Chloë Grace Moretz as Mindy in Kick Ass
Preteen Mindy loves her widowed father (Nicolas Cage) and indulges his little quirks, like firing a gun from a few feet away into her bulletproof-vested chest; he says if she'll agree to take just one more shot, they can go bowling. At night, they are the superhero tandem Big Daddy and Hit Girl in the weird, rollicking Kick Ass. Chloë Grace Moretz, just 11 when she made the film, could be the avatar of the young Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver, with sexual predation replaced by a no less bizarre yet still affecting father fixation. Her star-is-born scene comes when she first appears in her black leather Hit Girl outfit with purple wig and personalized HG buckle. Bursting into a room of drug dealers, she spits out a few obscenities, brandishes her swords and leaves the walls speckled with death and entrails. Moretz is just as impressive playing the ageless vampire in a 12-year-old body in the coming-of-age horror film Let Me In. In each role, she's a sweet little girl with a sorceress inside.