With Rooney Mara (Youth in Revolt) set to star as rebellious hacker Lisbeth Salander in David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo next week, we thought we’d take a look back at past female badasses in cinematic history. Noomi Rapace nailed the role in the original Swedish version, so Mara will have a lot to live up to. Not only will she be compared to the performance of her predecessor, but also to the relatively few female heroines that came before her. Will Mara equal or surpass Rapace? Can she hang with the baddest ladies in movie history? Will she impress us enough to fight her way to the top? Hit the jump to check out our selection of the five most badass female leads of all time.

“See what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps?”  This is the type of incomprehensible sentence that results when Broadcast Standards and Practices decide that a particular piece of dialogue is too salty for television.  The above example is from the edited-for-TV version of The Big Lebowski, which is included in a clip alongside similar instances from Snakes on a Plane, The Usual Suspects, The Departed, Scarface, Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, Basic Instinct, There’s Something About Mary, Beverly Hills Cop, Casino, Goodfellas, and Wild Things.  Check it out after the jump; be warned of NSFW language.