The New York Times declared 2012 the Year of Hollywood's Heroine Worship, and we have to agree. Click through our gallery to see nine of the hottest.
The actress donned the cat suit with fierce style and some major high-kicks in Dark Knight Rises, and exercised totally different acting muscles in Les Misérables.
This rebel not only made us laugh in 2012, she stood behind her fuller figure with some serious courage and OK, a few fat-girl jokes here and there, in Pitch Perfect.
The Brit-Aussie actress perseveres as a strong, brave mother in The Impossible.
The former princess stunned as the forbidding wife of a cult leader in The Master.
The star of TV's Scandal holds her own on the big screen as a slave in the upcoming Django Unchained alongside Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Always a shining star in period dramas, the actress does it again in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.
Playing an idealistic British teenager caught up in family trauma and politics in '60s London, the young actress is a vision in Ginger and Rosa.
The Oscar winner was doubly impressive this year, thanks to her work in The Dark Knight Rises and Rust and Bone.
Jump over to the Times to see more of 2012's hottest movie heroines.