Top 10 Femme Fatale Movies of All Time

What exactly is a femme fatale? They’re women in cinema who are just as alluring as they are evil. The phrase itself literally translates to “deadly woman”. ”They’re devious, they’re beautiful, they’re irresistible — and they’ll probably ruin your life. Here are all the best femme fatale characters in cinema who won’t stop haunting your dreams.

Basic Instinct

In this movie, classic beauty Sharon Stone plays Catherine Tramell, who can seduce everyone — even the detective investigating her. On the surface, she’s a promiscuous, sex-obsessed woman — every man’s dream, right? Except if she’s not sleeping with you, she might just kill you. Actually, she could do both. Every guy’s fantasy turned into their worst nightmare — a true femme fatale.

Gone Girl

Amy Dunne, played by Rosamund Pike, plays a complex femme fatale character that we absolutely love, since it takes us inside the femme fatale mind, making it more relatable. The whole film is a suspenseful question of whether her husband murdered her, or if she framed him to make it look like that? While she’s pulling the strings of ruining his life, it was done as a response to him cheating on her with one of his young, hot students. Yeah, we’d probably do the same.

A Simple Favor

On the surface, this film is about two best friends, Stephanie and Emily. Stephanie has a parenting vlog, and Emily is a secretive member of upper-class society — the two of them have children that attend the same school. After Emily goes missing, her friend investigates. But is Emily really missing at all? Under the surface, this wealthy mother hides something more sinister beneath the surface, and she’ll go to any length to get what she wants.

Mr & Mrs Smith

This assassin movie is notorious for the real-life affairs that went on behind the scenes, but with a movie helmed by real-life femme-fatale Angelina Jolie, this role was basically made for her. She plays an assassin, who is assigned to hunt down her fellow assassin husband. Love, comedy, action — this flick really has it all.