The female actor with the most on-screen kills
There have long been debates surrounding the amount of violence shown on screen, with many people believing that too much is harmful, leading to incidents of real-life violence. While there is certainly evidence that the movies have inspired real crimes or that we are more likely to be desensitised to violence after seeing it on the big screen, can that really be all to blame?
Plenty of people remain unaffected by cinematic depictions of violence – it usually takes a wealth of other factors to cause someone to act as violently as their favourite movie character. Still, our passive consumption of violence is something that is fascinating to analyse, as Michael Haneke did with his movie Funny Games.
The 1997 film dissects the way we consume movie violence, playing with the audience by directly addressing us through fourth wall breaks, asking us to think about our participation in the characters’ suffering and torture. While the movie doesn’t condemn depictions of violence in cinema, it asks us to think about it more actively.
There are some films and franchises out there that revel in incessant brutality and death, racking up significant kill counts as a result. Action stars such as Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have both killed hundreds of people on screen over the years, although Samuel L. Jackson is actually the reigning champion with 1,734 kills.
The list of actors who have sliced and diced their way to the top is mainly the result of performances in action movies rather than horror, interestingly. The list (via Stats Panda) is also overwhelmingly androcentric due to the dominance of male action heroes, with only one woman making the top ten.
However, this female star comes in at number two with a whopping 1,299 kills. The title of ‘female actor with the most on-screen kills’ goes to Milla Jovovich, who rose to prominence after starring in the action film The Fifth Element.
The actor secured her place as one of cinema’s most prolific killers after landing the role of Alice in Resident Evil, with the first instalment in the franchise coming in 2002. Talking to Variety, she revealed that before she accepted the part, she barely had any female action heroes to look up to apart from Sigourney Weaver, although “it’s so normal for women to be in action films” now.
Jovovich’s portrayal of Alice is partly responsible for the increase in female action stars now found in cinema, with the actor proving to be more than capable than her male counterparts – the stats clearly prove it. Alongside her role in Resident Evil, she has also killed people in movies such as Joan of Arc, in which she played the titular martyr and Hellboy.
