How dare you tar me with that brush ***faux outrage***, it's not like the actors I picked are hideous looking chaps
It's an interesting point you raise though Dan. The movies are full of beautiful people, so it's hard not to pick lookers as 'favourites' (male or female). FWIW Sharon Stone is superlative in Casino and Monivca Bellucci puts in an very brave performance in a number of films (Malena & Irreversible to quickly name a couple). I also feel the underlying sexism of mainstream Hollywood pictures actually makes it harder to pick women based on strong performances, as they're so often cast as eye candy only, or in the tedious neurotic wife/girlfriend role.
With the exception of Sigourney Weaver, which women have had powerful leading roles in multiple movies?
This is sad reality of decent budget cinema, because if the Aliens movies taught us anything, it's that men are perfectly happy to enjoy films with strong female roles that don't necessarily involve skin. So many films fail the Bechdel Test, which TBF isn't hugely scientific, but it is indicative.
Also, if you ask a lady to sit down and watch a Steve Buscemi or a Colin Farrell movie, you both know which will be better, and you also both know which one they'll watch - secretly they're just like us.
Ref: Bechdel Test (Wikipedia)
What is now known as the Bechdel test was introduced in Alison Bechdel's comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. In a 1985 strip titled "The Rule", an unnamed female character says that she only watches a movie if it satisfies the following requirements:
It has to have at least two women in it,
who talk to each other,
about something besides a man.