There have been truly wicked—and irresistibly fascinating—female protagonists who have shaped the cinematic imagination of the 20th century and the early 2000s. From the first dangerous silent-era vamps to the shameless Lola Lola portrayed by Marlene Dietrich; from the determined adulterers and murderesses embodied by Bette Davis to dark ladies such as Rita Hayworth or Daryl Hannah; from the enigmatic and dangerous Sharon Stone and Glenn Close at the turn of the millennium to poisoners like Isabelle Huppert in Chabrol’s noirs, or Florence Pugh, who in 2016 took on the role of a Victorian Lady Macbeth. A journey through these women (assassins, perverse mothers, femmes fatales or lost women, spies, witches, betrayed and betraying women) who have captivated audiences: all those women whose complexity has fueled viewers’ dreams, inspired feminist theory, and led to shifts in the perception and definition of the female universe.