Updated November 5, 2019 3k votes 642 voters 20.8k views
List Rules
Vote up the female assassins you would hire.
It's time to vote for your favorite female assassins from film and TV. There have been many over the years, and some of them have made an indelible impact on pop culture. It's no wonder that actresses want to play female assassin characters. Such roles allow them to do a lot of things. Typically, these characters have some kind of troubled backstory that impacts them in the present. That provides an opportunity to portray someone with multiple dimensions, rather than the stereotypical "wife" or "girlfriend" roles that many actresses rightfully complain is all they're offered. Of course, the chance to engage in thrilling action sequences is another draw. Why should the guys have all the fun?
The greatest female assassin characters even have softer sides. Few, if any, of the individuals on this list are cold-blooded elimination machines. There's great humanity inside of them, which makes us empathize with whatever situation they're enduring. Household name actresses as diverse as Jennifer Lawrence, Angelina Jolie, Uma Thurman, and Taraji P. Henson have played such characters, in several cases earning some of the best reviews and biggest successes of their careers. They are listed with the names of their characters and the movie or television show where they make an appearance.
Vote up your favorite fictional women assassins from the list below, regardless of whether they appear on television or in movies.
Known as a brutal assassin, the Russian Villanelle (Jodie Comer) is caught in a cat and mouse game with the MI5 agent Eve Polastri. While she is considered to be ruthless and irredeemable, she has an equally harrowing back story. While she carries a charming exterior, she is an assassin in the truest sense of the occupation and the enjoyment she takes in her work shows through.
Skills/weapons/abilities:
Marksmanship
Fluent in Russian, English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian
Scarlett Johansson has brought a great deal to the Marvel Cinematic Universe with her portrayal of Black Widow. The character's background is that she was trained as an assassin by the Russian government. Now, she uses her skills for good as a core member of the Avengers. That memory of Budapest keeps haunting her, though.
Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is a highly trained CIA agent and assassin. And by "highly trained," that means she can do just about anything. That comes in handy when she's accused of being a Russian spy and has to prove her innocence while being chased by her own colleagues.
Skills/weapons/abilities:
Guns
Creating a makeshift cannon out of handy ingredients
Making near-impossible jumps without getting harmed
Kate Beckinsale has played Selene throughout the Underworld series. The character is a vampire whose life is dedicated to assassinating the Lycans that are her people's enemy.
The CW series Nikita is based on a 1990 French film called La Femme Nikita. That movie also spawned an American remake, Point of No Return. On the television show, Maggie Q plays the title character, a woman who escaped the government agency that trained her to be an assassin. She's determined to bring them all down.
Uma Thurman plays The Bride in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill movies. The titular Bill sent his Deadly Viper Assassin Squad to eliminate her on her wedding day. She miraculously survives and then becomes dedicated to getting revenge.
