Scream

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Unlike so many characters littering the horror genre, Sidney Prescott is smart – and that is the reason we’ve put her onto our list. Okay, she could really choose her boyfriends, best friends and allies better (one of them always turns out to be a killer) but hey, this is a slasher franchise, there has to be some kind of shock reveal.

She doesn’t quite fall under the ‘scream queen’ label, but Sidney is close to being one of the more invigorating and self-aware protagonists the genre has to offer. While David Arquette’s Dewey labors around like an idiot and has us all scratching our heads as to how he’s actually made a career out of being a police officer, Sidney uses her brain and awareness – not to mention a television to the face – to get herself out of precariously sticky situations with the killer.

It’s a credit to Neve Campbell’s turn that the character, quite simply, doesn’t annoy the crap out of me. She portrays Sidney as intelligent and reliable, a heroine truly capable of outwitting the killer and ensuring a happy(ish) ending. The fact that she survived the original and three dwindling sequels is a testament to this – well, that and the fact these films made a ton of money.

– Dale Barham