Films where female villains use sexuality to challenge patriarchy in morally grey ways, inspiring both sympathy and suspicion?

Female villains who use their sexuality as a means of power, often referred to as femme fatales, tend to be reduced to one-dimensional figures, but some transcend the trope to become complex, morally ambiguous characters.

One of the most compelling examples of this for me is Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct (1992). Catherine’s character is a brilliant subversion of patriarchal norms. Her manipulation of male power structures is achieved through her psychological mastery of those around her, especially men. One of the most iconic scenes in the film—the infamous interrogation scene—is an introduction to a character who knows exactly how to establish dominance within patriarchal structures. In that scene she turns the interrogation, a space where she should be powerless, into one where she controls the gaze and the minds of the men trying to dominate her.

She is acutely aware of how society views her as a woman, particularly as a woman who is both beautiful and dangerous, and she uses this to her advantage. She plays a more intricate game than the average femme fatale, using her intellect as one of many tools to navigate a male-dominated world. Her power is in her intellect and capacity to bend people’s perceptions of her to her will​. Her layered psychological games blur the lines between predator and prey. As a result, she elicits both sympathy and suspicion, making us question her true motives at every turn. Is she a victim, a perpetrator, or a secret third option? This moral complexity is what makes her a true subverter of patriarchal expectations, setting her apart from more typical femme fatales, and it’s what makes her such a fascinating character to study.

Think of Phyllis Dietrichson from Double Indemnity (1944), an example of a femme fatale who uses her sexuality in a more overt way. Phyllis manipulates salesman Walter Neff into helping her murder her husband for money, and her seduction of him is calculated, without the kind of intellectual nuance you can observe in Catherine Tramell. Phyllis is driven by greed, using her beauty to achieve her goals. Unlike Catherine, who seems psychologically stimulated by her games and leaves the audience questioning her motives, perhaps even empathizing with her at times, Phyllis is a more transparent figure of manipulation. Her seduction is her primary means of power—a blunt tool for getting what she wants.

While Double Indemnity is a brilliant film and Phyllis an iconic character, I am using her as an example for the more traditional, one-dimensional femme fatale that contrasts with Catherine Tramell’s layered, morally ambiguous portrayal. This distinction highlights the kind of character I’m interested in studying—female deuteragonists who, like Catherine, use their sexuality as part of a broader strategy, and whose morals remain ambiguous. I’m looking for films that feature femme fatales who manipulate the systems around them through intelligence and cunning, women who inspire contradictory sentiments, navigating power structures in ways that challenge the viewer’s expectations of right and wrong.

What are some other examples of films that feature similarly complex female villains, characters who use seduction in intricate, morally ambiguous ways to subvert the male-dominated worlds they inhabit?