5. Nicole Kidman
In 1995's To Die For, Nicole Kidman's small-town weather girl
Suzanne Stone Maretto wants to be a national TV star in the worst
way, and she gets her wish when her murder trial becomes a media
circus. Kidman gives her a comical but chilling edge; she plays
Suzanne as a perky Barbie doll with a frozen smile. She'll do
anything for fame, including seducing a naïve teen (Joaquin
Phoenix) into killing her husband (Matt Dillon). Fittingly, To Die
For was the first movie that showed Kidman was not just
then-husband Tom Cruise's arm candy but a skilled actress who
deserved to be a star on her own merits.
4. Jane Greer
World-weary Robert Mitchum is nobody's fool, but in 1947's Out of
the Past, he makes the mistake of getting entangled with Kathie
Moffat (Greer), who entraps him in a snare of sex, embezzlement,
and murder. Then he gets involved with her a second time, knowing
full well what's in store, because he can't help himself. ''You're
no good, and neither am I,'' she tells him. ''That's why we deserve
each other.'' Nearly 40 years later, in the pallid 1984 remake
Against All Odds, Greer plays the character's mother. She's still
striking, still just as dangerous.
3. Kathleen Turner
The old let's-kill-my-husband-for-the-insurance-money plot has been
done many times, but no one has given it as much carnal heat as
Turner does in her starmaking film debut, 1981's Body Heat. Her
character, Matty, finds the perfect patsy in Ned (William Hurt), a
seedy lawyer. ''You're not to bright, are you?'' she purrs. ''I
like that in a man.'' Soon, the sultry Matty is leading Ned around
by the genitals literally, in one scene, where she reaches below
the frame and pulls him along like a puppy on a leash. Ned will pay
dearly, of course, but he certainly seems to enjoy the ride while
it lasts.
2. Linda Fiorentino
Really, it's not even fair. None of the men in 1994's The Last
Seduction is any match for Fiorentino's con artist Bridget Gregory
not her similarly larcenous husband (Bill Pullman), nor the
feckless white-collar drone (Peter Berg) she hooks up with after
she runs off with hubby's ill-gotten gains. She's smarter and
greedier than everyone else, with a gift for improvising her way
out of trouble, and unburdened by any trace of regret, compassion,
or regard for the lives of others. She should be a hissable
villain, but in Fiorentino's performance, the standout role of her
career, Bridget is darkly funny, an unlikely superwoman beset on
all sides by rubes.
1. Barbara Stanwyck
Stanwyck pretty much invented the femme fatale with her role in
1944's Double Indemnity, a film written by three of the most
hard-boiled scribes in Hollywood history: Billy Wilder, Raymond
Chandler, and James M. Cain (whose The Postman Always Rings Twice,
which has a similar plot, provided an unforgettable femme fatale
role for Lana Turner and, later, Jessica Lange). Of all the dames
who ever convinced some poor sap to kill her husband for the
insurance money, Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson is the slinkiest,
the scariest, and the least remorseful. This is a woman who can
make shopping at the grocery store seem sexy and dangerous.
