AFI - Top 25 Female Movie Stars
by jaysinn | created - 12 Sep 2020 | updated - 4 days ago | PublicI've listed each film of the star's that I own
1. Katharine Hepburn
Actress | The Lion in Winter
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was born on May 12, 1907 in Hartford, Connecticut to a suffragist, Katharine Martha (Houghton), and a doctor, Thomas Norval Hepburn, who both always encouraged her to speak her mind, develop it fully, and exercise her body to its full potential. An athletic tomboy as a ...
A Bill of Divorcement (1932) Little Women (1933) Morning Glory (1933) Alice Adams (1935) Mary of Scotland (1936) Stage Door (1937) Bringing Up Baby (1938) Holiday (1938) The Philadelphia Story (1940) Keeper of the Flame (1942) Woman of the Year (1942) Without Love (1945) The Sea of Grass (1947) State of the Union (1948) Adam's Rib (1949) The African Queen (1951) Pat and Mike (1952) Summertime (1955) The Rainmaker (1956) Desk Set (1957) Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) Long Days Journey Into Night (1962) Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (1967) The Lion in Winter (1968) The Glass Menagerie (1973) Love Among the Ruins (1975) The Corn is Green (1979) On Golden Pond (1981) Grace Quigley (1984) Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry (1986)
2. Bette Davis
Actress | All About Eve
Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts, to Ruth Augusta (Favor) and Harlow Morrell Davis, a patent attorney. Her parents divorced when she was 10. She and her sister were raised by their mother. Her early interest was dance. To Bette, dancers led a glamorous life, but...
Waterloo Bridge (1931) Ex-Lady (1933) Of Human Bondage (1934) Dangerous (1935) The Petrified Forest (1936) Satan Met a Lady (1936) It's Love I'm After (1937) Kid Galahad (1937) Marked Woman (1937) Jezebel (1938) Dark Victory (1939) Juarez (1939) The Old Maid (1939) The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) All This, and Heaven Too (1940) The Great Lie (1941) The Little Foxes (1941) In This Our Life (1942) The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942) Now, Voyager (1942) Old Acquaintance (1943) Watch on the Rhine (1943) Mr. Skeffington (1944) The Corn is Green (1945) A Stolen Life (1946) Deception (1946) Beyond the Forest (1949) All About Eve (1950) Another Man's Poison (1951) Phone Call from a Stranger (1952) The Virgin Queen (1955) The Catered Affair (1956) Pocketful of Miracles (1961) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) Dead Ringer (1964) Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) The Nanny (1965) Death On The Nile (1978) Return From Witch Mountain (1978) The Watcher in the Woods (1980) Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) (arch. foot.) The Whales of August (1987)
3. Audrey Hepburn
Actress | Breakfast at Tiffany's
Audrey Hepburn was born as Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4, 1929 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. Her mother, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra, was a Dutch noblewoman, while her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was born in Úzice, Bohemia, to English and Austrian parents.
After her parents' divorce, ...
Lavender Hill Mob, The (1951) Roman Holiday (1953) Sabrina (1954) War and Peace (1956) Funny Face (1957) Love in the Afternoon (1957) The Nun's Story (1959) Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) The Children's Hour (1961) Charade (1963) My Fair Lady (1964) Paris When it Sizzles (1964) How to Steal a Million (1966) Two For The Road (1967) Wait Until Dark (1967) Robin and Marian (1976) They All Laughed (1981)
4. Ingrid Bergman
Actress | Casablanca
Ingrid Bergman was one of the greatest actresses from Hollywood's lamented Golden Era. Her natural and unpretentious beauty and her immense acting talent made her one of the most celebrated figures in the history of American cinema. Bergman is also one of the most Oscar-awarded actresses, tied with ...
Adam Had Four Sons (1941) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) Casablanca (1942) For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) Gaslight (1944) The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) Spellbound (1945) Notorious (1946) Joan of Arc (1948) Stromboli (1950) Europe '51 (1952) Journey To Italy (1954) Anastasia (1956) Indiscreet (1958) The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) Hedda Gabler (1962) Cactus Flower (1969) Murder on the Orient Express (1974) Autumn Sonata (1978) A Woman Called Golda (1982) Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) (arch. foot.)
5. Greta Garbo
Actress | Ninotchka
Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden, to Anna Lovisa (Johansdotter), who worked at a jam factory, and Karl Alfred Gustafsson, a laborer. She was fourteen when her father died, which left the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and ...
The Saga of Gosta Berling (1924) the Joyless Street (1925) Flesh and the Devil (1926) The Temptress (1926) A Woman of Affairs (1928) The Mysterious Lady (1928) The Single Standard (1929) Anna Christie (1930) Mata Hari (1931) Grand Hotel (1932) Queen Christina (1933) Anna Karenina (1935) Camille (1936) Ninotchka (1939)
6. Marilyn Monroe
Actress | Some Like It Hot
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. Monroe is of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and ...
All About Eve (1950) The Asphalt Jungle (1950) As Young As You Feel (1951) Let's Make it Legal (1951) Love Nest (1951) Clash by Night (1952) Don't Bother to Knock (1952) Monkey Business (1952) O. Henry's Full House (1952) We're Not Married! (1952) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) Niagara (1953) River of No Return (1954) There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) The Seven Year Itch (1955) Bus Stop (1956) The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) Some Like It Hot (1959) Let's Make Love (1960) The Misfits (1961)
7. Elizabeth Taylor
Actress | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was considered one of the last, if not the last, major star to have come out of the old Hollywood studio system. She was known internationally for her beauty, especially for her violet eyes, with which she captured audiences early in her youth and kept the world hooked ...
Jane Eyre (1943) (uncredited) Lassie Come Home (1943) National Velvet (1944) Cynthia (1947) Life With Father (1947) A Date With Judy (1948) Little Women (1949) Father of the Bride (1950) A Place in the Sun (1951) Father's Little Dividend (1951) Quo Vadis (1951) (uncredited) Ivanhoe (1952) Love is Better Than Ever (1952) Rhapsody (1954) Giant (1956) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) BUtterfield 8 (1960) Cleopatra (1963) The V.I.P.s (1963) Becket (1964) (uncredited) The Sandpiper (1965) Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) The Taming of the Shrew (1967) Anne of the Thousand Days (1968) (uncredited) Under Milk Wood (1971) A Little Night Music (1977)
8. Judy Garland
Actress | The Wizard of Oz
One of the brightest, most tragic movie stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, Judy Garland was a much-loved character whose warmth and spirit, along with her rich and exuberant voice, kept theatre-goers entertained with an array of delightful musicals.
She was born Frances Ethel Gumm on 10 June 1922 in ...
The Wizard of Oz (1939) For Me and My Gal (1942) Girl Crazy (1943) Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) The Clock (1945) Ziegfled Follies (1945) The Harvey Girls (1946) Easter Parade (1948) Words and Music (1948) In the Good Old Summertime (1949) Summer Stock (1950) A Star is Born (1954) Judgment At Nuremberg (1961) A Child is Waiting (1963)
9. Marlene Dietrich
Soundtrack | Witness for the Prosecution
Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator ...
The Blue Angel (1930) Morocco (1930) Dishonored (1931) Blonde Venus (1932) Shanghai Express (1932) The Scarlet Empress (1934) The Devil is a Woman (1935) The Garden of Allah (1936) Destry Rides Again (1939) A Foreign Affair (1948) Stage Fright (1950) No Highway in the Sky (1951) Around the World in 80 Days (1956) Witness for the Prosecution (1957) Touch of Evil (1958) Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
10. Joan Crawford
Actress | What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1906, in San Antonio, Texas, to Anna Belle (Johnson) and Thomas E. LeSueur, a laundry laborer. By the time she was born, her parents had separated, and by the time she was a teenager, she'd had three stepfathers. It wasn't an easy life; ...
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) (uncredited) Bardelys the Magnificent (1926) (uncredited) Our Dancing Daughters (1928) Our Modern Maidens (1929) Paid (1930) This Modern Age (1931) Possessed (1931) Grand Hotel (1932) Rain (1932) Dancing Lady (1933) Today We Live (1933) Sadie McKee (1934) Love on the Run (1936) A Woman's Face (1938) The Women (1939) Strange Cargo (1940) Above Suspicion (1943) Mildred Pierce (1945) Humoresque (1946) Daisy Kenyon (1947) Possessed (1947) Flamingo Road (1949) It's a Great Feeling (1949) (uncredited) The Damned Don't Cry (1950) Harriet Craig (1950) Sudden Fear (1952) Torch Song (1953) Johnny Guitar (1954) The Best of Everything (1959) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) (arch. foot.)
11. Barbara Stanwyck
Actress | Double Indemnity
Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley (1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys (1985). But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the ...
Night Nurse (1931) The Purchase Price (1932) Baby Face (1933) Ladies They Talk About (1933) The Bride Walks Out (1936) Internes Can't Take Money (1937) Stella Dallas (1937) Golden Boy (1939) Union Pacific (1939) Remember the Night (1940) Ball of Fire (1941) The Great Man's Lady (1941) The Lady Eve (1941) Meet John Doe (1941) Double Indemnity (1944) Christmas in Connecticut (1945) The Bride Wore Boots (1946) The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) The Lady Gambles (1949) The Furies (1950) No Man of Her Own (1950) To Please a Lady (1950) Clash by Night (1952) All I Desire (1953) Jeopardy (1953) Titanic (1953) Executive Suite (1954) There's Always Tomorrow (1956) Forty Guns (1957) Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) (arch. foot.)
12. Claudette Colbert
Actress | It Happened One Night
One of the brightest film stars to grace the screen was born Emilie Claudette Chauchoin on September 13, 1903, in Saint Mandé, France where her father owned a bakery at 57, rue de la République (now Avenue Général de Gaulle). The family moved to the United States when she was three. As Claudette ...
The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) The Sign of the Cross (1932) Three Cornered Moon (1933) Torch Singer (1933) Cleopatra (1934) Imitation of Life (1934) It Happened One Night (1934) I Met Him in Paris (1937) Maid of Salem (1937) Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938) It's A Wonderful World (1939) Midnight (1939) Boom Town (1940) The Palm Beach Story (1942) So Proudly We Hail! (1943) Since You Went Away (1944) Tomorrow is Forever (1946) The Egg and I (1947) Sleep, My Love (1948) Three Came Home (1950) Let's Make It Legal (1951)
13. Grace Kelly
Actress | Dial M for Murder
On November 12, 1929, Grace Patricia Kelly was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to wealthy parents. Her girlhood was uneventful for the most part, but one of the things she desired was to become an actress which she had decided on at an early age. After her high school graduation in 1947, Grace ...
High Noon (1952) Mogambo (1953) The Bridges of Toko-Ri (1954) The Country Girl (1954) Dial M for Murder (1954) Rear Window (1954) To Catch A Thief (1955) High Society (1956)
14. Ginger Rogers
Actress | Kitty Foyle
Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri on July 16, 1911, the daughter of Lela E. Rogers (née Lela Emogene Owens) and William Eddins McMath. Her mother went to Independence to have Ginger away from her husband. She had a baby earlier in their marriage and he ...
42nd Street (1933) Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) The Gay Divorcee (1934) Roberta (1935) Top Hat (1935) Follow the Fleet (1936) Swing Time (1936) Shall We Dance (1937) Stage Door (1937) Carefree (1938) Bachelor Mother (1939) The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) Kitty Foyle (1940) Tom, Dick and Harry (1941) The Major and the Minor (1942) Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) Roxie Hart (1942) Tales of Manhattan (1942) I'll Be Seeing You (1944) Week-end at the Waldorf (1945) The Barkley's of Broadway (1949) Storm Warning (1950) Monkey Business (1952) We're Not Married! (1952) Black Widow (1954) Cinderella (1965) The Green Mile (1999) (arch. foot.)
15. Mae West
Actress | She Done Him Wrong
Mae West was born August 17, 1893 in Brooklyn, New York, to "Battling Jack" West and Matilda Doelger. She began her career as a child star in vaudeville, and later went on to write her own plays, including "SEX", for which she was arrested. Though her first movie role, at age 40, was a small part ...
Night After Night (1932) I'm No Angel (1933) She Done Him Wrong (1933) My Little Chickadee (1940)
16. Vivien Leigh
Actress | A Streetcar Named Desire
If a film were made of the life of Vivien Leigh, it would open in India just before World War I, where a successful British businessman could live like a prince. In the mountains above Calcutta, a little princess is born. Because of the outbreak of World War I, she is six years old the first time ...
Gone With the Wind (1939) Waterloo Bridge (1940) That Hamilton Woman (1941) A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) Ship of Fools (1965)
17. Lillian Gish
Actress | The Night of the Hunter
Lillian Diana Gish was born on October 14, 1893, in Springfield, Ohio. Her father, James Lee Gish, was an alcoholic who caroused, was rarely at home, and left the family to, more or less, fend for themselves. To help make ends meet, Lillian, her sister Dorothy Gish, and their mother, Mary Gish, ...
The Birth of a Nation (1915) Intolerance (1916) Broken Blossoms (1919) Way Down East (1920) Orphans of the Storm (1921) Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) (uncredited) La Boheme (1926) Portrait of Jennie (1948) The Night of the Hunter (1955) Follow Me, Boys! (1966) A Wedding (1978) Sweet Liberty (1986) The Whales of August (1987)
18. Shirley Temple
Actress | The Little Colonel
Shirley Temple was easily the most popular and famous child star of all time. She got her start in the movies at the age of three and soon progressed to super stardom. Shirley could do it all: act, sing and dance and all at the age of five! Fans loved her as she was bright, bouncy and cheerful in ...
Baby, Take a Bow (1934) Bright Eyes (1934) Stand Up and Cheer! (1934) Curly Top (1935) The Little Colonel (1935) The Littlest Rebel (1935) Captain January (1936) Dimples (1936) Stowaway (1936) Heidi (1937) Wee Willie Winkie (1937) Just Around the Corner (1938) Little Miss Broadway (1938) Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938) The Little Princess (1939) Susannah of the Mounties (1939) Blue Bird (1940) Young People (1940) Kathleen (1941) I'll Be Seeing You (1944) Since You Went Away (1944) The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) Fort Apache (1948)
19. Rita Hayworth
Actress | Gilda
Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a dancer as was his father before him. He emigrated from Spain in 1913. Rita's American mother, Volga Margaret (Hayworth), who was of mostly ...
Dante's Inferno (1935) Only Angels Have Wings (1939) Angels Over Broadway (1940) Music in My Heart (1940) The Strawberry Blonde (1941) My Gal Sal (1942) Tales of Manhattan (1942) You Were Never Lovelier (1942) Cover Girl (1944) Tonight and Every Night (1945) Gilda (1946) Down to Earth (1947) The Lady from Shanghai (1947) Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) Salome (1953) Pal Joey (1957) Separate Tables (1958)
20. Lauren Bacall
Actress | To Have and Have Not
Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in New York City. She was the daughter of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a Romanian Jewish immigrant, and William Perske, who was born in New Jersey, to Polish Jewish parents. Her family was middle-class, with her father working as a ...
To Have And Have Not (1944) The Big Sleep (1946) Dark Passage (1947) Key Largo (1948) Young Man With a Horn (1949) How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) Written on the Wind (1956) Designing Woman (1957) The Gift of Love (1958) North West Frontier (1959) Murder on the Orient Express (1974) The Shootist (1976) Misery (1990) The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) Dogville (2003) Birth (2004) Manderlay (2005) The Walker (2007)
21. Sophia Loren
Actress | La ciociara
Sophia Loren was born as Sofia Scicolone at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome on September 20, 1934. Her father Riccardo was married to another woman and refused to marry her mother Romilda Villani, despite the fact that she was the mother of his two children (Sophia and her younger sister ...
Quo Vadis (1951) (uncredited) Attila (1954) Carosello Napoletano (1954) Boy on a Dolphin (1957) The Pride and the Passion (1957) The Black Orchid (1958) Houseboat (1958) Two Women (1960) El Cid (1961) Madame Sans-Gene (1961) Boccaccio '70 (1962) Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) Marriage Italian Style (1964) Arabesque (1966) A Countess From Hong Kong (1967) Sunflower (1970) Man of La Mancha (1972) A Special Day (1977) Brass Target (1978) Grumpier Old Men (1995) Between Strangers (2002)
22. Jean Harlow
Actress | China Seas
Harlean Carpenter, who later became Jean Harlow, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911. She was the daughter of a successful dentist and his wife. In 1927, at the age of 16, she ran away from home to marry a young businessman named Charles McGrew, who was 23. The couple pulled up ...
Hell's Angels (1930) City Lights (1931) (uncredited) The Public Enemy (1931) Red Dust (1932) Red-Headed Woman (1932) Scarface (1932) (uncredited) Bombshell (1933) Dinner At Eight (1933) China Seas (1935) Reckless (1935) Libeled Lady (1936) Wife vs. Secretary (1936)
23. Carole Lombard
Actress | My Man Godfrey
Carole Lombard was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on October 6, 1908. Her parents divorced in 1916 and her mother took the family on a trip out West. While there they decided to settle down in the Los Angeles area. After being spotted playing baseball in the street with the ...
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) (uncredited) Man of the World (1931) No Man of Her Own (1932) Supernatural (1933) Twentieth Century (1934) We're Not Dressing (1934) Hands Across the Table (1935) My Man Godfrey (1936) Nothing Sacred (1937) Made for Each Other (1939) Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) To Be or Not To Be (1942)
24. Mary Pickford
Actress | Coquette
Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to Elsie Charlotte (Hennessy) and John Charles Smith. She was of English and Irish descent. Pickford began in the theater at age seven. Then known as "Baby Gladys Smith", she toured with her family in a number of theater ...
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921) Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) (uncredited) Little Annie Rooney (1925) The Black Pirate (1926) (uncredited) Sparrows (1926) Coquette (1929)
25. Ava Gardner
Actress | The Night of the Iguana
Ava Lavina Gardner was born on December 24, 1922 in Grabtown, North Carolina, to Mary Elizabeth (née Baker) and Jonas Bailey Gardner. Born on a tobacco farm, where she got her lifelong love of earthy language and going barefoot, Ava grew up in the rural South. At age 18, her picture in the window ...
Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) (uncredited) The Killers (1946) The Great Sinner (1949) Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) Show Boat (1951) The Band Wagon (1953) (uncredited) Mogambo (1953) The Barefoot Contessa (1954) The Sun Also Rises (1957) On the Beach (1959) Night of the Iguana, The (1964) Seven Days in May (1964) The Bible: In the Beginning (1966) Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982) (arch. foot.)
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