Who Is the Best Final Girl in Horror Cinema History?

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Ignacio Weil

Entertainment - October 31st 2025, 20:30 GMT+1

Cropped Grace Ready or Not — 15. Grace – Ready or Not (2019)

Facing a horrifying game of hide-and-seek on her wedding night, Grace outsmarts and outlasts a wealthy in-law dynasty that wants her dead just for fun. She goes from blissful bride to blood-splattered survivor with a sparkle in her eye and a wrench in her hand, and yes, that contrast is part of the charm. Her journey is as much about claiming agency in the face of mad tradition as it is about pure adrenaline, which makes her one of the more modern Final Girls who says “you messed with the wrong wife.” The fact that she fights back with creativity and grit (and doesn’t just survive by accident) marks her out in the horror canon. Grace shows us that final-girl status isn’t handed out – it’s earned, usually with blood and a great one-liner. | © Mythology Entertainment

Clear Rivers Final Destination — 14. Clear Rivers – Final Destination (2000)

Clear Rivers begins as quiet and cautious, the kind of character who doesn’t rush into danger – so naturally she finds herself running from it in spectacularly deadly chain-reactions. After being pulled from Flight 180 thanks to a vision, she teams up, tries to stay alive, and carries the game’s sense of fatalism on her shoulders. There’s something deeply unsettling about her journey – where surviving doesn’t feel like a victory so much as a temporary reprieve. She’s not slashing monsters or wielding weapons; she’s negotiating physics, inevitability, and terror in everyday objects. Clear’s survival comes down to intuition, being calm under pressure, and a stubborn refusal to accept “that’s just how it ends.” | © New Line Cinema

Cropped Kirsty Cotton Hellraiser — 13. Kirsty Cotton – Hellraiser (1987)

In the hell-ish maze of Cenobites, chains, and quite extreme torture devices, Kirsty Cotton walks in and says “Not today.” She’s terrified, sure, but she’s also clever, curious, and someone who refuses to be a passive victim in a very un-safe world. From discovering the Lament Configuration to outmaneuvering Pinhead’s crew, she becomes a survivor not just by luck, but by wits and sheer will. Her horror journey isn’t just about escaping – it’s about facing something profoundly grotesque and refusing to be defined by it. The world of Hellraiser is relentlessly cruel, and Kirsty’s resilience in that environment marks her as a Final Girl who earns her badge in a class of her own. | © Film Futures

Cropped Adelaide Wilson Us — 12. Adelaide Wilson – Us (2019)

When the mirror version of your family shows up in your driveway wearing red jumpsuits and scissors, you don’t call it a day – you fight. Adelaide Wilson leads her family through a night of doppelgänger terror, but also reveals that the battle is as much about self-identity and trauma as it is about survival. She’s layered, haunted, protective – and fiercely determined. This means her Final Girl journey isn’t just about escape, but about claiming her past, protecting her kids, and making a horrific night into something she controls. In horror cinema, she stands out because she’s fighting not just the monster but the piece of herself that it reflects. | © Monkeypaw Productions

Cropped Erin Youre Next — 11. Erin – You’re Next (2011)

Erin arrives at a seemingly normal family anniversary party only to discover the house is hell-bent on killing everyone – and her response is unapologetically savage, clever, and messy. She doesn’t survive by being squeaky clean; she survives by being resourceful, unexpected, and downright lethal when the situation demands it. Her transformation from outsider to dominant force in the carnage makes her a Final Girl for an era that wants its survivors to fight back, not just wilt. She uses crossbows, traps, aggression – and a twisted respect for the chaos she’s dropped into. Erin reminds us that survival in horror can be loud, bloody, and yes, weirdly satisfying. | © Snoot Entertainment

Cropped Sara Carter The Descent — 10. Sara Carter – The Descent (2005)

Deep in the darkness of an unexplored cave system, Sara Carter finds herself leading a terrifying expedition that goes very wrong – and very bloody. Her journey isn’t just about surviving the monsters that stalk the subterranean tunnels, but about facing the panic and guilt lurking beneath every breath. From crying in the pitch-black to swinging for her life, Sara evolves into someone you definitely wouldn’t want to be trapped with – but also someone you want on your side. It’s the kind of Final Girl transformation that arises from fear, not from some empowerment fantasy, and that makes her survival all the more visceral. The Descent gives horror fans a crush-of-rocks type of terror, and Sara’s endurance rings out through every echoing cavern. | © Celador Films

Cropped It Follows 2014 — 9. Jay Height – It Follows (2014)

After what seems like a regular young-adult fling, Jay Height suddenly inherits a horrifying, never-ending game of tag: the entity follows, unrelenting, morphing, and waiting. Her fight isn’t about wielding a weapon – it’s about staying awake, staying alert, and staying alive as the supernatural stalking sensation closes in. Against a backdrop of retro aesthetics and eerie minimalism, Jay becomes the embodiment of dread and determination. She doesn’t charge the monster; she endures it. The way she pushes through uncertainty and keeps her wits (and friends) together gives her Final Girl cred in a horror world built on inevitability. | © Radius-TWC

Cropped Nancy Thompson Nightmare on Elm Street — 8. Nancy Thompson – A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Dreams bleed into reality, blood oozes from the bathtub, and one fearless girl stands between survival and the nightmare – the iconic Nancy Thompson. She starts as the vulnerable outsider, but evolves into a hunter of her own fear, setting the rules, lighting the BO. She outsmarts the dream-killer in his own realm and becomes the face of what it means to fight back in horror. Her legacy isn’t only about survival – it’s about shifting the narrative: the girl doesn’t just run, she plans, she fights, and she wins. Nancy’s resilience is threaded through decades of scares and still echoes in every haunted dream sequence that followed. | © New Line Cinema

Tess Marshall Barbarian 2022 — 7. Tess Marshall – Barbarian (2022)

Tess Marshall strolls into a dodgy Airbnb, expecting a quiet night before an interview – and instead gets the kind of house you don’t ask-questions about. What begins as awkward politely turns alarming and soon spirals into a full-on dare-you-to-survive scenario. Tess doesn’t start as the badass; she becomes the badass. She shows up, she looks scared, and then she decides not to be the next headline. In a film built on twists and claustrophobia, Tess’s willingness to keep moving, keep screaming, keep fighting puts her firmly in Final Girl territory. | © 20th Century Studios

Cropped Maxxxine — 6. Maxine Minx – X, MaXXXine (2022/2024)

When Maxine Minx survives a massacre and then rockets herself into 1980s Hollywood stardom, you know she’s not your typical “scared victim” variant of final girl. In X she endures chaos, and in *MaXXXine* she becomes the hunted and the hunter in turn, slick and determined in a world that wants to devour her. She’s stylish, cunning, and unshakably determined to survive on her terms – not by accident, not by virtue, but by grit, ambition, and adaptability. Her evolution across both films flips the script on what survival looks like, and makes her one of the most modern, meta-aware Final Girls in horror. | © A24

Sally hardesty msn — 5. Sally Hardesty – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Sally Hardesty starts as a road-trip companion, but ends the night with a chainsaw nightmare she never asked for and a survival instinct forged in raw fear. She’s not wielding a shotgun or plotting revenge – she’s running, screaming, enduring, and finding a way to make it out when everything else is collapsing around her. In the original 1974 film, the terror is domestic, chaotic, and unbearably close to home, which means that Sally’s survival feels like a miracle rather than a victory lap. Her final escape is jagged, unpolished and pulse-racing, which only makes her status as Final Girl more earned. She reminds us that sometimes surviving horror means sheer will, and no amount of grit can fully erase what you’ve seen. | © Vortex Inc.

Cropped The Shining — 4. Wendy Torrance – The Shining (1980)

Wendy doesn’t get the credit she deserves. While Jack’s descent into madness and Danny’s psychic visions steal the spotlight, she’s quietly fighting a psychological and physical war on all fronts. There’s a heartbreaking kind of courage in her terror – the way she trembles and cries, but never stops moving, never stops protecting her son. She’s not a gun-toting badass; she’s a mother who refuses to let her child become another ghost in that endless, echoing hotel. Kubrick may have shot her through a lens of hysteria, but time’s been kind to Wendy – she’s the one who actually makes it out. And that, in the Overlook, is a miracle. | © Warner Bros.

Sidney prescott scream msn — 3. Sidney Prescott – Scream (1996)

Meta before “meta” was a thing, Sidney Prescott turned horror into a self-aware game of survival. She doesn’t stumble blindly into danger – she *knows* the clichés, the traps, the stupid mistakes that get people killed, and she still ends up in the middle of it anyway. Watching her grow across the *Scream* films is like watching trauma learn how to punch back: sharper, tougher, less forgiving each time. Sidney doesn’t just endure Ghostface – she dissects him, mocks him, outsmarts him. It’s a mix of grit, grief, and gallows humor that makes her unforgettable. In a genre obsessed with repetition, she’s the rare one who evolves, and that’s why she still rules the slasher hall of fame. | © Dimension Films

Cropped Sigourney Weaver Ellen Ripley — 2. Ellen Ripley – Alien (1979)

No one signed up for a monster hunt on the Nostromo, least of all Ripley, who begins as just another crewmember buried in chain-of-command bureaucracy. But when things go wrong – and oh, do they go wrong – she becomes the embodiment of competence under cosmic pressure. Ripley doesn’t survive because she’s lucky; she survives because she listens, plans, and keeps her head when everyone else loses theirs. The xenomorph is terror incarnate, and yet she faces it with equal parts intellect and instinct, turning space horror into a battle of wills. By the time she’s floating alone in that cold void, she’s not just a survivor – she’s the gold standard. | © 20th Century Fox

Cropped Halloween 1978 — 1. Laurie Strode - Halloween (1978)

The eerie calm of suburbia never stood a chance. Laurie Strode’s Halloween night starts with babysitting, pumpkin carving, and teenage gossip – the ordinary stuff that makes what follows so horrifyingly real. When Michael Myers shows up, silent and relentless, Laurie becomes the heart of the slasher genre without even trying. She’s smart, observant, and, most importantly, believable: a normal girl reacting to an impossible nightmare. Every wound, every terrified glance, feels earned, and when she finally fights back, it’s pure instinct meeting fate. Laurie didn’t just survive a killer – she gave birth to a cinematic archetype that horror’s been chasing ever since. | © Compass International Picture

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Horror fans love a good scream, but they live for the one who makes it to the end – the Final Girl. She’s the last survivor standing, the one who stares down the killer, grabs whatever’s sharp nearby, and proves that fear doesn’t always mean defeat. From chainsaws to kitchen knives, she’s fought them all – and let’s be honest, half the fun is rooting for her to outwit the monster and make it to sunrise.

But here’s the twist: not all Final Girls are created equal. Some are clever and resourceful, others pure chaos wrapped in trauma, and a few redefine what “survival” even means. So, who truly deserves the crown of horror’s ultimate survivor? Time to grab your flashlight, lock the door, and settle in – we’re ranking the best Final Girls in horror cinema history.