10 Smartest Decisions Made By Final Girls In Horror Movies

2. The Airlock - Alien

Introduced in 1979's Alien, Ellen Ripley was a no-nonsense officer of the Nostromo. When fellow crewmates Dallas, Lambert and Kane were outside the ship, Ripley was willing to leave them there in order to maintain quarantine procedure. This showed that she was capable of making the hard choices even when it made her unpopular amongst her crew. When the Xenomorph stalked and began killing the team, Ripley steps up to lead the crew.

During the film's third act, Ripley activates the Nostromo's self destruct system as she escapes inside a shuttle. She soon realizes however, that the Alien followed her and is lurking in the craft's walls. Now given a chance to vanquish it, Ripley uses gas to hurt the creature in order for it to come out of hiding. She then activates the shuttle's airlock and harpoons the Xenomorph out of the craft. With the creature latching outside, she uses the ship's engines to fry the beast and kill it for good.

As the first human recorded to encounter the perfect organism, Ripley managed to outsmart one of the galaxy's deadliest creatures and lived to tell the tale. Her level-headedness aided her greatly though her subsequent encounters with the species across the Alien franchise.