Sigourney Weaver

Sigourney Weaver was not the obvious lead of Alien in 1979, and the film is structured so you are not certain she is the lead until it is nearly over. What she did with Ripley across four films built the template for the science-fiction action heroine, and Aliens earned her an Academy Award nomination in 1986, which almost never happened for that genre then and largely still does not.

The under-discussed half of the career is comedy, and it runs on hauteur. Weaver is extremely funny playing contempt: Katharine Parker in Working Girl, all vowels and condescension; Gwen DeMarco in Galaxy Quest, a television actress quietly furious about the career her looks bought her; the Warden in Holes; the executive in The Cabin in the Woods delivering absurdity in a flat administrative monotone. It is the same instrument as Ripley's authority, tilted about fifteen degrees.

The straight dramatic work is there too, in Gorillas in the Mist, Death and the Maiden and The Ice Storm, where she plays a suburban woman with no illusions left about anyone including herself. Three Academy Award nominations and no win, plus a BAFTA, two Golden Globes and a Grammy.

The late-career decision worth noting is Avatar. She played Grace Augustine in the first film, then returned in the sequels as Kiri, a teenage Na'vi girl, performance-captured in her seventies. It is a strange, brave, faintly ridiculous choice, and she makes it work, which is roughly the summary of the whole filmography.