5. Ryan Stone – Gravity
We’re going to rise above here and not harp on about how Gravity‘s story is built on a huge plot hole, but we are calling out its protagonist. After their routine maintenance on the Hubble space telescope is complicated by an unexpected debris shower, Ryan Stone’s spacewalk buddy takes a long float off into empty space. This leaves her alone and stranded, with only a handful of unmanned and damaged craft floating about in orbit.
Naturally, she scrambles to find a way safely back to Earth. The first escape capsule she finds is hopelessly tangled in its parachute, making it impossible to take back to the planet. After contemplating just giving up, she heads back into the vacuum of space to cut it free, then pilots it to another space station in hope of finding a capsule. She does, but can’t dock, so rockets herself into space using a fire extinguisher in order to reach the airlock. She makes her way inside, and pilots the craft safely back to Earth.
The complex chain of events alone is unlikely, but Ryan Stone’s survival defies all odds. She has several brushes with impossibility, but mostly just sort of shrugs them off. As much as Gravity is about Stone discovering her will to live, it still paints her as one of the luckiest movie heroes of all time.