* Olan (or O-Lan), a Chinese slave of the Great Imperial House, married to a poor farmer:
* Carol Connelly, a single mother of an asthmatic son and the only waitress tolerated by author Melvin Udall:
* The title character, a single mother and textile worker attempting to unionize the plant:
* Diana Christensen, a failed television executive who finds success in the form of an unhinged newsman:
* The title character, a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, trying to deal with her life and her loves:
* Christina Drayton, a set-in-her-ways housewife who discovers her daughter is engaged to a man of another race:
* Bree Daniel, a call-girl connected to the disappearance of one of her clients:
* Mildred Ratched, the head nurse of a mental institution who holds more than a maternal hold over her patients:
* Sally Bowles, an American torch singer stuck in a lounge in Depression-era Berlin.
* Julie Marsden, a spoiled southern debutante who embarrasses her fiance by wearing a red dress at the New Orleans Olympus Ball:
* Clarice Starling, a young FBI agent attempting to stop a killing spree with the help of a monstrous mass-murderer:
* The title character, an obnoxious elderly lady who suffers herself to deal with a chauffeur:
* Carrie Watts, an elderly woman who made monthly escapes from her domineering daughter and son-in-law to go back to her 'home' one last time:
* Annie Wilkes, an unbalanced woman who lives through her voracious reading of romance novels:
* Loretta Castorini, a woman kept on hold from marriage by her fiance, who eventually finds romance with his brother:
* Alma Brown, housekeeper of the Bannon Ranch and witness to the constant feuding between father and son:
* Cesira, an impoverished mother, mentally and physically battered by the cruelties of World War II:
* The title character, a victim of Multiple Personality Syndrome:
* Anne, a royal princess travelling incognito with a reporter to get away from the daily chores of her position:
* Lady Viola De Lesseps, who masquarades as actor Thomas Kent, to act in a play at a time when women are forbidden to act: