Thoughts on Uma Thurman?

I especially loved her in The Life Before Her Eyes, a fantastic though terribly underrated film.

She's pretty good.  She's carved a great career for herself with roles she chose well.

A fair comparison is Sharon Stone. Both good, not great. Both iconic though - which gives them a chance to be more well known and have their work survive past their era.

More iconic than someone like Lange or Sarandon who are more talented but a young teenager who didn't live through the 80s or 90s aren't likely to know them that well.

I agree with part of that, but I think Thurman was way bigger than Hedren ever was.  And because Tarantino will go down as a legend whether you like him or not, and Uma Thurman is a huge component of his legacy.  Whereas Hedren the only movies anyone knows she did was The Birds and Marnie.  Brief career, and she came on fairly late into Hitchcock's career.  She's not the first actress that people think of associated with Hitchcock - though maybe that goes based on your perception.  Whether view Hitchcock primarily for his 50s or 60s?  Some people seem to talk about Hitchcock in terms of his 60s primarily though I have seen that.  Wouldn't say Thurman is just there to serve Tarantino's needs.  She's an essential component to his movies which is what makes her different than Hedren who really was just Hitchcock's girl at the time in that trendy early 60s era.

And obviously Sarandon and Lange's reputation aren't preserved by teenagers.  The ones who live in that Kubrick/Coppola/Scorsese/PTA/Lynch/Tarantino airhole.   I think Sarandon is iconic, though not to a degree Thurman or Stone is.  Not to say they're "more" iconic, but they're just iconic in a different way.  Though I think Basic Instinct and Pulp Fiction/Kill Bill has more iconic power than anything Sarandon has so maybe they're less viewed as "that woman in the 90s."  Don't think Bull Durham, her brief Bette Davis incarnation, or The Witches of Eastwick is very famous nowadays or are they seen enough by enough people in general.

I think Stone is waaaay more iconic than Thurman  (who had a more varied career). Stone pretty much became the defacto face of an entire genre (erotic thriller) that grossed billions of dollars during the 1990's. And importantly, her iconic stature was not defined by a filmmaker. It's all about her.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is arguably more iconic than Pulp Fiction. And it's defintely more iconic than Kill Bill. There has been a cottage industry of sing-along screenings of that movie for three decades now. Only The Sound Of Music gets that type of repeat business, year in year out. And Sarandon as Janet is incredibly iconic, especially for this song:

It's not a pissing match. It's a civilised discussion, that took a natural course based on comparisons to other actresses to Thurman. I have zero issue or regret with the conversation strand that I went in with Urbanpatrician. It's very valid, and remains about Thurman. 

Once you open up the floor for discussion, things will take the direction they take. It is what it is.

I dunno...it could be just me underestimating Thurman's overall iconic status. Contrary to popular belief, I don't regard my views as infallible

I just get the impression that even though she's done quite a fair amount of strong and memorable films outside of her collabs with Tarantino, very little of it seems to have stuck or impacted long term in terms of her own iconography. Maybe something like Dangerous Liasions,  but I feel Close and Malkovich get most of the recognition there. I think Gattaca is an amazing film, but I don't really think about her being essential to it. It's Ethan Hawke first, then Jude Law.

So while she's done a lot outside of her work with Tarantino, I feel like for the most part, people seem to mainly think of her as Tarantino's muse. But again, I could be wrong.

This is probably something along my line of thinking. She's been in some iconic movies where she isn't the lead, and didn't steal the movie to the point where all anyone talks about is her. Her big iconic. lead role(s) is Kill Bill, but even though it's Tarantino, it's still kind of a niche thing (Kung-Fu pastiche etc) that many people will never care to see. 

I agree with you kill bill is mostly a niche thing to the rest of the world. I totally see the perspective of you and cherry, maybe Thurman was "that girl" for the longest time before turning 35 but I think she's popular enough to where she's pretty big now and isn't stuck to any one particular decade like some of the other names brought up.

But yeah...if you've lived through the 80s and 90s you'll probably think of sarandon, lange, and stone as bigger movie stars.

But most people on this forum (and maybe on imdb too) haven't lived through those decades. If you were to ask a great majority of people here, I'm sure they'd rank the popularity 1) Thurman 2) stone 3) sarandon 4) lange.

Might be a slight choice between stone and sarandon but the other two im pretty sure they see as definitely first and last.