tMF | The Movie-Fanatic

This list was inspired by some of the most recent female villains portrayed on the big screen - in particular Mo'Nique, the lazy, vile and selfish mother to Gabby Sidibe's character in Precious and Cate Blanchett who played the brilliant and nasty Irina Spalko out to spoil the adventures of Indiana Jones in the latest sequel of the popular adventure series.

- - - - - -

While some of the most memorable female villains are portrayed as ugly, unfashionable monsters, there are a good number of characters who are evil but also beautiful and fabulous. Some would even rival the female leads in terms of beauty, fashion and style thus we have this list.

Take a closer look right after the jump, I'm pretty sure, you'll agree with the names on the list...
- - -
# 10 - Akasha in The Queen of the Damned played by Aaliyah- Akasha is a fictional character from Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles. She is the queen of all vampires, and is the most powerful. She is very arrogant and a relentless destroyer of lives.

- - - - - -

R&B artist Aaliyah played Akasha on the big screen, but the famous singer died in a plane crash before the film was released. Dressed in very revealing Egyptian-inspired costumes, Akasha maybe out to rule the world and kill everyone on her path, but she did it with finesse. Definitely both evil and fab!

You can watch the trailer of Queen of the Damned below:

- - - - - -

# 9 - Suzanne Stone Maretto in To Die For played by Nicole Kidman - Ambitious, headstrong, calculating cold-blooded murderer, that's Suzanne Stone Maretto - a dreamer, with limited intellect, who believes she can become a news anchor on TV. She even seduced her student in order to kill her husband.

- - - - - -

Katherine Ramsland of Crime Library describes the film as an example of a work displaying women with antisocial traits; Ramsland describes Suzanne as a "manipulator extraordinaire" who harms people through third parties. In her review in the New York Times, Janet Maslin called the film "an irresistible black comedy and a wicked delight" and added, "[it] takes aim at tabloid ethics and hits a solid bull's-eye, with Ms. Kidman's teasingly beautiful Suzanne as the most alluring of media-mad monsters. The target is broad, but Gus Van Sant's film is too expertly sharp and funny for that to matter; instead, it shows off this director's slyness better than any of his work since Drugstore Cowboy . . . Both Mr. Van Sant and Ms. Kidman have reinvented themselves miraculously for this occasion, which brings out the best in all concerned."

Watch this clip featuring Kidman seducing Joaquin Phoenix:

- - - - - -

# 8 - Karen Crowder in Michael Clayton played by Tilda Swinton - Karen Crowder is the ambitious, manipulative general counsel of a big Corporation called U North, who is willing to kill to save her company from a class suit. An online magazine called her a carnivorous lawyer. Swinton won the Oscar Best Supporting Actress for her role.

- - - - - -

Swinton was asked if she felt any sympathy for her character:

You know it's hard to imagine a human being whom one can't find some sympathy for. But I'm not a performer who needs to love my characters or whatever they say. That's not an issue for me. I mean all a character is, is a set of behaviours and a set of actions so you can pick up the story. I think that she has looked at a lot of photographs of Condoleezza Rice and probably took a photograph of her into the hairdresser in the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan at the very end of the film when she's putting together her power look and said 'I want that one'. You know, she's an officer, a solider and she wears a uniform. And women in those jobs unashamedly conform to a type. They have to, because you can virtually get sacked for wearing the wrong shoes in that kind of world. So I walked around uptown New York and looked into various offices and saw what the vibe was. [ read more ]

Watch the trailer of Michael Clayton below:

- - - - - -

# 7 - Katharine Parker in Working Girl played by Sigourney Weaver - Weaver is one of the most versatile actresses ever and she played a good number of evil characters on the big screen - in Holes, she's the evil jail warden and in Snow White: A Tale of Terror, she was equally evil, but as the ambitious Boss Katharine Parker assisted by a more intelligent and innovative secretary (Melanie Griffth), she was deliciously wicked, evil and sexy all at the same time. For her performance, she was nominated for an Oscar Best Supporting Actress.

- - - - - -

Watch the trailer of Working Girl below:

- - - - - -

# 6 - Catherine Tramell in Basic Instinct played by Sharon Stone - Beautiful, confident and quite fashionable but a cold-blooded killer, and a lesbian too! Catherine Trammel will do anything, without any regard to anyone. From Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoven, this erotic thriller/neo-noir film features Sharon Stone as Trammel and her take on the character is both chilling and sensual, on the verge of the erotic.

- - - - - -

Australian critic Shannon J. Harvey of the Sunday Times called it one of the "1990s finest productions, doing more for female empowerment than any feminist rally. Stone - in her star-making performance - is as hot and sexy as she is ice-pick cold". The trailer for Basic Instinct is below:

- - - - - -