The greatest screen characters – but something’s missing

Susannah Guthrie
Jun 23, 2015, updated Jun 24, 2015

Never has Hollywood’s gender problem been more evident.

A new poll compiled by Empire magazine has revealed that of our favourite all-time television and movie characters, only two are female.

Harrison Ford’s iconic Indiana Jones took the top spot on the movies list, beating James Bond, who came in second place.

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Ford, 72, also nabbed third place for his role as Han Solo in the Star Wars films.

The only woman on the list was Ellen Ripley, Sigourney Weaver’s character in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic Alien.

See the full original list here

The poll, voted for by over 10,000 people on empireonline.com also named the top 10 greatest TV characters.

Breaking Bad‘s Walter White was named No.1, just in front of Game Of Thrones hero Tyrion Lannister, played by Peter Dinklage.

Again, only one female appeared on the television list: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, who came in at number seven.

So where exactly are all the women? Sure, there haven’t historically been as many leading ladies as leading men in Hollywood films, but this doesn’t mean we’re lacking in quality female characters.

In fact, it could be argued that many female characters are far more complex and captivating than their male counterparts, who can often be boiled down to the all-encompassing phrase “action hero”.

To prove our point, we’ve compiled a list of the greatest female characters of all time from the big and small screen.

The list of ladies was so densely populated we couldn’t limit it to just 10 – we had to bump it up to 20 – making the fact that only two featured in the original Empire list seem even more ridiculous.

Let us know if we’ve missed anyone in the comments section below!