15 best final girls of all time, ranked

During the final showdown in horror movies, the last one standing is usually a woman. She can look any type of way, but because this is cinema, more often than not she’s attractive, independent, and a protagonist, who’s different from the rest. We must believe in her ability to stay alive, or, at the very least, be interested in her story. In the 1992 book Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Carol J. Clover coined the term “final girl” for the trope of the last young woman alive in horror films. “She is the one who encounters the mutilated bodies of her friends and perceives the full extent of the preceding horror and her own peril; who is cornered, wounded; whom we see scream, stagger, fall, rise, and scream again,” Clover writes. “She is abject terror personified.” 

Read more: Meet David Howard Thornton, the nightmarish killer clown from Terrifier 2

Far from weak, she doesn’t crumble under the weight of that terror, but carries what Clover calls the “active investigating gaze” of the film. As she’s the opposite of the male killer, who seeks to penetrate her with knives and other phallic objects, the final girl is usually a good girl – she abstains from the drinking, drugs, and sex that will get her teenage peers killed. She’s quick-witted and clear-headed. 

The trope has evolved to become more diverse and subvert the original intentions of male filmmakers (to titillate and reproduce the oppression women face from outside forces). More recently, the film theory has made it onto TikTok, with the final girl trope becoming well known across videos around best final girl fashion, fancams of favorite final girls, and hottest final girl crushes. Here, we rank our favorite final girls and explain why they are distinct from the rest. 

The best final girls of all time, ranked

Produzioni Atlas Consorziate

15. Suzy – Suspiria (1977)

Not only does dance student Suzy (Jessica Harper) destroy Helena Markos, The Mother of Sighs, by fatally stabbing her in the neck, she flees her school as it bursts into flames, killing the entire coven of witches. For such an early final girl, this protagonist survived giallo director Dario Argento’s nightmarish vision with style. 

Fox Searchlight

14. Grace – Ready or Not (2019)

After her wedding day, Grace (Samara Weaving) gets closer to the “death do us part” portion of her vows than she might've liked when she’s forced to play a dangerous game with her new husband’s family. The tenacious newlywed proves that she’s resourceful and is a strong enough fighter to kill the Le Domas clan. 

Orion Pictures

13. Clarice – Silence of the Lambs franchise

The FBI student, notably played by Jodie Foster in an Oscar-winning performance, is sent to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. Their strange relationship develops over a series of films, one that includes fear, respect, understanding, hatred, and fascination. She’s such an iconic final girl that she was given her own spin-off TV show on CBS, Clarice, based on the three years after the events of The Silence of the Lambs. 

Dimension Films

12. Sidney – Scream franchise

It doesn’t matter which entry into the Scream series we’re speaking about, Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) manages to outwit whoever's hiding behind the Ghostface mask and their evil accomplices. Over the years, we see her evolve from victim to survivor, to adult woman and mother — but whatever falls in her way, she is forever arresting and proves herself to be one of the main final girls. 

A24

11. Dani – Midsommar (2019)

As usual, our protagonist Dani Ardor (Florence Pugh) is the only one who suspects that something sinister is going on. After her sister kills their family and dies by suicide, she travels to Sweden with her difficult boyfriend, and becomes further traumatized as she witnesses the grotesque ways of the cult they become involved with. Ari Aster's folk horror film is unsettling, grim, and truly strange — but when her boyfriend is stuffed into a disembowelled bear and she laughs and cries through the horror, she joins the ranks of odd, new final girls. 

Lionsgate

10. Erin – You’re Next (2011)

Brought up on a survivalist compound, Erin (Sharni Vinson) came to the house of horrors in You're Next knowing how to wield various weapons (including a blender that she gracefully uses on someone’s head) and set traps (the guy who lands foot-deep on the nails is a testament to that). To make it to the end of the movie, she has to kill her boyfriend who was in on the killing spree all along and even accidentally kills the police officer coming to investigate the mess. Simple collateral damage. 

20th Century Fox

9. Ripley – Alien franchise

Not just a final girl, but Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is one of the most significant female protagonists in history and often featured in lists of the best film characters of all-time. Across four films, the sensible and savvy space cadet has to fight the alien, its offspring, and other members of its kind – and never fails.

20th Century Fox

8. Needy – Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Which other final girl could survive having to destroy their best-friend-crush-make-out buddy-enemy? Needy Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) was the real, nerdy queer character horror fans had been waiting for, and has finally gotten her due with the recent critical reevaluation of Jennifer's Body. She ends the film with magical abilities, levitating in the prison because she murdered Jennifer. While she may not be the most powerful of the trope, it’s endlessly interesting that she survived for so long because of her specific intimate proximity to the enemy.  

New World Pictures

7. Veronica – Heathers (1989)

One of the most infamous final girl images is Veronica Sawyer, hair frazzled, smoked to a crisp, and smirking with a cigarette straight in her mouth, making her way into the school after her boyfriend just blew himself up. Unusually, Vernonia, played by Winona Ryder, started the nightmarish ordeal of student deaths in the cult classic, but it took her to finish it and leave unscathed. “You look like hell,” Heather Duke tells Veronica. “Yeah, I just got back,” Veronica quips in the iconic line. 

Netflix

6. Maddie – Hush (2016)

Little could put a final girl at more of a disadvantage than being deaf and unable to speak, robbed of vital orientation. The entire film from Mike Flanagan is set at writer Maddie’s (Kate Siegel) house in the woods, where the killer taunts her, swiftly realising her disabilities. Thankfully her super-senses – being able to see different stories playing out in her head –keeps her alive. Through survival, she seems empowered and almost enlightened. 

Compass International Pictures

5. Laurie – Halloween franchise

While her friends are distracted by boys and sex, the classic final girl Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) is a bit sexless. Through every Halloween film, she keeps evading Michael Myers to the point you almost wonder if they’re two halves of the same person or thriving on each other’s power, both doomed to die simultaneously in a death grip. Much of what has been written about final girls has been based on this character, so these films are a good place to start to delve into the trope. 

A24

4. Thomasin – The Witch (2015)

In this tale of trial and punishment from Robert Eggers, all the characters are exiled for sin, but it's Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) who is persecuted hardest. Her own family conspires against her as people die and tragedy befalls them all. They call her a witch until she eventually accepts the label, vows to "live deliciously," and becomes one. Thomasin aligns herself with Black Philip, who is the real antagonist as the devil in goat form, and, not unlike how Maddie ends Hush with almost higher-powers, this final girl ascends and levitates with a coven, ending the film.

NEON

3. The teen scream queens of Assassination Nation (2018)

“My name is Lily Colson, I’m 18-years-old and I don’t know if me and my friends are gonna live through the night,” one member of the group of friends at the center of Assassination Nation says on a broadcast near the end of the film. The group is leading the charge against the vigilantes who are rioting after a massive data dump leads to all manner of private content being leaked. Not only do they subvert the trope by being a gang of girls, but they encourage other girls and women to stand up and fight, too. 

20th Century Fox

2. Buffy – Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992)

What could be better than the final girl who defends the entire world and its inhabitants from demons and monsters again and again and again until the end of her life? Buffy Summers (played by Kristy Swanson in the original movie) is the blonde cheerleader who must actively hunt out her enemies and does so with sass and wit. Her character was such a smash hit that Buffy was revived for its own TV show starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, which dominated the '90s and '00s and is still beloved today. 

Focus World

1. Justine – Raw (2016)

What makes Justine (Garance Marillier) a final girl with a twist is that she has an inner killer to defeat (aka cannibalistic tendencies), rather than an external baddy. In this French coming-of-age film from Julia Ducournau, the protagonist stops herself killing her sister in revenge and spares her, turning her in to the police. Soon, her father tells her that her bloodlust ways are not her fault – that it runs in their family through the line of women – and that she will eventually find a way through the urges.