When Thelma and Louise outfought the men who had tormented them, women across America discovered what male fans of action movies have long known - the empowering rush of movie violence. Yet the duo's escapades also provoked censure across a wide range of viewers, from conservatives who felt threatened by the up-ending of women's traditional roles to feminists who saw the pair's use of male-style violence as yet another instance of women's co-option by the patriarchy. This study of violent women in movies makes feminist sense of violent women in films from Hollywood to Hong Kong, from top-grossing to direct-to-video, and from cop-action movies to X-rated skin flicks. Contributors from a variety of disciplines analyse violent women's respective places in the history of cinema, in the lives of viewers, and in the feminist response to male violence against women.