Frequently referred to as being the 'queen of sci-fi', Sigourney Weaver's reputation for playing the no-nonsense, steel-willed Ripley in the Alien franchise has led to the actor being recognised as one of the first and greatest lead female characters in any film series. Weaver's starring role in the original Alien not only cemented her fame among fans of science fiction though, her performance, along with Ridley Scott's directorial prowess directly contributed to the genre becoming a mainstream one. Ripley is undoubtedly Weaver's most famous role to date, but it's certainly not her only one, and it's all too easy easy to overlook some of her other equally brilliant performances due to the massive shadow cast by the xenomorph horde. The characters of Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters and Grace Augustine in Avatar both continued Weaver's successful status as a science fiction icon, but the genre is by no means the only one Weaver should be known for. Films like Copycat and Heartbreakers proved that Weaver isn't just a one-tick pony, with the former having her play an agoraphobic criminal profiler and the latter one part of a mother-daughter con artist team. There's certainly no shortage of critically and commercially successful films starring Weaver, and unlike many actors in Hollywood today, her great films far outweigh the bad. Weaver's record isn't spotless though, there's certainly some stinkers that are present on her large filmography. Nobody has a perfect work record, but Sigourney Weaver certainly has one of the greatest ones you'll ever see. To celebrate her return to working with Ridley Scott in his latest movie Exodus: Gods & Kings, Weaver becomes the latest candidate in our 5 Awesome Performances & 5 That Sucked series;
Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.
