The temperatures are dropping around the country, but on screen New Zealand women are heating things up both in terms of raw talent and a certain fierceness that just come naturally to local lasses.

So without further ado, here’s our call on the sexiest - or if they prefer, sassiest! - women in New Zealand Film… a top ten:

The temperatures are dropping around the country, but on screen New Zealand women are heating things up both in terms of raw talent and a certain fierceness that just come naturally to local lasses.

So without further ado, here’s our call on the sexiest - or if they prefer, sassiest! - women in New Zealand Film… a top ten:

Melanie Lynsky

Soon to be seen on Rialto Channel screens in Hello I must Be Going (screening in August), New Plymouth-raised Melanie Lynskey made her debut as a teenage Pauline Parker in the Oscar-nominated Heavenly Creatures, but has most definitely grown up since. Now based in Hollywood, the curvaceous brunette’s stateside CV covers most genres, including drama Shattered Glass and a recurring role in hit TV comedy Two and a Half Men.

Antonia Prebble

She’s been called the ‘sexiest woman in New Zealand’ by many a publication and - if internet fan sites are to be believed - has the potential to be a future Bond girl, and we think Antonia Prebble is old school screen siren glamour at its best. Known for having a penchant for vintage gowns and the ability to give them a modern edge, the talented Wellington thesp appears onscreen this month in The Cure, her official international debut. The Cure premieres 25 June at 8:30pm.

Niki Caro

An art school darling with one of the most creative minds in the business, we love Niki Caro for her mind as well as her seriously enviable good looks and THAT cascade of hair. She’s proved her mettle as the director of now-legendary films like Whale Rider and North Country and spends most of her time based in the city of Los Angeles. Lucky for us she makes frequent visits home - the lady is a national treasure.

Robyn Malcolm

Although she is best known for six seasons of playing Cheryl West, matriarch to a sometimes-criminal West Auckland family in the television series ‘Outrageous Fortune’, Robyn Malcolm has been turning heads for her talent and her looks for many a year now. Crowned the ‘Sexiest Woman on New Zealand Television’ two years in a row, she’s on screen this month in Drift, a film set amongst the big wave surfing community of the south-western coast of Western Australia. Drift Premieres 18 June at 8:30pm.

Jane Campion

Another highly acclaimed female director with seriously great locks, Jane Campion is one of the most dynamic filmmakers to emerge from New Zealand, if not Australasia. Her depiction of strong (usually female) lead characters rebelling against stereotypical roles has attracted praise, adulation and controversy, and we love her ability to unashamedly speak her mind. The first woman director to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes for Best Feature (the award was shared with Chinese entry Farewell My Concubine), she is also only the second woman nominated for an Academy Award for directing. Smart is most definitely sexy.

Danielle Cormack

She’s a fan of younger men and undeniably one of the most outspoken and free-spirited talents on our list, and we love Danielle Cormack all the more for it. She started her career on stage before taking the big screen by storm, and of late has been see in high profile Australian television shows Rake and Wentworth, an acclaimed reimagining of long-running Aussie soap Prisoner, which saw her fulfil many a fantasy starring as a new arrival in a women's prison.

Chelsie Preston Crayford

Another Kiwi actor making major waves internationally, Australia-based Chelsie Preston Crayford has been seen in the likes of Killing Time, Eagle Vs Shark, which was Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival and Anthony McCarten's Show Of Hands. Her television credits include Underbelly: Razor as notorious Kings Cross madam Tilly Devine, for which she employed both feminine wiles and some serious leg. Oh, we also love the fact that she posed with John Key while purportedly holding an "I'm with stupid" sign - lady has style.

Kerry Fox

Her acting chops were evident from the moment that she hit screens playing author and poet Janet Frame in An Angel at My Table, but it was international films like Intimacy, in which sex is depicted as a raw, direct and emotionally brutalising experience, that Fox made her name worldwide. Based in London for the past 18 years, the quick-witted star is known for her indifferent approach to the press and her cutting sense of humour makes her even more alluring.

Rose McIver

One of our most successful recent exports to the US - and the New Zealand actress most likely to get naked, if some internet forums are to be believed - winsomely gorgeous Rose McIver is most definitely on fire. These days based in Los Angeles, she has won parts in fantasy series Once Upon a Time (as Tinkerbell) and the Golden-Globe nominated Masters of Sex, and is soon to be seen in US series-most-likely-to-succeed iZombie, playing a “female medical student-turned-zombie (McIver) takes a job at the coroner's office to gain access to the brains she must eat to maintain her humanity". Sexy? If any one can do it, Rosie can.

Zoe Bell

In a profession once dominated by men, Zoe Bell is making stunts sexy and showing that the ladies can run, tumble and fight with the best of them. To say that girlfriend is fierce would be putting it mildly. Both stuntwoman and sometimes actress, Waiheke-born Bell is best known for her standout turn atop the hood of a moving car in Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Prison film Raze was her first headlining endeavour, and world premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2013 to solid notices from genre purists.