As Iron Man kicks off superhero summer FemaleFirst looks back at some of the cinema’s most memorable heroes and villains.Heroes and villains are the central aspect to most movies and, over the years, have provided us with some of the best encounters between two long standing adversaries as Batman faced the Joker and Luke Skywalker battled against Darth Vader. As we begin our countdown we start at number ten with Ellen Ripley and Annie Wilkes.

Hero – Ellen Ripley

Sigourney Weaver’s role of Ellen Ripley in four movies of the Alien franchise broke many gender stereotypes in the science fiction genre by featuring a strong heroine.The film launched Weaver’s career and the success of Alien and the character of Ripley led to her becoming the main thread that ran through the series of movies.She was introduced as a Warrant Officer in 1979’s Alien aboard the Nostromo which was towing raw ore to Earth for the company Weyland–Yutani.

Ripley and the rest of the crew aboard the Nostromo are woken from their hypersleep ten months early when the ship intercepts an unknown signal.

A team leave the ship to investigate and discover an alien space craft on the moon LV-426. An a alien parasite attaches itself to Kane and quarantine regulations are broken in an attempt to save him.

With the creature on board it begins to kill off the crew one by one until Ripley, who has began the vessel's self-destruct sequence, blows the creature out of the escape ship’s airlock.

Aliens picks up where alien left off and Ripley has been in hypersleep for fifty seven years.

She is held responsible for the destruction of the Nostromo by Weyland–Yutani and she leads a team back to LV-426.

In Alien 3 Ripley sacrifices herself to prevent Weyland-Yutani from getting their hands on the Queen Alien that is inside her.

She returns in Alien Resurrection, but not as the original Ripley, but as clone Ripley 8. The future of Ripley 8 at the end of the film is unknown.

Villain: Annie Wilkes

The factionary character of Annie Wilkes was famously played by Kathy Bates in the big screen adaptation of Stephen King’s novel in 1990.

Wilkes, a nurse, saves the life of author Paul Sheldon when he is crippled in a car accident and takes him to her home.

Sheldon is the writer of Wilkes’ favourite romance novels, which star Misery Chastain, her favourite literary character. When she discovers that Sheldon will be ending the series of Misery novels with his latest release, in which Misery dies, Wilkes subjects a bedridden Sheldon to a string of physical and psychological tortures.

She breaks his ankles with a sledgehammer so he cannot escape and forces him to write a new novel which brings Misery back to life.

While Sheldon is unable to escape he finds a scrapbook that gives him detail of Wilkes’ life.

She was tried for the murder of several infants in her care, but was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

He also learns that she had killed patients in other hospital in which she had worked as well as childhood neighbours and her own father – in total almost forty people.

For her performance Kathy Bates won the Oscar for Best Actress.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw