The Most Beautiful Women Of All Time

For her turn in 12 Years a Slave, Nyong'o won the 2013 Best Supporting Actress Oscar becoming the first African actress to win the award and the first Kenyan actress to win an Oscar of any kind. It also happened to catapult her to the top of every magazine in the world's 'best-dressed' and 'most beautiful' lists, where she has remained ever since.

The actress and band front-woman who inherited her father Lenny's swagger and musical talent, Zoë Kravitz recently appeared in the hit show Big Little Lies to widespread acclaim. She can also crochet, which is nice.

Harry Potter's best friend, millionaire, actor, philanthropist, gender equality advocate and global book club founder (cool, hey?), there aren't many boxes that 27-year-old Brit Emma Watson hasn't ticked.

The original blonde bombshell, 'B.B.' was an actress, model and one of the biggest sex symbols of the 50s and 60s before becoming an animal rights activist and - somewhat regrettably - a convicted race hate inciter in her later years.

"I don't understand why people see me as beautiful" the British actress - regarded as one of the greatest screen icons of all time - apparently used to tell her son, leading to the obvious question: what hope is there for any of the rest of us?

Oscar-winning actress and Harvard University graduate, Natalie Portman is someone with talent to burn who also happens to be one of the great beauties of the modern celebrity era. Oh, and she's also a promising director now. Expect her to cure cancer around 2035.

2008's Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire was an over-rated film in all but one respect: it launched the career of Freida Pinto. A darling of fashion magazines ever since, she is also considered in her home country as "arguably the biggest global star from India."

Over the past 5 years Jessica Chastain has quietly established herself as one of the most talented and versatile screen actress working today. We say quietly because - the odd jaw-dropping red carpet appearance aside - she keeps her private life private, preferring to let a growing body of work speak for itself.

Best known as the original Bond girl having starred alongside Sean Connery in Dr. No, Ursula Andress' entrance in that film as (cringe) 'Honey Ryder the shell diver' was voted #1 'greatest sexy movie moment' in a Channel 4 survey some forty years later. "This bikini made me into a success. As a result of starring in Dr. No as the first Bond girl, I was given the freedom to take my pick of future roles and to become financially independent," she later said of the white two-piece still etched into the minds of generations of movie-goers.

There is little new to observe about Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter, arguably the most powerful female celebrity in the world. Celebrated musician, businesswoman and activist, in her spare time she makes Jay-Z look like the luckiest man in the world.

No name is as immediately synonymous with female beauty than Marilyn Monroe, the 1950s screen siren whose glamorous public life obscured an often tragic private life. Despite playing the 'dumb blonde' stereotype demanded by her era, off camera she was integral in building her own star power and in 1954 founded her own film production company because she was unhappy with the derisory contract offers from major studios.

They say there is no beauty like a French beauty (it's the French who say that, by the way), and in the case of model-turned-actress Marine Vacth they may have a point. The star of 2013's foreign language hit Jeune & Jolie ('Young & Beautiful'), her upturned gaze briefly adorned the sides of buses and tube stations across London causing more than a few commuter collisions.

The only celebrated Australian beauty known in Britain not to have once had a part on Neighbours, Miranda Kerr became at model at 13 and has never looked back, becoming one of the most bankable faces in the world for beauty companies, fashion labels and magazines looking to sell copies including, in 2013, us.