Defrosting Ice Queen/Film

Examples of Defrosting Ice Queens in Film include:

Leia from Star Wars. Compare her character in the original movie to her subsequent appearances in Return of the Jedi, cooing over the Ewoks.
- Well given the circumstances in A New Hope (she was captured, tortured and watched her planet (including her family) get destroyed), its understandable that she was a little cold and it doesn't really reflect on her personality. Her relationship with Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back is a better example, as she starts out rather icy to him but by the end is declaring her love for him.
- She was also playing primarily a leadership role in A New Hope, but by Return of the Jedi, they had won the war and she could afford to relax somewhat.
The best male example is Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) in Casablanca.
Many Bond girls, at least for the brief period before they melt into James' arms.
- Vesper Lynd, Casino Royale. Technical realities of her being a civilian, and not actual royalty, while looking down her nose at the vulgar Bond are utterly meaningless, both in the story and in this trope.
- Miranda Frost in Die Another Day appears to be a straight-up version of this trope, right down to her Meaningful Name, but is actually a subversion as she's secretly working for the villain, and thus didn't 'melt emotionally' as she appeared to.
Linus Larabee from both film versions (Humphrey Bogart, Harrison Ford) of Sabrina.
Male Example: in the film I ♥ Huckabees, the character Brad first appears to be a sexy, smug, condescending corporate manipulator. However, as the film moves to its denouement, it becomes clear that Brad is desperate to be liked—and convinced that being a male Stepford Smiler is the only way he can get people to like him. By the end of the film, the defrosting has already begun.
Arguably, Robert in Enchanted is another male example.
Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music is also a male example.
Phileas Fogg in the movie version of Around the World In 80 Days is another, to the extent that David Niven could ever defrost.
Young Frankenstein. Elizabeth, although it's more a case of getting hit with a blowtorch.
Every Hitchcock blonde. Dude had serious issue with women.
Megara aka Meg from |Hercules combines this with The Snark Knight.
Rose Sayer (played by Katharine Hepburn) in The African Queen. Seems to be a common theme in these Humphrey Bogart films.
Buttercup in The Princess Bride, though she defrosts completely within a couple minutes of the story's beginning.
The Proposal is a romantic comedy centered around this trope.
In Blade Runner, Rachael experiences a thaw after she discovers she's a replicant. Her confusion and vulnerability make the infamous Victim Falls For Rapist scene with Deckard all the more disturbing.
Gender-swapped in Back to the Future Part III, in which Doc, who in all likelihood has never been interested in a woman for all his many years due to his eccentric lifestyle and devotion to science, insists that love at first sight is a scientifically ridiculous concept - and is promptly proven wrong the moment he lays eyes on Clara.
Clint Eastwood's character in Gran Torino is the male equivalent of a Defrosting Ice Queen. He starts off as a racist jerk with a short fuse but gradually throughout the movie warms to his 'gook' neighbors by seeing even more reprehensible characters elsewhere in the neighborhood.
Catwoman in Batman Returns starts off as a Dark Action Girl / Ice Queen, but eventually warms up to him. Or at least, Selina Kyle warms up to Bruce Wayne, which isn't QUITE the same thing.
Joanna from Overboard.
Dr. Grace from Avatar. She's reportedly very cold and snarky until she gets to explore Pandora in person using an avatar, and then she becomes downright joyful. Of course, you'd be pissed-off too if the only way to get to the place you've been studying your whole life is because a bunch of army guys want to destroy it and its people for literal Unobtanium.
Tyler Perry makes use of this trope a lot. The heroines of Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea's Family Reunion, for example, have physical and sexual abuse in their backgrounds, respectively, and both require a tremendous amount of care and patience from their eventual love interests before they finally thaw.
Greta Garbo plays both Ice Queen and Defrosting Ice Queen to a T as the title character in Ninotchka.
In Pride and Prejudice, both Darcy and Elizabeth are ice princesses; they go back and forth rejecting each others advances until the end of the last act where Elizabeth finally accepts Darcys hand in marriage after he proposes for a second time. Probably belongs in literature as well.
EVE from WALL-E.
In Cool as Ice, we have the interesting situation of a heart of stone being defrosted by Vanilla Ice.
Charleton Heston, of all people, is one of these in The Naked Jungle.
Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You
Driving Miss Daisy.
Tigress in the Kung Fu Panda series. Originally a bitter Resenter to Po who seemed to snatch away her dream of becoming the Dragon Warrior, she softens considerably after Po proves himself by defeating Tai Lung singlehandedly. By the time of KFP 2, she has become his closest friend among the Furious Five and may be falling in love with him.
- Another Dreamworks example: Astrid in How to Train Your Dragon, who is an Ice Queen via being both a battle-ready Action Girl and looking down at the protagonist as a useless, bumbling sap. She gets better, of course.
  - Toothless could count too, since he was wary of and didn't like Hiccup very much in the beginning. He eventually grew attached to Hiccup and become fiercely protective of him.
Anna Scot in Notting Hill is not as "icy" as some versions but the theme song of the movie is a classic invocation of this trope.
Kelly towards Jason in Mystery Team.
Practically the entire point of The Cutting Edge, which is about an Olympic-class female figure skater who can't find a partner because of how high her standards are and how vicious she is toward them. The guy she eventually finds actually refers to her as an ice queen in the scene right before she finally defrosts. It's so much in focus that the film even ends before we find out whether or not they won the Olympic gold medal.
Princess Jasmine from Aladdin.

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