50 fascinating women to watch in 2014

With a month now in the books we’ve had time to digest and assess several things about 2014 and one of those things is which famous women we need to keep a sharp eye on in 2014. There are many different reasons these 50 women are people to watch this year. For some of them it’s to see if they finally get the accolades they deserve. For others it’s to see if they can repeat their successes or perhaps make a comeback. And a handful of the women are on this list for the simple reason that we have no idea what the hell they’re going to do. One thing is for sure, they’re all going to make 2014 a very interesting year.

When you’re done here, check out who was on our 2013 list of women to watch headed by Ronda Rousey (who ended up having a pretty good year) and see how things turned out.

50 Genie Bouchard

The 19 year-old 2013 WTA Newcomer of the Year from Canada beat Ana Ivanovic to advance to the Australian Open semi-finals and is rapidly becoming a fan favorite. Is she the next Maria Sharapova?

49 Chloe Bennet

Will Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continue to be a success and will it lead to even more opportunities for relative newcomer, 21 year-old Chloe Bennet? Fingers crossed on both counts.

48 Lucy Hale

In addition to working on her fifth season of Pretty Little Liars, Hale recently released her first single, “You Sound Good to Me,” with her debut album scheduled for release later this year.

47 Elizabeth Gillies

One of the lesser known, but equally as talented members of the Nick show Victorious (Victoria Justice and Ariana Grande being the two more well-known actresses from the show) will be appearing in two films in 2014: Animal with Joey Lauren Adams (there’s a blast from the past) and Killing Daddy. It will also be interesting to see if all the singing she does on her YouTube channel turns into an actual album some day.

46 Aly Michalka

Aly and her sister AJ, known to many as the musical duo 78violet, released a new single in 2013 and are reported to have an album coming out any day now. In the meantime we can catch Aly in the films Sequoia with Joey Lauren Adams and Lou Diamond Phillips (again with Joey…and LDP?!) and in Killing Winston Jones with Richard Dreyfuss and Danny Glover.

45 Alexis Dziena

We’ve been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for Alexis Dziena to get back full-time into acting. We’ve called her underrated. We’ve called her sexy. And now finally with two films, Sister and Without Ward, coming out in 2014 can we finally call her back?

44 Keeley Hazell

Keeley Hazell pretty much gave up the reason we one reason we fell in love with her, glamour modeling, to become an actress. Now, in 2014 she’s doing both while finally admitting that she can both act – she’ll be in the film Whispers – and model – she already was on the cover of FHM – at the same time.

43 Camilla Belle

Is this the year Camilla Belle finally breaks out? She’ll be in four American films in 2014: I Brake for Gringos, Amapola, The American Side, and Love is All You Need? with Kellan Lutz, so it’s within the realm of possibility.

42 Zoe Kravitz

We haven’t seen much lately from the once very promising actress daugther of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet, but now at age 25 she’ll be hard at work in 2014 with roles in The Road Within, Divergent with Kate Winslet, and working on production of Mad Max: Fury Road, set for release in 2015, which we’ll be eager to learn more about as the year progresses.

41 Suki Waterhouse

One reason we’ll be watching Suki is because she’s dating Bradley Cooper (he’s 39 and she’s 22, by the way) and if we’ve learned nothing else about models dating famous actors it’s that it usually leads to acting opportunities (for instance she’ll be in the film Love, Rosie with Lily Collins in 2014). The other reason we’ll be watching her is because, well, have you seen her dance in lingerie?

40 Willa Holland

Much like Chloe Bennet we’ll be interested to see if the success of another popular comic book-based TV show, Arrow, continues to do well and leads to even more juicy roles for this former Gossip Girl and The O.C. actress.

39 Danielle Fishel

Topanga makes her triumphant (we hope) return to TV in 2014 as Girl Meets World is supposed to make its debut sometime this year on the Disney Channel.

38 Aimee Teegarden

Another woman we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting on to get back on TV or in a good movie is Aimee Teegarden. Luckily for us The CW hooked her up with a new show called Star-Crossed that’s set to premiere on Monday, February 17. She’s also supposed to be in a film, Life at These Speeds with AnnaSophia Robb, but they haven’t nailed down a release date for it yet.

37 Dree Hemingway

Dree Hemingway is the daughter of actress Mariel Hemingway and the great-granddaughter of author Ernest Hemingway. She’s also a model and a very successful one at that. Now she’s getting into acting as she’ll be appearing in two films in 2014: Listen Up Philip and X/Y starring America Ferrera and Amber Tamblyn.

36 Rebecca Hall

Another woman we deemed very underrated in 2013 gets a chance to shine in 2014 as Hall be a part of a mega-cast including Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Paul Bettany, and Kate Mara in the upcoming sci-fi blockbuster Transcendence.

35 Chelsea Clinton

The former President’s daughter is set to become an even more public figure in 2014, speaking on behalf of the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative as well as continuing her work as a special correspondent for NBC News. Are politics in her future? It’s definitely in her blood.

34 Sara McMann

Last year Ronda Rousey was our number one woman to watch. A year later Ronda is still going strong, but on February 22nd she’ll have to contend with another Olympic medalist in 33 year-old Sara McMann who won a silver in wrestling at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Sure, she’ll probably get armbarred like everyone else, but stranger things have happened.

33 Angel Haze

Detroit rapper Angel Haze released her debut album Dirty Gold on December 30 of last year. It wasn’t supposed to be released until March of this year, but when she got into a dispute with her record label she leaked it online on December 18th. We can’t wait to see what she does next.

32 Phoebe Tonkin

24 year-old Aussie actress Phoebe Tonkin, who many of you may know from the shows The Secret Circle and The Vampire Diaries, gets her own show this year, a spinoff of The Vampire Diaries called The Originals where she will be playing the lead role. But she’s not done there, she’ll also be appearing in the film The Ever After with Rosario Dawson, Melissa Leo, and Teresa Palmer.

31 Emily Browning

Emily Browning, another Australian actress, who we’ve been touting as a up-and-coming star for years now, gets another chance to make that prediction come true in 2014 when she stars in the main role of the film Pompeii alongside actors like Carrie-Anne Moss and Kiefer Sutherland.

30 Elizabeth Olsen

The less famous, but more critically-acclaimed Olsen sister, gets a chance to show off her skills in some blockbusters as she will be appearing in Godzilla with none other than Bryan Cranston. We also expect to hear a lot more about Elizabeth’s role as Scarlet Witch in The Avengers: Age of Ultron as it ramps up production in advance of its 2015 release.

29 Adrianne Palicki

Ever since Friday Night Lights ended we’ve been waiting for Adrianne to break out. We hoped that would be with her role as Wonder Woman, but sadly that TV show never made it to air. This year, however, she gets to act with a few big-timers in Keanu Reeves, Bridget Moynahan and Willem Dafoe in the upcoming thriller John Wick.

28 Megan Boone

Can the woman we all know as FBI profiler Elizabeth Keen help keep The Blacklist one of the most must-see shows on TV in 2014? Will her lead role in the feature film Family Games lead to more feature films? Or will she still be relegated to direct-to-TV movies like Welcome to the Jungle with none other than JCVD, set for release sometime this spring.

27 Taylor Schilling

Do you know why we are going to keep a close eye on Taylor Schilling? Because we’ve been waiting months for her and her amazing castmates to return to our televisions in the second season of Orange is the New Black. Will season two be as riveting as season one? All of our fingers are crossed. Just please tell us we don’t have to wait until July.

26 Solange Knowles

Solange Knowles, or just Solange as we like to call her, (hey, her older sis goes by just one name), launched her own record label in 2013 named Saint Records which she will be using to release her third album sometime in 2014. We’re guessing hers won’t be a surprise when it comes out, but you never know.

25 Shailene Woodley

22 year-old Shailene Woodley is one of Hollywood’s lesser-known, but brightest upcoming stars. Her resume of TV shows that she’s appeared on reads like a “best of” TV, but if you didn’t catch her on The Secret Life of the American Teenager over the last five years she may be unfamiliar. That will change in 2014 as she is set to appear in the films Divergent with Kate Winslet, White Bird in a Blizzard with Eva Green and Angela Bassett, and The Fault in Our Stars with Willem Dafoe and Laura Dern.

24 Rosamund Pike

34 year-old Rosamund Pike has come a long way since she played Bond Girl Miranda Frost in Die Another Day and now in 2014 we’re set to get a heavy dose of her (that’s a good thing) as she’ll appear in up to five films: A Long Way Down with Aaron Paul and Toni Collette, What We Did on Our Holiday, Return to Sender with Nick Nolte, Hector and the Search for Happiness with Simon Pegg and Collette again, and Gone Girl with Ben Affleck and Neil Patrick Harris.

23 Iggy Azalea

The popular Iggy Azalea was supposed to have released her debut album The New Classic last September, but she went on tour with Beyonce and her record label pushed the release to March of this year, we think, because Azalea was quoted as saying about the album’s release, “The official date? Fucked if I know!”

22 Emily VanCamp

Sexy Canadian actress Emily VanCamp has been killing it on TV since 2002 which is hard to believe since she’s just 27 years-old! How is that even possible? And now, in 2014, not only will she continue to do so on Revenge, she’ll also be adding a couple of juicy movie roles playing Agent 13 Sharon Carter in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and taking the lead in the drama The Girl in the Book.

21 Kate Mara

House of Cards returns on February 14th (which I hear is some kind of special day?), but that’s not the only place we’ll be watching this highly underrated actress. She’ll also have the lead role in the film Captive and will be working as a part of that megacast we previously mentioned in the movie Transcendence with Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Rebecca Hall, and Paul Bettany.

20 Aubrey Plaza

We love her on Parks and Recreation and in 2014 we’ll get to see even more of Aubrey on the big screen as she stars in Life After Beth (a zombie comedy!) with Anna Kendrick, About Alex with Maggie Grace and Jane Levy, and in a supporting role in A Many Splintered Thing starring Chris Evans and Michelle Monaghan.

19 Charlotte Gainsbourg

Charlotte Gainsbourg is a name many Americans may not be familiar with as she’s a British actress who has done most of her work overseas. That will change this year as she’s set to play one of the lead roles in Nymphomaniac: Volumes I and II with Shia LaBeouf and Uma Thurman, as well as star in the film Every Thing Will Be Fine with James Franco and Rachel McAdams.

18 Jennifer Lawrence

Another no-brainer in 2014 is Jennifer Lawrence. X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, and Serena with Bradley Cooper again…the girl just never stops working, or being awesome. So can she maintain her status as America’s Sweetheart this year?

17 Mila Kunis

Mila Kunis will be involved in three films in 2014: Jupiter Ascending with Channing Tatum, The Angriest Man in Brooklyn with Peter Dinklage, Robin Williams, and Melissa Leo, and a voice role in Hell & Back, but the most important reason we’ll be watching her is to see if she and Ashton Kutcher actually do get engaged as all signs seem to be pointing to happening soon.

16 Natalie Dormer

After impressing us on TV in Game of Thrones and Elementary and on film with the highly-acclaimed Rush, what is Natalie Dormer going to do for an encore this year? Oh, just star in three films: Posh, The Girl Who Invented Kissing, and another one you may have heard about: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.

15 Cara Delevingne

Cara Delevingne, 21, is modeling’s bad girl having been photographed in a couple of situations tabloids love in 2013, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t a wanted woman as being named Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards in 2012 and her appearance in the 2013 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show more than attests.

14 Danica Patrick

This is it. Year three in the big league NASCAR series. Time to put up or shut up for Danica Patrick. One pole and one top ten in two years isn’t getting it done no matter how popular she is with the fans. Add that to the zero wins in 60 races in the Nationwide series and the clock might be about to strike 12.

13 Chloe Moretz

Chloe Moretz is now best-known to millions of people as Hit-Girl, which is nice, but she should be known as one hell of an actress. And she’s only 16 (17 on February 10th). She’s also one of the busiest actresses in the world lately doing four movies in 2013 with five more scheduled in 2014. And these aren’t movies starring just some schlub actors either: Laggies with Keira Knightley, If I Stay with Mireille Enos, Dark Places with Charlize Theron, The Equalizer with Denzel Washington and Melissa Leo, and Sils Maria with Kristen Stewart.

12 Brit Marling

Brit Marling is a writer, producer, director, and actress. She does it all. But this year she’s going to be making waves with her acting skills, starring as Nancy Lincoln, the mother of Abe in The Better Angels with Diane Kruger, then appearing in I Origins with Michael Pitt, The Keeping Room with Hailee Steinfeld and Sam Worthington, and one more film, Posthumous. Oh yeah, she’ll also be playing the lead role in a TV movie called Babylon. Busy, busy lady.

11 Naya Rivera

Our favorite Glee star is set to hit two big milestones in 2014. First Naya will be starring in her first feature film since she began working on Glee, Home, and second, she is set to release her debut album sometime in early 2014, following up on her debut single “Sorry,” which came out last September.

10 Nina Agdal

Kate Upton may still be queen of the Internet when it comes to swimsuit models, but everywhere we turned in 2013 we also saw Nina Agdal, another Sports Illustrated swimsuit treasure. We’ll be looking for two things from Nina in 2014: One, will this be the year she gets the 2014 SI Swimsuit Issue cover? And two, how can she possibly top what she did in 2013?

9 Lena Headey

One of the more underrated actresses out there, Lena Headey gets a chance to shed that label in 2014 appearing in Low Down with Taryn Manning, Peter Dinklage, Elle Fanning, and Glenn Close, The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box, 300: Rise of an Empire, and The Mortal Instruments sequel City of Ashes.

8 Eva Green

Eva Green, who we’ve been hyping for a couple of years now, really gets to show off her acting chops in 2014 starring in four big-time films: 300: Rise of an Empire, White Bird in a Blizzard, The Salvation, and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, and Juno Temple. Oh yeah, she’ll do all this while also being the female lead in a new psychosexual horror TV series on Showtime called Penny Dreadful.

7 Nicola Peltz

The name Nicola Peltz might not be familiar to those who aren’t regular viewers of Bates Motel on A&E, but the 19 year-old is set star in the film Affluenza, and more importantly will be playing the new female lead in the fourth Transformers film, Transformers: Age of Extinction starring Mark Wahlberg.

6 Imogen Poots

The 24 year-old British actress is looking to break out in 2014 with four films on her docket starring some of the biggest names in Hollywood: Need for Speed with Aaron Paul, That Awkward Moment with Zac Efron, A Long Way Down with Aaron Paul again plus Toni Collette, and Knight of Cups with Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, and Cate Blanchett.

5 Emily Ratajkowski

Do we really need to say why we’re going to watching Emily Ratajkowski in 2014? There are so many reasons, but first and foremost we want to see how she follows up her amazing 2013 (being in the SI Swimsuit Issue is a good place to start) and then see how she does in her first acting role in the film Gone Girl with Ben Affleck.

4 Kendall Jenner

Kendall Jenner is officially 18 now so it will be very interesting to see what direction she takes in her life/caree. (They’re kind of the same things for the Kardashians, aren’t they?) Will she continue to model, stir things up on social media, date the rich and famous and follow the Kardashian Way or will she head off to college? Our guess is it’ll be the former. Stay tuned.

3 Margot Robbie

Margot Robbie first got our attention as Laura Cameron in Pan Am, but it was her role in The Wolf of Wall Street that has us oh-so-excited to see her in the films Focus with Will Smith and Suite française with Ruth Wilson, Michelle Williams, and Kristin Scott Thomas in 2014.

2 Alexandra Daddario

For several years now we’ve been pimping Alexandra Daddario as an actress to watch and now finally it looks like she might have gotten the break she deserves with an important role on the tremendously entertaining new HBO drama True Detective. Unfortunately it’s currently just a recurring role, but we’re hoping that changes as the series grows. In the meantime we’ll be catching her in the film Burying the Ex also starring Ashley Greene that is supposed to come out sometime this year.

1 Amanda Bynes

She seems to be getting her life back on track, so will acting once again be in her future? We’d love to see it. Imagine the media frenzy if that were to happen?

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