The other night I toddled off to the NFT to watch The Women. It's one of Julie Burchill's favourite films, mainly for the razor sharp, unrelenting, claws-out bitching, and the 1939 film features an all female cast of 130 – including star turns from Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and Joan Fontaine. A feat unheard of before and rarely since.

Powerful female characters are flung across the screen from every corner, and it offers proof, if ever it were needed, that Johann Hari's piece in the Independent – where he decries Hollywood's sublimation of the strong female movie role - is spot on.

A remake of the movie, staring the likes of Eva Mendes, Meg Ryan, Bette Midler, Carrie Fisher, Jada Pinkett Smith and Annette Bening, is currently in post-production but is this the best Hollywood can do? Re-make an already near-perfect movie instead of actually sitting down and thinking up some new ones in which powerful women take the spotlight? Sadly, it looks like it. Foreign flicks like La Vie En Rose and indie movies such as Juno - you seem to be our only hope.

So until some proper action is taken, we offer you a selection of the finest strong women to ever grace ye olde silver screen.

Rosalind Russell as a feisty ex-journalista in His Girl Friday:

Bette Davis as a bitter lush in All About Eve:

The strong but silent type: Louise Brooks in Pandora's Box:

Katharine Hepburn takes on the waves in The African Queen:

Now please, add your strong cinema women to the list.