For as long as I can remember I have loved Ripley, the science fiction heroine of Alien who fought for her life in horrific circumstances and even torched a nest of baby acid bleeders in the sequel Aliens before teaching the queen who was really boss. Ripley, of course, played by Sigourney Weaver changed the way we see sci-fi films and transformed the stale, structured procedures we were used to on the bridge of the Enterprise into a believable troop of union workers who just wanted to get paid.

Sometime later I saw the movie Dave and realized just how amazingly valuable Weaver is as an actress. Suddenly she wasn’t just the badass, she was realer than real and not a typecast action hero. Throughout her career Weaver has pulled in Oscar nominations alongside science fiction awards as the Alien franchise extended into four films and she continued to perform in dramas and comedies as they came to her.

She’s performed in comedies like Ghostbusters , suspense films as in The Village, and most recently found another wave of success with James Cameron in Avatar. Needless to say, she hasn’t yet hit her peak and I question whether she’ll ever hit it. Very few female actresses make it through Hollywood year after year, yet Sigourney Weaver is one of those few who has lasted well beyond her twenties.

For the month of March we’ll focus on her first real notable film Alien which turned her into an overnight success as well as Aliens for which she was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. Then we’ll push to her more comedic and lighthearted films with the sci-fi spoof Galaxy Quest and Heartbreakers. After that we shift gears into dramas and dark comedy with A Map of the World and Imaginary Heroes. To close out the month we’ll be watching the biography Gorillas in the Mist and the comedy Working Girl for which she received Oscar nominations for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress in the same year.

With movies to watch throughout the month, we’ll be featuring the films of Sigourney Weaver as part of our weekly discussion on film, The Weekly Blend Audio Show. Feel free to follow along as we visit some of Weavers’ best and lesser known films and chime in on our comments section and message boards.

Widescreen Warrior Presents: Sigourney Weaver

March 6
• Alien
• Aliens

March 13
• Heartbreakers
• Galaxy Quest

March 20
• A Map of the World
• Imaginary Heroes

March 27
• Gorillas in the Mist
• Working Girl

Full filmography available at IMDb