If you’re a fan of the 2017 blockbuster Wonder Woman starring Gal Gadot, you’re probably craving more female-led superhero action. Luckily, there are plenty of other exciting movies featuring strong women kicking butt and taking names. From Marvel hits to lesser-known indie gems, here are the 15 best movies to watch next if you loved Wonder Woman.
1. Captain Marvel (2019)
One of the most obvious choices for Wonder Woman fans is Marvel’s Captain Marvel. This 2019 hit stars Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, a former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot who gains superpowers after being exposed to alien technology. With superhuman strength, flight, and energy projection abilities, Captain Marvel is one of the most powerful heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Like Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel is an origin story that follows its heroine’s journey from a capable-but-confused warrior to a fully realized superhero. It’s packed with ’90s nostalgia, space battles, and a scene-stealing cat named Goose. If you want more women taking charge in the MCU, Captain Marvel is a must-watch.
2. Black Widow (2021)
After over a decade in the MCU, Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff finally got her own solo film with 2021’s Black Widow. Set between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, the movie delves into the shadowy past of the assassin-turned-Avenger.
Natasha reunites with her estranged “family” of Russian spies, including Florence Pugh as her sister-figure Yelena Belova. Together, they face off against the nefarious Red Room that trained them. With pulse-pounding action and surprising emotional depth, Black Widow proves this Avenger can carry a movie on her own.
3. Aliens (1986)
If you like sci-fi mixed in with your female-driven action, you can’t go wrong with James Cameron’s classic Aliens. Sigourney Weaver returns as Ellen Ripley, the sole survivor of the first Alien film. This time, she’s accompanied by a squad of space marines as they investigate a human colony on the moon where the xenomorphs were first discovered.
Aliens ups the ante with multiple aliens and epic bug hunt battles. But the heart of the movie is Ripley’s journey from traumatized victim to hardened warrior. Armed with a flamethrower and maternal instincts, she faces down the alien queen in one of cinema’s most badass showdowns. Aliens set the standard for action heroines.
4. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
George Miller resurrected his post-apocalyptic franchise in spectacular fashion with Mad Max: Fury Road. Set in a bleak future wasteland, the movie is essentially one long desert chase, with Max (Tom Hardy) aiding the rebel Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) as she liberates the warlord Immortan Joe’s five enslaved wives.
What sets Fury Road apart is Furiosa, a fierce, one-armed warrior determined to shepherd the women to safety. In many ways, Max is just along for the ride—it’s Furiosa’s story. With jaw-dropping practical effects and stunts, Fury Road is a non-stop adrenaline rush anchored by Theron’s gritty performance.
5. Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) & Volume 2 (2004)
Quentin Tarantino’s bloody two-part revenge epic Kill Bill stars Uma Thurman as The Bride, a former assassin determined to take down her ex-lover Bill and his squad of killers after they massacred her wedding party and left her for dead.
Thurman underwent intense martial arts training for the role, and it shows in the spectacularly choreographed fight scenes. From taking on the Crazy 88 gang to her knockdown brawl with Daryl Hannah’s Elle Driver, The Bride is a force of nature. Kill Bill is a love letter to grindhouse cinema, with Thurman as the ultimate wronged woman out for payback.
6. Atomic Blonde (2017)
Charlize Theron kicks ass in Cold War-era Berlin in this stylish action thriller. She plays Lorraine Broughton, an MI6 agent tasked with retrieving a list of double agents being smuggled into the West on the eve of the Berlin Wall’s collapse.
Based on the graphic novel The Coldest City, Atomic Blonde features brutal, intricately staged fight scenes that show the toll of combat on Theron’s body. The ’80s soundtrack and neon-drenched cinematography add to the film’s cool factor. Theron is a force to be reckoned with as she punches, kicks, and shoots her way through the twisty plot.
7. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Linda Hamilton set a new standard for female action heroes with her return as Sarah Connor in Terminator 2. No longer the timid waitress of the first film, Sarah has transformed herself into a hardened fighter determined to protect her son John and prevent the AI apocalypse.
Facing off against a shape-shifting liquid metal terminator, Sarah takes charge, whether she’s breaking out of a mental hospital or taking down the T-1000 with a shotgun. T2‘s groundbreaking CGI still dazzles, but it’s Hamilton’s intense physicality that makes Sarah an icon. From pull-ups to reload drills, she embodies female strength.
8. Underworld (2003)
If you like a bit of gothic horror with your action, check out Underworld. Kate Beckinsale stars as Selene, a vampire “death dealer” who hunts the lycans (werewolves) that her clan has battled for centuries. But Selene’s world is turned upside down when she encounters a human named Michael (Scott Speedman) who may be the key to ending the war.
Clad in skintight black leather, Beckinsale brings acrobatic grace to the fight scenes as Selene guns down and martial arts her way through packs of lycans. The movie spawned four sequels, but the first Underworld remains the best, establishing Selene as a tragic antihero torn between duty and desire.
9. The Hunger Games (2012)
Based on the bestselling YA novels, The Hunger Games stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, a teenage girl in a dystopian future where children are forced to fight to the death on live TV. When her sister is selected for the games, Katniss volunteers to take her place.
While not a traditional superhero movie, The Hunger Games shares Wonder Woman‘s themes of a woman fighting to protect the innocent against a corrupt system. Katniss’ skills with a bow make her a formidable competitor, but it’s her defiance in the face of tyranny that makes her a hero. Lawrence’s steely resolve carries the franchise through three sequels.
10. Hanna (2011)
Raised in the wilderness and trained as an assassin by her ex-CIA father, 16-year-old Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) embarks on a mission across Europe, pursued by a ruthless intelligence operative (Cate Blanchett) who shares a secret history with Hanna’s dad.
Hanna mixes a coming-of-age story with stylized action as the sheltered but deadly teenager navigates the “real” world for the first time. Ronan brings both vulnerability and viciousness to the role, equally adept at snapping necks and grappling with her own identity. With a hypnotic score by The Chemical Brothers, Hanna is an art house thriller with a beating heart.
11. Haywire (2011)
MMA fighter Gina Carano made her leading lady debut in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire. She plays Mallory Kane, a black ops super soldier who is double-crossed and targeted for termination by her own agency after a mission goes wrong.
Carano performed her own stunts, bringing a raw physicality to the role as she takes down the likes of Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, and Ewan McGregor. Soderbergh keeps the action grounded and realistic, showcasing Carano’s formidable fighting skills. It’s a lean, mean action flick anchored by a woman who can more than hold her own against the boys.
12. The Quick and the Dead (1995)
Sam Raimi directs this revisionist Western about a mysterious woman named Ellen (Sharon Stone) who rides into the town of Redemption for a quick-draw competition. But Ellen has an ulterior motive—to get revenge on the ruthless outlaw (Gene Hackman) who runs the town and murdered her father.
Stone is a steely-eyed, black-clad gunslinger in the Clint Eastwood tradition. She out-shoots and out-smarts the men who dare to underestimate “The Lady.” The movie is a stylized ode to spaghetti Westerns, with Raimi’s signature mix of dark humor and kinetic camerawork. Stone commands the screen, making Ellen a cool, implacable angel of death.
13. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Before it was a hit TV series, Buffy was a 1992 movie starring Kristy Swanson as the titular valley girl turned stake-wielding slayer. Trained by a mysterious Watcher (Donald Sutherland), Buffy must embrace her destiny to battle the vampire king Lothos (Rutger Hauer) and his army of the undead.
While the film is campier and more comedic than the later show, Swanson still kicks plenty of vampire butt in her cheerleader outfit and leather jacket. She brings a snarky charm to the role, with a mix of ditzy comedy and action chops. The movie offers a fun early glimpse at Joss Whedon’s signature style before he redefined Buffy for the small screen.
14. Resident Evil (2002)
Milla Jovovich battles zombies and mutant monsters in this action-horror franchise based on the popular video game series. She stars as Alice, an amnesiac security operative who must fight her way out of a secret underground lab overrun by the undead after an A.I. called the Red Queen goes rogue.
Jovovich did many of her own stunts, diving through the air and taking out zombies with acrobatic gun-fu. The movie spawned five sequels, each one upping the ante on the crazy creatures and physics-defying action. But it all started with Jovovich as the indomitable Alice, a new kind of action heroine for the 21st century.
15. Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
Based on the manga series, this sci-fi epic stars Rosa Salazar as Alita, a cyborg girl rebuilt by a kindly doctor (Christoph Waltz) in a post-apocalyptic city. With no memory of her past, Alita discovers she has advanced fighting abilities that hint at her true purpose.
Salazar’s motion-capture performance brings the CGI Alita to life, imbuing her with wide-eyed wonder and fierce determination. The movie’s “motorball” sequences showcase Alita’s speed and skill as she races and battles on a deadly track. With stunning visuals and a cyberpunk edge, Alita is an action-packed coming-of-age tale about a girl rewriting her own destiny.
Whether you prefer superpowered brawls, gunslinging standoffs, or sword-swinging duels, these 15 movies deliver the female-led action goods. From Wonder Woman to Furiosa, Ripley to The Bride, these iconic characters prove that women are more than capable of saving the day—and looking badass while doing it. So queue up one of these adrenaline-fueled flicks and get ready to cheer on the heroines who refuse to stay down when the fighting starts.
Wonder Woman may have been a groundbreaking hit, but she’s far from the only woman warrior on screen. With more female directors and stars breaking into the action genre, the future looks bright for the next generation of superheroines. Here’s hoping this list will only keep growing as more women suit up, take aim, and show the world what they can do when the gloves come off and the stakes are high. In a landscape of male-dominated blockbusters, these films remind us that women can be the stars of their own adventures—and they can win the day with brains, brawn, and unbreakable spirits.
