7: Elisabeth Shaw - Prometheus (2012)
Space-age heroine Elizabeth Shaw leads an expedition into the unknown in Ridley Scott's sci-fi epic Prometheus and conforms to the number one rule for any screen hero. Be alive at the end. She manages to cheat certain death and out-wit an alien on steroids. She even manages to find the time to squeeze in a little cosmetic surgery and lose some extra weight she picked up. But how does a mere archaeologist accomplish all of this? The answer is simpler than the plot. She is secretly one giant know-it-all nerd. This archaeologist can presumably identify artefacts from man's history but she can also perform an autopsy on an alien head (??) she can competently lead an away team on a alien planet and she even shows sufficient physical coordination when it comes to dodging giant polo mints, something the more assertive and capable Vickers fails to do. If she wasn't some kind of super space-age nerd she would have been dead long ago.