Characters / Scream: Sidney Prescott

Main Character Index
Movies: Recurring Characters (Sidney Prescott | Gale Weathers | Dewey Riley | Sam Carpenter) | Ghostface (Scream 4 Mastermind) | Scream (1996) | Scream 2 | Scream 3 | Scream 4 | Scream (2022) | Scream VI
TV Series: MTV Series | Resurrection

Sidney Prescott

"I'm Sidney fucking Prescott, of course I have a gun."

Played By: Neve Campbell

Appearances: Scream (1996) | Scream 2 | Scream 3 | Scream 4 | Scream (2022)

"You forgot the first rule of remakes... don't fuck with the original."

The professional survivor, Sidney's life has been defined by a series of killing sprees all directed at her. First her mother Maureen was killed out of a jealous rage, then her friends in high school and college were hacked to bits, and then they started making hit slasher movies based on her tragedy. While this has brought her fame, fortune and a bestselling autobiography, it also means that she has had to spend large parts of her adult life constantly looking over her shoulder for the next wannabe Ghostface.

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• Action Girl: By the fourth film, she's ready to take on the killer at the drop of a hat. In the fifth, her response to Dewey as to whether or not she's prepared for the new attacks solidifies her status.
  Sidney: I'm Sidney fucking Prescott. Of course I have a gun.
• Action Mom: Sid is married with kids by the fifth film. She still returns to Woodsboro to help kill the new Ghostfaces.
• Advertised Extra: Much of the marketing for 5 made it look like Sidney would be the protagonist, but the role is actually filled by Sam Carpenter. Sidney is the Big Good who, apart from her phone call with Dewey, only shows up for the film's final act.
• Agonizing Stomach Wound: Sidney survives this type of wound in both the fourth and fifth films, though is in critical condition and hospitalized in the ICU during the former.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl: By the time of the third film, she became distant to other people due to being a Broken Bird.
• And Starring: As one of the legacy characters, but not the protagonist, she receives this billing in the fifth film.
• Arch-Enemy: While the Ghostfaces of the first four films all share a general interest in targeting Sidney and ending her life, some have specific animosity toward her.
  • Billy Loomis killed her mother and wants her to die in a plot that makes her father the Fall Guy for his and Stu's scheme. Even after his death, his legacy continues to torment Sidney as it plays directly into her distrust of her next boyfriend Derek, Billy's mother seeking to kill Sidney for causing her son's death, the emergence of other Ghostfaces seeking to kill her where Billy failed, and meeting Billy's illegitimate daughter conceived during the time they dated.
  • Roman orchestrated the killing of their mother and plotted to both frame Sidney for his own crimes and take her life out of jealousy for her being the child Maureen accepted. Roman was notably the first Ghostface to use Sidney's friends as bait to get her to do his bidding and the only one she faced who operated alone.
  • Jill reminds Sidney of herself when she was younger and is seemingly targeted by Ghostface, making it all the more shocking for Sidney when the former reveals that she seeks to mimic Sidney's image as a survivor by committing the murders herself. Even after her failed attempt to kill Sidney comes closer to ending the latter's life than anyone before her, just hearing the possibility of her survival spurs her to launch another attack.
• The Artifact: The first four films (all directed by Wes Craven) follow a general pattern of Sidney being targeted by Ghostface, who elicits her involvement in the story by either coming after her or someone she is close to first. The fifth film subverts this by having neither Amber or Richie seek her out, but elicit her involvement due to the former's murder of Dewey. Before this she has little to no role in the story but remains present because of her friendship with Dewey established in the Craven-directed films.
• Attack the Injury: When Billy has her pinned down in the first movie, she sticks her fingers into the stab wound she inflicted with an umbrella earlier.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: In the fifth film, when Amber comes out the house pretending to have been a victim of Ghostface's attack, Sidney and Gale can correctly tell she is faking.
• The Baby of the Bunch: Sidney is the youngest of the original trio.
• Badass Adorable: A very pretty, naturally sweet-natured young woman who only becomes more badass with each passing installment. In her first on-screen fight against Ghostface, she successfully holds her own and knocks him down, and can generally be counted on to put up a strong fight.
• Berserk Button: Invoking her mother or threatening her friends can set her off the deep end.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Transforms into this as her character evolves over the course of the series.
• Big Good: Sidney becomes one throughout each of the movies, the fourth and fifth movies especially, where It's Personal and she's willing to take a proactive approach.
• Brainy Brunette: Sidney has dark hair and is smart enough to live through all the movies.
• Big Sister Instinct: Goes above and beyond to protect Jill from Ghostface in the fourth film. It’s all the more heartbreaking when it turns out Jill is Ghostface herself.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Let's see. Her mom was a Broken Bird who did not process her trauma in any healthy way, her brother Roman and cousin Jill were two psychotic, self-obsessed, jealous murderers, and her aunt Kate was a bitter, resentful woman who may have played a small part in Jill becoming as messed up as she did.
• Broken Bird: She shows what constantly being the Final Girl in real life would be like.
• Bully Hunter: When she actively fights back against Ghostface, who beneath the mask would simply be The Bully in another work, if not a Serial Killer in a horror film.
• Bullying a Dragon: The more Ax-Crazy killers she puts in the ground, the more blatantly stupid it becomes for a copycat killer to mess with her. They still keep coming for her, though.
  Mickey: I've worked hard to give the audience what they want. See, that's what Billy was good at. He knew it was all about execution.
  Sidney: Yeah? Well, you're forgetting an important thing about Billy Loomis.
  Mickey: What's that?
  Sidney: I fucking killed him!
• Butt-Monkey: When you consider that she's destined to spend the rest of her life being periodically attacked by masked psychopaths attempting to copy one another's murder sprees. Oh, and Tori Spelling played her in the Stab movie. Why, Sidney, did you have to mention that?
• Cain and Abel: The Abel to Roman's Cain in Scream 3. Roman is a half-brother she never knew about, who has a vendetta against her because Maureen picked her over him.
  Roman: I shot you.
  Sidney: [reveals bullet proof vest] I guess we think alike.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Scream 3 opens with her living in an isolated cabin, where she works remotely as a therapist. Then Ghostface tracks her down and begins messing with her mind, forcing her to reunite with Dewey and Gale, noting that the cabin is no longer safe and she may as well be with people when things go south.
• Cartwright Curse: The first two boyfriends she had die; Billy because he was one of the killers and she had to put him down herself, and Derek because he was a suspect and she didn't act fast enough before Mickey killed him. Finally subverted in the fifth film, where it is offhandedly mentioned that she has settled down with Mark Kincaid, a fellow survivor of the Ghostface killings and her Implied Love Interest from Scream 3.
• Catchphrase: "Fuck you!" has kind of become hers over the years. Every Ghostface has tried to give their Motive Rant when they finally confront her and she's been having none of it.
• Celibate Hero: In the third and fourth films, she no longer dates anyone and mostly keeps to herself.
• Character Development: At the beginning of the first film, she's just a perky high school kid who, over time, develops into a guilt-ridden survivor in the second film, to a reclusive hermit by the third. The fourth, however, shows that, many years later, she's fully willing to take the fight to the killer, having her first encounter with him directly after Olivia's death. And winning. She goes even further in the fifth film, not only being extremely aware of how dangerous Ghostface is to the point of trying to get Sam to not run off, but tracking her and deliberately trying to take out the two Ghostfaces with all the energy of a tired war veteran. She even outright mocks and hangs up on Ghostface, showing just how little fear is left within her.
• Clashing Cousins: With Jill Roberts in Scream 4.
• Combat Pragmatist: Sidney uses anything at her disposal when Ghostface comes for her; umbrellas, guns, defibrillators, sticking her fingers into open wounds, biting the killer, you name it.
• Cosmic Plaything: Her life, to put it bluntly, sucks. She's targeted repeatedly by various serial killers who make an effort to torment her all the while acting like they're the victim, subject to repeated harassment by the media and random pranksters for her survival of the killing spree, and suffers from near-constant betrayal and loss. It's at its worst in the second film, by the end of which she's lost the life she's struggled so hard to build because of Mrs. Loomis's Revenge Myopia and Mickey's pathetic desire to become famous.
• Crazy-Prepared: In the third film, Ghostface has Sidney use a metal detector before inviting her inside, and reveals a gun in an ankle holster. He has her get rid of it, but didn't consider she also had a second gun taped to the same ankle. Like Roman, the Ghostface in that movie, she was also smart enough to wear a bulletproof vest as well, which ends up saving her life when Ghostface shoots her. In the fifth movie, once she enters Amber's house (formerly Stu's house), she starts shooting every door, with the knowledge that Ghostface likes to pop out and ambush her from there, which ends up working in her favour as it wounds Richie, giving everyone a significant advantage against him when he's revealed to be the killer.
• Damsel out of Distress: While she's the target for each Ghostface, she survives each encounter by taking them out instead.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Before the events of the original film, Sidney has spent the past year coping with the death of her mother which has included having having to testify against her accused killer Cotton Weary and being under scrutiny from media figures such as Gale Weathers.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Being the Final Girl in real life is not good for one's mental health. She has genuine PTSD due to her experiences, she begins Scream 3 as a reclusive hermit out of fear for her life, and in general she has had her entire adult life defined by what occurred in 1996.
• Decoy Protagonist: In the fifth film, Dewey contacts Sidney after the first Ghostface murders and it appears she will be taking center-stage to stop the new spree. Instead, Sidney rebuffs any intention of going to Woodsboro and the plot continues to focus on Sam Carpenter.
• The Dog Bites Back: In the original film, after Billy successfully killed her mother and tries to kill her, Sidney defeats him and ends his life.
• Doom Magnet: She's destined to spend the rest of her life being periodically attacked and having all her friends killed by nutjobs trying to imitate the previous killers. In the second movie, her drama teacher outright compares her to Cassandra, a woman from Greek myth who was cursed.
• Double Tap: After Billy and Mickey have both sprung up after seemingly being shot dead at the end of their respective killing sprees, Sidney refuses to allow Mrs. Loomis to do the same and shoots her corpse in the head to make sure she doesn’t get back up. She also advises Sam to do this as well at the end of the fifth movie, which prompts Sam to shoot Richie’s corpse three times, the final time in the head.
• Drama Club: She's a theater student in the second film, playing Cassandra in a stage play, and the fourth film reveals that she played Tiger Lily in a high school production of Peter Pan.
• Dude Magnet: She dates Billy, Derek, and Kincaid over the course of the series but also attracts Stu (who admits he always had a thing for her) without even trying.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: By the fifth movie, she has moved on from Woodsboro, settled down with Mark Kincaid, and had children with him. Even more so, by Scream VI, while she sends her love to Gale and the Carpenter sisters, she finally has found the strength to put Ghostface behind her and not get involved, which the three agree is for the best.
• Enemy Mine: A rare heroic example, as she teams up with Gale to stop both Billy and Stu.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Judy Hicks, a new character in 4, reveals that she and Sidney went to high school together, though the latter does not remember her. Likewise, 2022-onward protagonist Sam Carpenter is the daughter of a classmate of Sidney's.
• Experienced Protagonist: By the third film, she's become Crazy-Prepared enough to actually successfully take on Ghostface, and is savvy enough to their tactics to get the drop on them. By the fourth film, she's no longer running from Ghostface save to protect others, actively charges towards danger to save others, and shows little fear when fighting Ghostface directly. By the time of the fifth movie, over twenty years after the original killings, she's become such that she keeps two high-powered pistols on her person at all times, has so little fear of Ghostface to hang up rather than play their games, and even identifies one of the killers almost immediately upon seeing them. During the climax, she's actively engaging in Casual Danger Dialogue with Gale during the whole fight.
• Fall Guy: Subverted. Roman intended to blame her for his killing of John Milton by planting a fake recording of her voice swearing revenge on the latter's answer machine, but the former is killed while trying to execute this cover-up.
• Famed In-Story: Becomes a celebrity after the events of the first movie.
• Final Girl: Initially played straight (except for the film's subversion of Sex Signals Death), although she slowly evolves into a deconstruction as the series goes on, with her life defined by her "perpetual victimhood" and the bloody consequences that this has for those around her.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Sidney and Gale start out, to put it lightly, on a bad note, with Gale exploiting the violent death of Sidney's mother for the sake of book sales and publicly casting doubt on Sidney's testimony against the supposed killer. However, they're forced to team up against Ghostface during the first film's climax, and from there, their relationship slowly improves over the series. By the fifth and sixth films, they're solid friends.
• Foil:
  • To the primary Ghostfaces in the first three films. Billy, Mrs. Loomis, and Roman all suffered from legitimate trauma but choose to deal with it by lashing out at innocent people and using their suffering as an excuse to shirk responsibility for their actions. Meanwhile, whilst Sidney struggles to recover from her traumas and resultant PTSD, she still does her best to help the people around her and does her best to make up for her mistakes.
  • To Dewey Riley. While Dewey is already an adult when the series starts and is the older brother of Tatum, Sidney is still in high school and is around the same age as Tatum. Dewey quickly develops a rapport with Gale while Sidney has a slower transition to being on friendly terms with her. Dewey's family is shown to be generally friendly and supportive of him while multiple family members of Sidney (namely Roman and Jill) are antagonistic to her. Sidney leaves Woodsboro repeatedly and makes sporadic appearances usually only during a Ghostface murder spree while Dewey stays there and becomes a staple of the community as an officer. Ghostface never specifically targets Dewey but almost always targets Sidney. Both are struck by Jill in a sneak attack, but Sidney is still conscious while Dewey is rendered unconscious from her attack. Although both were present for five Ghostface murder sprees and neither are successful in killing either Ghostface, Dewey is killed by Amber while Sidney survives both Amber and Richie.
  • To Gale Weathers. Sidney was personally involved in the Maureen Prescott case while Gale just covered it without any emotional investment. While both met Cotton Weary, Sidney played a role in his imprisonment by identifying him as her mother's killer and never spoke to him while he was jailed while Gale was involved in trying to prove him innocent and spoke to him during his imprisonment. Although both are writers, Sidney writes to address her own trauma with little to no interest in financial or career gains while Gale writes to increase her notoriety and wealth. While both survive multiple Ghostface murder sprees, Sidney is generally involved in some final confrontation that sees her face the killer one-on-one and kill them while Gale normally only gets involved in small doses of the fight.
  • To Randy Meeks. Sidney dislikes horror movies and finds them insulting while Randy loves them. Randy is a virgin in the original film while Sidney has intercourse with Billy. Sidney is never shot by either Billy or Stu despite their prolonged pointing of guns at her while Randy is quickly shot by Billy after he reveals himself as one of the killers. Mrs. Loomis fails to kill Sidney out of revenge for her murder of her son, but succeeds in killing Randy after he badmouths Billy.
  • To Jill Roberts. Sidney has faced Ghostface multiple times and generally fights back while Jill is inexperienced and mostly runs away. While Jill matches Sidney's background in living with a single parent, Jill lives with her mom while Sidney lived with her dad. Although both had a boyfriend during their first Ghostface spree, Billy was one of the killers and tried to kill Sidney while Trevor was not and was killed by Jill. Sidney was an innocent victim of the Ghostface sprees who unwillingly became famous from being a survivor, Jill is the perpetrator trying to pose as a victim hoping to get the same attention for herself that Sidney acquired. While Sidney lost her mother to Ghostface and loved her, Jill killed her mother simply to match Sidney's background and felt no affection for her. Although both are taken to a hospital, Sidney is there to recover from wounds caused by others while all of Jill's were self-inflicted. During their final battle, Sidney has multiple allies like Dewey, Gale, and Judy come to assist her while Jill operates alone.
• Friendly Enemy: With Cotton in the second film.
• Genre Savvy: "Horror movies are all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act who's always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting."
• Good Is Not Soft: Generally a friendly person, however as the killers learn the hard way, once you piss Sidney off, she will not hold back. She's also not afraid to punch Gale in the face for being an insensitive bitch in the first two movies.
• Hated Hometown: Can you really blame her? When Dewey asks her not to come back to Woodsboro during the fifth massacre, she replies that she has no intention of doing so. She eventually does, but only to avenge Dewey after he's killed.
• Heroes Love Dogs: In the third movie, she has a dog named Cherokee.
• Heroic Second Wind: Her fight with Jill in 4. She is stabbed by her cousin prior to falling to the floor in an unconscious state, and recovers enough at the hospital to wake as Jill comes into her room to finish executing her. Sidney fights her on more even terms until the interventions of Dewey, Gale, and Judy lead to Jill's defeat.
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • Her romantic relationships with Billy and Derek in the original film and Scream 2 prove this. She is never able to see any of Billy's traits as similar to that of either a killer or someone dangerous until he reveals it to her. When she begins dating Derek, who is the polar opposite of Billy in just wanting what's best for Sidney, she is too scarred from her experience with the latter to ever give the former the benefit of the doubt and suspects that he could be trying to kill her all the way until shortly before he is killed in front of her.
  • When both Randy and Stu appear to her, bloodied and begging her to help them because the other is a psychopath, she can't decide which one if either is telling the truth and locks them both out. Though she was right about Stu, Randy was ultimately innocent.
  • She spends enough time with Mickey for them to have a solid rapport, but she never flags the fact he's a serial killer as well until he reveals it. Granted, Mickey was much better at hiding his psychopathy than either Stu or Billy, but still.
  • She never suspects that either Jill or Richie are killers in 4 and the fifth film, instead trying to help both from Ghostface until they engage in some sneak attack that reveals their true intentions.
  • Subverted though with the fifth film, where she's able to identify right away that Amber is one of the killers, and refuses to fall for their Wounded Gazelle Gambit.
• Improbable Weapon User: Wields an array of Improvised Weapons throughout the series, to the point that it's practically a Running Gag. Her greatest hits include an ornate ice pick, an umbrella, a defibrillator, a framed picture on the wall, and a necklace. If you're trying to kill her, she can and will use anything she can get her hands on to defend herself, and use it well.
• Irony: Both Roman and Jill target Sidney out of envy for her fame, unaware and uncaring that, while they would revel in it, Sidney has never sought the spotlight and values peace and happiness more than the fame she received as a survivor.
• It's All My Fault: Because so many of her loved ones have been killed, she begins having survivor's guilt and believes that they died because of her. That said, while she feels guilt over their deaths, she spares no guilt for the Ghostfaces when they try to blame their problems on her, saying that they have no one to blame but their own screwed-up existences.
• It's Personal: She tends to develop a personal animosity toward the killers in most of the films, usually brought on by them killing someone close to her. Billy killed her mother, Mrs. Loomis killed Randy, and Amber killed Dewey.
• Kirk Summation: In the third film, she can't help but be annoyed and disgusted with Roman for blaming Sidney's existence for his life, and thus his eventual murdering spree. Eventually, she gets fed up, having heard this speech before, and shouts furiously that he's really just looking for an excuse and every last one of the scapegoating Ghostfaces should learn to take some responsibility for once in their twisted lives.
• Legendary in the Sequel: Sidney was a relatively unknown girl who had a highly-publicized personal tragedy happen to her before the events of the first film. In the sequels, classmates, law enforcement, and teenagers have levels of familiarity with her that make her comparable to a celebrity, with Charlie and Robbie even requesting that Gale get Sidney to address their class before they start working with Gale.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Despite being friends for decades at this point, in the fifth film, Sidney is unaware of Dewey no longer being a sheriff or declining to help Sam and Richie solve the new Ghostface murder spree.
• Made of Iron: Similar to the Ghostface killer, she's pretty durable, considering she survives getting stabbed a few times, a couple car crashes, and falling out an upper-story window onto a boat.
• Mama Bear: Of all the times she’s fought Ghostface, she’s the most formidable in the fifth film. She even mentions she won’t rest until the new killers are in the ground because she has kids.
• Mistaken for Murderer: Subverted. Roman declares his intent to frame her for murdering Milton as revenge for his role in denigrating their mother, but she foils his plot.
• Most Writers Are Writers: In Scream 4, she publishes a memoir, which becomes a bestseller.
• Never Accepted in His Hometown: In Scream 4, she is visibly jeered at by people at Woodsboro when people start dying the moment she arrives. This might have been the reason why she lived out of town in the interim years. Even back in her teen years in the first film, it was implied Sidney was never popular in school as she only had a limited friend circle, with her claims of being attacked being gossiped about and denied by other girls who also talk trash about her dead mom.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: Many of her friends who succumb to Ghostface often die without her being able to properly part ways with them.
  • In the second film, the last conversation between Sidney and Randy is the pair discussing the murder at the Stab showing and Randy being in denial about the killing being the start of a new killing spree. She is in the library while he is murdered by Mrs. Loomis.
  • In the fifth film, the last time she speaks to Dewey, Sidney tells him that she's glad he's there to protect whoever the killer is after and warns him to be safe. She arrives in Woodsboro shortly after his murder.
• Nice Girl: She's introduced as innocent, supportive and caring, and it doesn't completely go away even after her various traumas.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In Scream 4, Sidney tries to protect Jill and her friends from the new Ghostface. For her troubles, she is stabbed in the stomach and nearly killed by the very same person she tried to protect.
• Not Quite Dead: In Scream 4, after Jill stabs her in the stomach again, Sidney falls to the ground and the former is convinced she is deceased. It is only after the two are taken to the hospital that Dewey informs her (and the audience) that Sidney is still alive.

O-Z

• Odd Friendship: With Gale Weathers. While the two gradually become closer due to their shared experiences with Ghostface and both write, they still have very different goals and personalities that are mostly connected thanks to Dewey.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: In the fourth and fifth films, where she's in her 30's and 40's respectively, the killers are still teenagers, or young adults in Richie's case.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Sidney usually takes no BS when confronted with the killer face to face after The Reveal. Even at her most broken, once Roman confronts her, she calls them, and all other Ghostfaces, out on blaming her for their problems. This is not the case in the fourth film when she finds out the killer is Jill. Yes, she's still willing to kill Jill when push comes to shove, but she's not in her usual "go fuck yourself" mode when she has to fight and kill a relative she watched grow up. She's much more taken aback and restrained, and even remorseful. Jill is also the only killer she doesn't finish off with a headshot to make sure.
• Parasol of Pain: She stabs Billy with an umbrella to briefly incapacitate him.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Shooting Billy and Mickey in the head while they were clearly helpless was completely unnecessary of Sidney. But considering what they made her go through, it's understandable.
• Platonic Life-Partners: With Dewey Riley. He guards Sidney with his life throughout the series and remains considerably closer to her than Gale, who Sidney gradually warms up to. Their friendship is so close that Sidney even risks her own life in a bid to save him in the third film, and states her belief in the effectiveness of his protection when they talk over the phone in the fifth film.
• Plucky Girl: Considering everything she's gone through.
• Pragmatic Hero: She's the one who brings a gun to a knife fight. Sidney has become something of a "Professional Survivor" over the years and is constantly armed from the third film onwards. In the fifth film, she literally opts to shoot first when scanning doors at Stu's old house, and hangs up on the killer when they try their Motive Rant over the phone.
  Dewey: Do you have a gun?
  Sidney: I'm Sidney fucking Prescott. Of course I have a gun.
• Properly Paranoid: Being a four-time Final Girl means that, by the fifth film, Sidney now owns a gun, as she tells Dewey when he calls, seemingly surprised he'd even need to ask.
• Put on a Bus: VI is the first film in the series where Sidney is completely absent. After the latest round of Ghostface killings begin in New York, and without the unfortunate loss of one of her fellow survivors this time around, Sidney opts to stay out of it and look after her family instead.
• Rage Breaking Point: After three films worth of dealing with serial killers actively tormenting her, killing her friends, and blaming her for their own actions, she loses it when the latest Ghostface goes off in a self-pitying Motive Rant casting himself as the victim. As she angrily points out, she's beyond sick of Ghostfaces blaming her for their own actions and tells him to take responsibility for his own actions before beating him with a metal candlestick.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: She is understandably upset upon learning that her mother was not the person she thought she was, but comes to terms with her actions, and believes that, in spite of them all, she did her best raising her.
• Red Baron: By Scream 4, she has gained the moniker "Angel of Death", because she tends to invite death and destruction everywhere she goes.
• Refusal of the Call: In the fifth film, upon hearing of the new Ghostface murder spree, she outright tells Dewey she has no intention of stepping foot in Woodsboro again. That is, until Dewey is killed.
• Retired Badass: Seems to have become one as of Scream VI, as instead of getting involved in the newest set of killings she instead takes her family somewhere safe - which everyone agrees she deserves.
• Sanity Slippage: Through her half-brother's movie tricks, she apparently undergoes this in the third film, having visions of her dead mother coming for her. It doesn't work though.
• The Scapegoat: Every Ghostface with a motive for their killings finds some way to blame her for how fucked up and psychopathic they are, naturally seeing murder for revenge as the ideal solution. By the third time this happens, Sidney has completely had it and lividly calls them out on their bullshit. The exception is the fifth film, where the killers don't blame Sidney for their problems (and in fact, admire her in their own twisted way) but nonetheless want to kill her because they think that her survival would conflict with their plan of "rebooting" the Stab franchise.
• Seen It All: Twenty-five years coping with nine different Ghostfaces have deadened Sidney's reactions to whichever new copycat pops up. Exemplified in the fifth film's obligatory climactic battle against the killers, where Sidney flat-out refuses to entertain the new Ghostface in their game, hanging up their threatening call and preemptively shooting every door she sees, as she knows well that they tend to ambush her from there. Compare her reaction with Sam's when Richie and Amber reveal themselves to be the killers and start ranting about their motives; while Sam is horrified, Sid's reaction amounts to "yeah, heard it all, seen it all, move along."
• Sex Signals Death: Subverted in the first film; she's the only named character in the franchise to have sex and live to tell about it, until Scream (2022) introduced Sam Carpenter.
• She's Back: After her run-in with Mickey and Ms. Loomis leaves all of her friends and peers from college and (thanks to Stu and Billy) high school dead, Sidney is left broken and scared. She's seen in the beginning of the third movie hiding out in a secluded house, scared of even the prospect of a copycat killer coming after her or anyone she might become close to, a timid shadow of who she was. She has many security measures and even uses a fake name when working at a call center. She only comes out of hiding when she gets a call from Roman and realizes she's no more safe there than she is anywhere else so she meets Dewey in Hollywood. When Roman forces her to come to the "third act" scene and reveals himself expositing his Evil Plan and childish Motive Rant, Sidney snaps back to her no-bullshit badass self by not only telling Ghostface he's full of shit but fighting him off and beating him like she did the others.
• She Who Fights Monsters: While Sidney has managed to survive five occasions of attacks, there are some scenes that make you wonder whether or not she might end up as a killer, or no different from one.
  • In the first film, she temporarily dons the Ghostface costume and uses the voice changer to trick Billy and Stu, leading them to their deaths.
  • In the third film, this was a part of Ghostface's plan, as Ghostface wanted to pin the murders on her.
  • It's averted by the fourth and especially the fifth films as Sidney has slowly managed to piece her life back together despite her various traumas. Ghostface even lampshades in the sixth film how ridiculous it would have been for Sidney to ever become a killer.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: She suffers from PTSD as a result of her having to suffer through the Ghostfaces' killing sprees and their constant betrayals. It's at its worst in the third film, where her trust issues have resulted in her becoming a recluse and hiding from the world rather than risk being hurt again.
• Shipper on Deck: She is supportive of the relationship between Dewey and Gale, even asking the former about her during a conversation in the fourth film.
• Sibling Rivalry: A murderous one with Roman, who is jealous of her for being accepted by their mother who shut him out "into the cold forever".
• Shut Up, Hannibal!:
  • In the third movie, when Ghostface reveals himself to be Roman, Sidney's half-brother, she cuts him off in the middle of his Motive Rant, declaring that she's tired of all the bullshit that the killers she has encountered have told her, and says that all of the reasons she has heard are just pathetic excuses that the killers use to hide the fact that they kill people simply because they enjoy doing it. This leads to a rather large Villainous Breakdown.
    Sidney: God, why don't you stop your whining and get on with it? I've heard this shit before! Do you know why you kill people, Roman? Do you? BECAUSE YOU CHOOSE TO! There is no one else to blame! Why don't you take some fucking responsibility?!
    Roman: *livid* FUCK YOU!!!
    Sidney: FUCK YOU!!!
  • The fifth film has a more literal and hilarious version of this trope: Sidney getting a taunting call from Ghostface while she's hunting him down, only for Sid to tell him “I’m bored” and hang up on him.
• Sole Survivor: Of the family she was born into. By the end of the fourth film, all of the known members of her family are dead. Her mom and aunt were murdered, her dad passed away, and she had to kill her brother and cousin as they were psychotic serial killers. Luckily, she's built a family of her own by the fifth film.
• Supporting Protagonist: Dewey and Gale are more active than her in the third film, but she's still the main character. Additionally, Sidney takes this role in the fifth film, which focuses on Sam Carpenter.
• Sympathetic Murderer: She deliberately kills most of the killers, even though in the case of Billy and Mickey they were already defenseless, and it was unnecessary. However, considering the paranoia they make her endure, can you blame her?
• Taught by Experience: Her ability to combat Ghostface increases over the series. She goes from struggling to defeat Billy and Stu (and requiring the help of Gale) in the original film to defeating Roman alone in the third.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Tomboy to Tatum's Girly Girl in the first movie and Hallie's Girly Girl in the second one.
• Tomboyish Name: A name befitting any respectable Final Girl. While "Sidney" did become popular as a girl's name in the early '90s (especially in the alternate spelling "Sydney"), for most people of Sidney's generation it would be known mainly as a boy's name. Even so, many girls with this name often spell it as Sydney.
• Took a Level in Badass: There weren't any doubts about her badassery in the first two movies, but she really cranks it up by the third.
  Sidney: (walks in on Ghostface and starts unloading her gun into him) It's your turn to scream, asshole!
• Took a Level in Cynic: After everything she goes through, Sidney becomes increasingly jaded and stoic as time goes on. She still makes efforts to move on with her life and never loses her general compassion, but she's clearly been Conditioned to Accept Horror.
• Trauma Conga Line:
  • Sidney's traumas begin with the brutal rape and murder of her mother. The following year, she finds out the murder was committed by her boyfriend and his best friend, who then proceeded with a killing spree that left most of her high school friends dead, including her best friend. Two years later, Sid becomes the target of a copycat killer and a vengeful mother who finish off what's left of her high school social circle and kill all of the new friends she made in college including her new boyfriend. This leaves her an empty shell, hiding out and trusting nobody. However, she's not even safe then as only another two years of isolation pass when her long-lost Child by Rape Green-Eyed Monster half-brother tracked her down and tried to frame her for his own killing spree in order to usurp her stardom. To put a cherry on top, it was this brother that orchestrated the murder of her mother. However, she manages to beat all of these killers and with the mastermind gone, she seems able to start her life anew without looking over her shoulder. Except no, because a decade later another killing spree starts in her hometown topping all of those that came before it. The killer? Her psychotic jealous cousin and her flunky. And this time the killer gets almost gets her. Sid manages to kill the little psycho but two things are made clear: she has no family left and this is very likely to happen again. And it does another decade later when she's built a family of her own. Even as she tries to stay out of it, she's lured back to Woodsboro when her longtime friend and fellow survivor is killed. She helps take those people down but History Repeats is a statistical likelihood at this point.
• True Blue Femininity: She wears a blue shirt and jacket in the final act of the original film.
• Undying Loyalty: To Dewey and, gradually, Gale. She will risk her life for theirs. Roman uses this to his advantage when he lures her with the two as his captives.
• Unlikely Hero:
  • In the original film, its doubtful either Billy or Stu thought the traumatized daughter of Billy's first victim (and the latter's girlfriend) would be the one to end their killing spree.
  • Subverted in the fourth and fifth films, where Jill, Amber, and Richie all expect her involvement.
• Villain Killer:
  • Of the protagonists, she has the highest villain kill count, taking out Stu Macher, Billy Loomis, Mickey Altieri (with Gale's help), and Jill Roberts. It's enough that she's lampshading this tendency in the third and fourth films.
  • The fifth film sees her actively giving Gale "the honor" of killing Amber, as she openly gloated about her murder of Dewey, though Tara is ultimately the one who shoots Amber dead.
• Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: A pretty justified one at least. In each film she appears in she has a vastly different career or career goal in mind; in the first film she's merely a high school student with no specific interests outlined, but in the second she's in college majoring in acting and seems to want to be an actress. However in the third film, she's gotten a job working as a phone operator for a woman's helpline, and working anonymously under an assumed name. The fourth film she's now became a successful self-help writer who's embraced her fame but only to help others, while in the fifth film, her job is unstated but she's now living anonymously with her husband and kids. Unlike a lot of cases, it makes sense she'd keep changing her life as she's trying to escape the traumas of her past and generally, the events of the film render any hope of continuing her then-current career path fruitless.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Every time she seems to have settled into a peaceful life, she will inevitably get dragged into another Ghostface terror all over again. Even hiding herself in a cottage doesn't work, as Roman somehow manages to find her. Downplayed with the fifth movie; even though she has to suffer the loss of Dewey, she's also achieved a happy ending of sorts by this time, having a husband and kids to go back home to.
• You Killed My Father: In the original film, her desire to kill her boyfriend Billy comes from discovering that he murdered her mother the previous year.
• Zen Survivor: What she becomes after surviving the horrors of the Scream movies, especially after the events of the second movie. Poor girl needs to catch a break.

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"I'll survive. I always do."