Top 10 Moments Where Women Save the Men in Animated Films

Going by the name Anya, Anastasia gives as good as she gets from Dimitri’s snarky personality in their love/hate relationship, but without her, there would be no Dimitri. While riding a runaway train, Dimitri asks Vlad for help trying to tie a chain that would slow the locomotive down. When Anya arrives in his place, Dimitri refuses her help. Ignoring his protest, Anya gives him the chain and helps him up anyway. Moments later, there’s a crashing sound as the train tears through the trees that line the railroad. Had Anya not been there to help him, Dimitri would have undoubtedly been killed.

She’s not exactly what you’d call a people person, but after Ashitaka nearly dies saving her, San returns the favor. While trying to bring the injured Ashitaka to the Forest Spirit, she fights off the Ape tribe and even her wolf brothers who try to chew Ashitaka’s head off. When the Forest Spirit heals Ashitaka, he’s too weak to eat the food San’s gathered for him. Feeling indebted, she takes it upon herself to nurse him back to health. She even faces down the boar god when she worries that he’ll eat him. Were it not for San, Ashitaka would’ve been left to the mercy of the forest, which wasn’t feeling so merciful towards him.

Once upon a time, there lived a princess who had to save her knight in shining armor, not once, but twice. In the first “Shrek”, Princess Fiona saves Shrek and Donkey from Robin Hood’s merry men. In “Shrek Forever After,” the titular ogre literally signs away his life to Rumpelstiltskin, putting himself in danger of disappearing from existence. Only true love’s kiss can break the spell, which is where Fiona comes in. Just as he’s about to vanish off the face of the earth forever, Fiona declares her undying love for Shrek and kisses him. Shrek returns back to normal and they all live happily ever after.

It turns out that if John Smith never knew Pocahontas, he wouldn’t have lasted very long in the New World. When John Smith’s friend Thomas kills Kocoum, Smith takes the blame and gets sentenced to death as a result. This ultimately sparks a war between the Natives and the Settlers. Unwilling to let either side destroy each other or let her father kill Smith, Pocahontas rushes to the rescue. She throws herself over John Smith, using herself as a shield between him and her father. She refuses to move until her father agrees that peace is better than war and he frees Smith.

You would think that in a tale as old as time, the guy would save the girl. Not in this fairytale. First, she nurses the Beast back to health after he saves her from the wolves. Then, when Gaston storms the castle and fights the Beast, it’s Belle who saves him. As the Beast scales the roof to reach Belle, Gaston stabs him and both lose their balance. While Gaston falls to his death, Belle is able to save the Beast by pulling him onto the balcony. She rescues him again when she professes her love for him, just as the last petal on the enchanted rose is about to fall and makes everyone human again. It’s “just a little change, small to say the least,” but Belle was the one who made it happen.

Turns out Flynn isn’t exactly ‘sympatico’ with pretty much everyone. While he may be Rapunzel’s guide to the lanterns, Rapunzel is the one who has to save him over and over again. There’s the time she saved him from the ruffians, and then the soldiers shortly after that. She also saves him from Max, who’s determined to put the thief behind bars. Then there’s the big one where Mother Gothel stabs Flynn, who we now know is actually Eugene. Rapunzel is not only willing to give up her freedom to save him, but also actually brings him back from the dead with her magical tears. If it weren’t for Rapunzel, this guy would have been thrown in jail or killed a hundred times over.

She went from zero to hero just like that. Meg is an amazingly independent female character, and is made even more awesome when she saves wonder-boy Hercules’ life. In an attempt to save Meg from Hades, Hercules gives up his superhuman strength for 24 hours while Hades takes over the cosmos. That doesn’t stop Hercules from taking on the Cyclops. As he cleverly defeats the monster, a giant pillar is about to fall on him. Meg pushes Hercules out of the way just in time, yet unfortunately sacrifices her life by doing so. Thankfully, it all works out in the end. Guess even heroes need saving sometimes.

He’s a poor unfortunate soul whose ship got caught in a hurricane. After lightning strikes, the boat catches fire and forces everyone to abandon ship. When Eric sees his beloved dog Max is still onboard, he goes back to save him. He’s able to rescue Max, but gets stuck as the fire reaches a barrel of gunfire. This causes an explosion and tosses an unconscious Eric into the sea. Fortunately, Ariel sees the whole thing and rushes to save him. She brings him to shore, whereshe stays with him until Grimsby comes. Were it not for Ariel, Eric would be under the sea, and life would definitely not be better for him.

There’s no killing off this robot, not if EVE has anything to say about it. This high-tech robot makes it her directive to save WALL-E after he’s been nearly crushed to death trying to save mankind from a rogue autopilot. EVE knows that theonly hope she has of saving WALL-E is to get him back to Earth where all his spare parts are. Once the spaceship’s landed, she wastes no time in getting to WALL-E’s home where she repairs him at an impressive speed. Even with theminor hiccup in which WALL-E temporarily loses all his memory, he’s soon back to his old self - all thanks to EVE.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

Jessie Saves Sheriff Woody
“Toy Story 2” (1999)

Vanellope von Schweetz Saves Wreck-It Ralph
“Wreck-It Ralph” (2012)


Esmeralda Saves Captain Phoebus
“The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1996)

She’s as swift as a coursing river to save Shang. In an effort to single-handedly wipe out the entire Hun army during an ambush, Mulan purposely sets off an avalanche with explosives. It works perfectly, minus the fact that it puts her and her fellow soldiers in danger as well. Amidst all the chaos, Shang is quickly swept up in the rushing snow. Safely astride Kahn, Mulan is able to rush to Shang’s rescue and pull him from the avalanche. Then, shortly before they go over thecliff, she’s able to shoot an arrow and rope back to her comrades, who then pull everyone back up to safety. You could say she’s the man, figuratively speaking.