10) Rebecca Ferguson – Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation
Rebecca Ferguson was no stranger to the small screen before this year, making waves in Scandinavian television as early as 1999, before breaking out in British TV in The White Queen in 2013. But undoubtedly her breakout cinematic moment came in Mission Impossible 5. The reason she stands out, even amongst that film’s gallery of stars? How about the fact that she kicks arse so hard that she looks as though she could teach the plane-riding, skyscraper-scaling Tom Cruise a thing or two?
[zergpaid]MI5‘s Ilsa Faust isn’t written with any particular complexity – on the page, she’s designed as Ethan Hunt’s female match and little more. Credit to Ferguson for hinting at such an inner life then and for making the character so much more bright and captivating than the script would have it. That Ferguson will return for MI6, the first Mission Impossible film to feature a recurring female character, tells you everything you need to know.