Sigourney Weaver is a sci-fi legend. She has played prominent roles in more than one massive franchise throughout her career, from Alien to Ghostbusters. Audiences can continue to debate which of Weaver’s movies is the best, but the critics at Rotten Tomatoes have already spoken.
A review of the Tomatometer’s top ten Sigourney Weaver films (omitting documentaries) brings beloved classics and old favorites alike, including some roles that may have gone under the radar. They are all must-watch movies, and the fight for the top spot is contentious.
10 ‘The Ice Storm’ (1997)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 86%
The Ice Storm is praised for its accurate and unrelenting portrayal of upper-middle-class suburbanites in the 1970s and the alienation they experience, culminating in an ice storm that brings their emotional coldness to the physical world. Sigourney Weaver plays a woman with whom the protagonist cheats on his wife in pursuit of some kind of satisfaction.
Weaver’s tenth-highest-rated movie is a three-way tie according to the Tomatometer, but The Ice Storm comes out on top because of its high audience score (82%), compared to A Monster Calls(81%) and Cedar Rapids(59%).
9 ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’ (1982)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%
Weaver plays a British diplomat opposite Mel Gibson‘s journalist searching for information and contacts in Jakarta, Indonesia. As the country heads toward a communist uprising, Gibson’s character faces threats the more he asks questions about the government, but he stays to pursue his story nonetheless.
Both Sigourney Weaver and Mel Gibson received acclaim for their performances in this adventure-romance film. Dissenters lament some slower story beats, but the movie was generally well-received for its acting, romance, political intrigue, and atmosphere.
8 ‘Galaxy Quest’ (1999)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%
Washed-up actors from a 1970s science fiction program barely scrape by when they are thrust into a real adventure. Aliens get hold of their TV show and, believing it to be a documentary, abduct the actors for help fighting back against the oppressive government of their home solar system.
Galaxy Quest has become a cult classic. Fans love this satirical spoof of sci-fi staples like Star Trek for its mixture of humor and heart. Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and others traipse through all the science fiction clichés in what amounts to a playful tribute to the genre’s fans.
7 ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ (2011)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%
Five college friends vacation at a far-flung forest cabin where zombies pick them off. All the while, a pair of scientists in a laboratory seems to be controlling the monsters, but the nature of their organization remains unclear until Sigourney Weaver shows up.
Weaver plays The Director in what is considered one of the best horror comedies of all time. She leads the mysterious organization from the shadows until the final act. Audiences enjoyed the movie’s self-aware humor and its balance of genre conventions with genuinely unexpected twists.
6 ‘Finding Dory’ (2016)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%
Finding Doryis the hit sequel to a cultural touchstone, Finding Nemo. Dory, a blue tang fish who is as friendly as she is forgetful, sets out on an adventure to find her missing parents. She ends up at the Marine Life Institute, where Sigourney Weaver’s voice welcomes visitors and comforts the sea creatures housed inside.
The story of how Sigourney Weaver ended up in Finding Dory starts as a gag from director Andrew Stanton, who never thought it would make it to theaters. He considered Weaver the “default voice” for nature documentaries due to her work on Planet Earth and at the California Academy of Sciences. What began as an inside joke eventually became a larger part of the story, and in the final cut, all the fish in the aquarium believe Sigourney Weaver to be their friend.
5 ‘Ghostbusters’ (1984)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%
Three scientists who lose their jobs decide to invent new gadgets to fight ghosts for profit. But when their crusade against the supernatural leads them to discover an interdimensional portal, the newly-formed Ghostbusters must find a way to stop ghastly evil from running rampant on the streets of New York.
Weaver plays two roles, one as Dana Barrett and the other as the spirit that possesses her body, Zuul the Gate Keeper. When it was released, Ghostbusterswas praised for its special effects, the wacky tone of its world, and Bill Murray‘s performance. The franchise has proved massively popular, getting a sequel, a cartoon series, plentiful merchandise, and a reboot in 2016.
4 ‘Dave’ (1993)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%
This political comedy tells the story of a classic switcheroo. The White House Chief of Staff (played by Frank Langella) swaps out the president for a lookalike at a photo opportunity but makes the change permanent after the president suffers a stroke — without telling anyone. The First Lady (played by Sigourney Weaver) and the rest of the country soon catch wind that something isn’t right.
Dave is a goofy film, but that’s exactly why audiences and critics enjoy it. It comes across as charming and smart and delivers audiences a satisfying victory without falling into the trap of being preachy or partisan, as movies revolving around politics sometimes do.
3 ‘WALL-E’ (2008)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%
The eponymous protagonist of WALL-E is the last robot left to clean up the Earth for humanity’s eventual return. But when he falls for EVE, a probe sent by the humans to assess Earth’s habitability, he finds himself on a galaxy-spanning adventure as he follows her back to where she came from.
WALL-E is hailed as one of Pixar’s greatest movies yet. Sigourney Weaver voices the computer onboard the Axiom, the ship housing the humans, in a role that might fly under the radar of her fans. This voiceover part is where she first met director Andrew Stanton, for whom she would later perform another small voice role in Finding Dory.
2 ‘Aliens’ (1986)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%
Lieutenant Ellen Ripley is rescued from cryo-sleep after drifting through space for fifty-seven years following the events of Alien (1979). She is recruited to investigate a colony that has ceased communication and where she knows alien eggs were planted. When they arrive, they find a single surviving human girl and hundreds of aliens.
Aliens was loved by audiences and critics, who especially praised its mounting tension, genre-bending story, and Weaver’s performance. It successfully avoids the pitfalls that so many Hollywood sequels cannot, and it stands alone as a great movie with sci-fi fans watching it over and over. Other critics applaud the movie’s ahead-of-its-time portrayal of a woman starring in a gritty action role, particularly one in which she fights to protect her daughter-figure.
1 ‘Alien’ (1979)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%
The crew of the starship Nostromo is awakened from their stasis chambers early to address a distress beacon from an alien vessel. On board, they find strange eggs, one of which hatches. The thing inside attaches itself to one of the crew, but when they bring him back to the Nostromo for medical attention, they inadvertently bring a deadly alien back.
Alien has become a modern classic. It is lauded for its fusion of genres, special effects, and acting: it’s a movie that propelled the careers of just about everyone involved. Most notably, it cemented Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley as one of the most iconic sci-fi protagonists of all time for her grit, intelligence, and humanity.