12 Best Female Movie Characters Of 2016

German director Maren Ade’s critically acclaimed, Academy Award shortlisted film Toni Erdmann focuses on the fractured relationship between an estranged father and daughter and his comical attempts to fix it. Veteran Austrian actor Peter Simonischek is hilarious as the aging hippy father with a penchant for practical jokes but this is a list about ladies in film so let’s talk about the daughter character, Ines Conradi, expertly played by German actress Sandra Hüller.

An ambitious and straight-laced business executive navigating her way through the corporate world’s glass ceilings, Ines delivers all too knowing lines like ‘I’m not a feminist or I wouldn’t tolerate guys like you’ to her male colleagues but is ultimately dissatisfied with her life. Though with the help of her father she begins to loosen up, and by the end of the film is blasting out karaoke renditions of the Whitney Houston classic The Greatest Love of All and hosting business brunches in the nude. It’s a funny, sad and sweet film about the alienating experience that the modern corporate world can be made all the more brilliant by the very real female protagonist at its heart.