Strong female characters are pushing the boundaries of Hollywood cinema

Snow White and The Huntsman: Winter's War

Hollywood is heading for a gender-balanced future. Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn announced on International Day of the Girl (October 14) that the film's upcoming sequel will have prominent storylines for female characters.

"I am sick of stories where there are a bunch of fully realised male characters and one female character, whose primary characteristic is simply being 'the girl' or the personality-less object of some man's affections.

Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange

I'm not sick of this because I'm politically correct - those of you who know me know I am far from that - but because it's boring," the filmmaker wrote on social media. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will see Zoe Saldana and Karen Gillan returning to reprise their roles along with Chris Pratt in May 2017.

All-female cast
The spate of new heroines in American movies can kick ass, be intelligent, look beautiful and tough, breaking the one-dimensional mould. The recent remake of supernatural comedy Ghostbusters was a feminist revival, starring an all-girl gang.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Sigourney Weaver brought on the laughs while busting ghosts. Another film with an all-women cast is doing the rounds of international film festivals.

Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar - well-known for his exploration and portrayal of the female point-of-view - is out with the slice-of-life movie Julieta, which has Emma Suárez and Adriana Ugarte playing an older and younger version of the same woman.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Westerns and war movies
Fairytale film, Snow White And The Huntsman: Winter's War was led by a cast of three gorgeous A-listers - Charlize Theron, Jessica Chastain and Emily Blunt. Natalie Portman shattered the notion of westerns casting women as victims or sex workers. In Jane In Jane Got A Gun, she played a gunslinger out to defend her injured husband from a vengeful outlaw. The recent Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was a satirical autobiography of war journalist Kim Baker.

It featured comedienne Tina Fey and Margot Robbie as rival war correspondents in Afghanistan at the height of the US attempt to modernise their country. In fact, Robbie was subversive as Harley Quinn in the action film, Suicide Squad. She was the girl that Batman's arch-enemy, the Joker would go weak in the knees for.

Spanish language film Julieta

Robbie's sexy Harley Quinn was more ruthless than the Joker. Women in Victorian times could be equally ruthless proved the film, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. This re-imagining of Jane Austen's novel had the Bennett sisters taking their societal norm-slaying to a whole new level.

Pivotal roles
Gender-bending Tilda Swinton will be playing the character of Doctor Strange's mystic mentor, The Ancient One. Felicity Jones is Rebel Alliance fighter Jyn Erso at the centre of the Star Wars spin-off Rogue One. Earlier this year, Renée Zellweger played the title role in a different kind of female-centric movie, the light-hearted Bridget Jones's Baby. The single life and career of the endearing Bridget Jones is interrupted when she finds herself pregnant.

Jane Got A Gun

What sums up this change towards multi-dimensional women in cinema is perhaps Dr Louise Banks in sci-fi parable, Arrival. Amy Adams leads the cast as a linguist who has the responsibility of translating an alien language in order to prevent a war. If man made war, only a woman could avert it.

Margot Robbie in Suicide Squad

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot