Summary

• Lisbeth Salander is the iconic character created by Stieg Larsson, portrayed by Noomi Rapace, Rooney Mara, and Claire Foy on screen.
• The original Swedish trilogy starred Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist, while the American adaptation featured Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig.
• The reboot "The Girl in the Spider's Web" directed by Fede Alvarez with Claire Foy faced mixed reviews, focusing more on action than its predecessors.

This list contains mentions of sexual assault and violence.

Created by Stieg Larsson, Lisbeth Salander stars in his Millennium trilogy of crime novels, known to most for the first book in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. An asocial computer hacker with a photographic memory, three actresses portrayed Lisbeth in movies - Noomi Rapace, Rooney Mara, and Claire Foy. This includes a trilogy of Swedish-produced films based on all three books, an American adaptation of the first novel, and a movie based on a continuation novel by David Lagercrantz.

The critically acclaimed, original Swedish-produced film trilogy adapted Larsson's trilogy, with all three starring Noomi Rapace as Salander and the late Michael Nyqvist as Mikael Blomkvist. David Fincher helmed the American adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, casting Daniel Craig as Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as Salander. Fincher never made his Dragon Tattoo sequel and Sony instead adapted David Lagercrantz's The Girl in the Spider's Web, with Golden Globe-winner Claire Foy becoming the newest Lisbeth Salander and Sverrir Gudnasson portraying Mikael Blomqvist.

5 The Girl In The Spider's Web (2018)

Claire Foy As Lisbeth Salander

A tonal departure from all of its predecessors, Fede Álvarez's reboot transforms The Girl in the Spider's Web into a more James Bond-like action thriller as Lisbeth Salander races to capture a computer program called Firefall, which allows an individual to access the world's entire nuclear arsenal. Claire Foy is the newest Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a vigilante known as "the girl who hurts men who hurt women." Lisbeth's past comes back to haunt her in the form of her sister Camilla, who now runs a crime syndicate called the Spiders and wants revenge on Lisbeth.

Critics were not impressed, with an average 38% rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes and an even lower 36% audience score.

The Girl in the Spider's Web still showcases Lisbeth's skills in investigation and hacking. However, this movie makes her more of an action hero to a negative response, performing action stunts and using Bond-like gadgets like a rifle that can target like a video game. Adapted from David Lagercrantz's novel, Spider's Web also downplays the sordid sex and S&M torture prevalent in Stieg Larsson's stories. That said, the reboot's action-oriented direction injects some new life into the adventures of Lisbeth Salander. Critics were not impressed, with an average 38% rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes and an even lower 36% audience score.

4 The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (2009)

Noomi Rapace As Lisbeth Salander

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest concludes the Swedish-produced Lisbeth Salander trilogy and resolves the labyrinthine conspiracy that targeted Lisbeth her whole life. Directed by Daniel Alfredson, Hornet's Nest picks up immediately where the prior film left off, with Salander hospitalized from the injuries she suffered confronting her evil, crime lord father in The Girl Who Played With Fire. As the hacker heals, Mikael Blomkvist tries to protect Lisbeth from the Section, rogue elements from the Swedish Security Service who worked for Lisbeth's father, Alexander Zalachenko.

With Lisbeth hospitalized for much of the film, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is a very talky film, navigating a dense amount of story and characters. Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist have mastered their roles but are apart for most of the film, which loses out on their shared chemistry, and their final reunion is bittersweet. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of the original Swedish trilogy at 53% for critics and 66% for the audience, and it is easily the weakest of the original films.

3 The Girl Who Played With Fire (2009)

Noomi Rapace As Lisbeth Salander