20 best sci-fi movies featuring women

6. Star Wars: Rogue One

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a mega-hit in 2015. Daisy Ridley scored a serious role in the film as Rey, a mysterious Force-sensitive woman living on the desert planet of Jakku. She eventually crosses paths with Finn (John Boyega), a renegade stormtrooper, and the dashing pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac). Rey’s self-sufficiency and cool Jedi-like powers were more than enough to make her an admirable character and role model for young girls and women alike.

Still, as much as I and any other Star Wars fan are apt to love Rey, I’m actually opting for someone else from the modern Star Wars canon. So, let’s talk about Jyn Erso.

Jyn (Felicity Jones) is the lead of Star Wars: Rogue One, the first standalone film in the series. As such, Rogue One is very different in tone, with a darker outlook and noticeable lack of the famous opening text crawl.

Jyn herself is both brash and reserved, thanks to a traumatic childhood. If your father was effectively kidnapped by the Empire and forced to design the Death Star, you’d probably feel the same way. That doesn’t stop her from taking on some distinctly Han Solo-ish overtones. On a superficial level, she has a similar kind of distance and worn style sported by Solo. She’s also emotionally distant and decidedly reluctant to get involved in the Rebel Alliance.

At the end of the day, Jyn is a cynical rogue who will nevertheless do the right thing. On an emotional level, she’s more complicated than Rey, though Jyn’s close-ended story is far less happy.