15 Best Sigourney Weaver Movies, Ranked (original) (raw)
Updated Aug 22, 2024, 11:00 AM EDT
Jeremy has more than 2500 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
His favorite directors include Martin Scorsese, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, John Woo, Bob Fosse, Fritz Lang, Guillermo del Toro, and Yoji Yamada. He's also very proud of the fact that he's seen every single Nicolas Cage movie released before 2022, even though doing so often felt like a tremendous waste of time. He's plagued by the question of whether or not The Room is genuinely terrible or some kind of accidental masterpiece, and has been for more than 12 years (and a similar number of viewings).
When he's not writing lists - and the occasional feature article - for Collider, he also likes to upload film reviews to his Letterboxd profile (username: Jeremy Urquhart) and Instagram account.
He has achieved his 2025 goal of reading all 13,467 novels written by Stephen King, and plans to spend the next year or two getting through the author's 82,756 short stories and 105,433 novellas.
Sigourney Weaver has been active as an actress since the 1970s, rising to prominence quite rapidly at the end of that decade while being well-recognized and popular ever since. Weaver's filmography is defined by having quite a large number of action/sci-fi (or "genre") movies in it, but by no means is it restricted to mass-appeal, blockbuster entertainment, as a handful of the following movies will hopefully help to demonstrate.
She slips into seemingly any kind of movie, regardless of its scale or genre, and is particularly beloved for the badass/strong female characters she's played within genres that were (or maybe even are) male-dominated. Selecting just a few of her greatest roles will lead to omissions, of course, but the following aims to showcase the very best of the best.
15 'Working Girl' (1988)
Appeared as Katharine Parker
Melanie Griffith looks at Sigourney Weaver with surprise as she is embraced by Weaver, her duplicitous boss, in Working Girl.
image via 20th Century Fox
Working Girl is entirely a film of its time, and doesn’t hold up as well as some other romantic dramedies from its era… but there’s enough here to understand why it nevertheless has fans. It's a Mike Nichols-directed movie about the corporate world in the 1980s, following a secretary (Melanie Griffith) determinedly trying to work her way up in the world, clashing with her boss in the process.
Said boss is played by Sigourney Weaver in one of her three Oscar-nominated performances (funnily enough, all of those came out between 1986 and 1988). Working Girl can be read as empowering in some ways, or frustratingly uncritical of certain things regarding work/business on the other hand. Or, on an unexpected third hand (maybe see a doctor about that), one can simply enjoy it as a lightweight rom-com with a little heart… the last of those is probably the best option, really.
Release Date
December 21, 1988
Runtime
113 Minutes
Director
14 'Alien 3' (1992)
Appeared as Ellen Ripley
A Xenomorph opens its mouth right next to Ripley's head in 'Alien 3'
Image via 20th Century Studios
One of many films in the Alien series, Alien 3 isn't up there as one of the best, but neither can it be considered one of the worst. It is a sometimes frustrating movie that can also be admired for the risks it takes, not to mention praised for the way it looks and feels; it’s effectively atmospheric, dark, somber, and unpredictable, as far as science fiction/horror movies go.
It had a lot to live up to considering the first two Alien movies, and didn’t reach the same heights, but Sigourney Weaver is giving it her all in her return to playing Ripley, and David Fincher clearly had a vision that was somewhat realized. Alien 3 is certainly worth watching. It’s unlikely to be your favorite Alien movie, but, flaws aside, big creative swings should be celebrated more often than not.
Release Date
May 22, 1992
Runtime
114 minutes
Director
13 'Gorillas in the Mist' (1988)
Appeared as Dian Fossey
Like Working Girl, Gorillas in the Mist was a 1988 movie that saw Sigourney Weaver get an Oscar nomination; here for Best Actress, while the Working Girl nomination was in the Supporting Actress category. It’s a decent biographical film that features Weaver playing primatologist/conservationist Dian Fossey, who wrote the memoir upon which the film is based just two years before her still-unsolved murder near the end of 1985.
Fossey is a rather complex figure whose life, while not particularly long, was dramatic enough to make condensing what she did into a single movie rather difficult. Gorillas in the Mist might be a little too simple for some as a result, but it’s an interesting enough look at Fossey’s life and work in Africa, even if it is rather content to just scratch the surface.
12 '1492: Conquest of Paradise' (1992)
Appeared as Queen Isabella I
Another film about a historical figure who’s a little difficult to talk about, 1492: Conquest of Paradise is a flawed but oftentimes impressive movie about Christopher Columbus and his expedition to America. It was released 500 years on from the event in question and does give the Hollywood treatment to a rather difficult and debated time in history, for better or worse.
But 1492: Conquest of Paradise is a spectacular-looking movie, it’s quite stirring and exciting at times, and the score by Vangelis is excellent. Weaver plays Queen Isabella I, who sets Columbus forth on his expedition, with Columbus himself somewhat oddly being played by Gérard Depardieu. As mentioned before, it’s flawed… but Ridley Scott still directed something suitably epic here, and the spectacle does ultimately deliver more than you may have been led to believe.
11 'Death and the Maiden' (1994)
Appeared as Paulina Escobar
Coming out during the incredible year for cinema that was 1994, Death and the Maiden is a well-regarded but somewhat lesser-known title within Sigourney Weaver’s filmography. It’s something of a psychological thriller with a heavy dose of mystery for good measure, with Weaver playing a woman who believes a guest at her house once tortured her – while she was blindfolded – much earlier in her life, and for an extended period of time.
So, the tables kind of get turned, and Death and the Maiden sees her trying to figure out the truth while holding the man with a (potentially) dark past captive in her own home. It’s a confined film that uses claustrophobia to build tension, with Sigourney Weaver being great alongside the always reliable Ben Kingsley, who plays the captive man.
10 'The Year of Living Dangerously' (1982)
Appeared as Jill Bryant
While not super well-known by today’s standards, The Year of Living Dangerously is nonetheless a fairly good romantic drama with an early Sigourney Weaver performance that helped demonstrate her acting range. She plays a British woman living in Indonesia during the 1960s, at a time of civil unrest, with much of the film revolving around the relationship that develops between her and an Australian journalist played by Mel Gibson.
Gibson and Weaver were two big-name actors both on the rise throughout the 1980s, and they do manage to have strong chemistry here as the lead characters in The Year of Living Dangerously. Still, it’s arguably an Oscar-winning Linda Hunt who steals the movie, here completely disappearing into the role of a male photographer who also befriends Gibson’s character.Rent on Apple TV
9 'Be Kind Rewind' (2008)
Appeared as Ms. Lawson
Image via New Line Cinema
Several years after directing the intense Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, filmmaker Michel Gondry waded into slightly less harrowing waters with the flawed but endearing Be Kind Rewind. It’s a quirky dramedy that feels unmistakably 2000s in hindsight and has a very intriguing premise that follows two men who have to remake a whole host of films on a low budget after an accident destroys every tape in an old video rental store.
The leads of Be Kind Rewind are Jack Black and Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def), but the film also boasts an impressive supporting cast that includes Danny Glover, Mia Farrow, and Sigourney Weaver. Weaver’s featured here in a villainous role, playing a rather uncaring Hollywood executive who disapproves of the low-budget remakes because it purportedly infringes copyright. She’s surprisingly good in what’s ultimately a fairly small role, with the film as a whole being creative and decently fun.
8 'Avatar: The Way of Water' (2022)
Appeared as Kiri
Sigourney Weaver in Avatar: The Way of Water
Image via Disney
While Avatar: The Way of Water might not rank as one of the absolute best movies of the 2020s so far critically, it certainly stands out for being the most successful commercially. It was the long-awaited sequel to James Cameron’s original from 2009, sending audiences back to Pandora with a narrative about Jake Sully now raising a family with Neytiri 10+ years on from the events of the first movie.
Numerous characters who were shown to have died in the first movie return here, with this sometimes being explained clearly (as with how the first movie’s villain was brought back), but the way Weaver’s character of Grace was “reborn” as Kiri is probably going to be further explained in later movies. Still, it allows Sigourney Weaver to return to the series in some capacity, here essentially “playing” a character who’s more than 50 years younger than her in real life, thanks to performance capture.
Release Date
December 16, 2022
Runtime
192 minutes
Director
James Cameron
7 'The Cabin in the Woods' (2011)
Appeared as The Director
Sigourney Weavers as The Director
Image via Lionsgate
Perhaps a little like Be Kind Rewind, Sigourney Weaver only shows up toward the end of The Cabin in the Woods, and in something of a villainous role, too (depending on how you look at it). Given The Cabin in the Woods takes so many unexpected turns, and has a wild final act, it’s probably for the best not to go into too much more detail (some might even say that mentioning Weaver being in it would be something of a spoiler).
Still, her part in The Cabin in the Woods might be fairly minor overall, but it comes in the midst of some of the film’s most impactful and surprising scenes, and Weaver makes the most of what screen time she has. It’s a great movie overall, being tense, exciting, and bitingly satirical in many ways, with Sigourney Weaver being one small yet crucial piece of why the entire movie works so well.
Release Date
April 13, 2012
Runtime
95 minutes
Director
Drew Goddard
6 'Galaxy Quest' (1999)
Appeared as Gwen DeMarco
Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and Tim Allen in Galaxy Quest
Image via DreamWorks SKG
Appropriately enough, Galaxy Quest is something of a cult science fiction movie that’s about a (fictional) cult classic sci-fi TV series. Sigourney Weaver is part of a cast that also includes Tim Allen, Sam Rockwell, and Alan Rickman, all themselves playing actors of said fictional sci-fi series who are mistaken for real heroes by an alien race, and then get made to participate in a genuine outer-space conflict.
It might all sound a bit silly, but Galaxy Quest takes this premise and makes it work, effectively feeling a little like Three Amigos in space, which was The Magnificent Seven but a comedy, which was Seven Samurai but set during Old West times. Everyone in Galaxy Quest gets time to shine, it’s a fun and heartwarming movie, and it manages to be an effective parody without ever feeling mean-spirited towards the things it gently makes fun of.
Release Date
December 25, 1999
Runtime
102 minutes
Director