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 Introduction:
Deaths in film scenes can be either cool, teary, metaphoric, grisly,
scary, bloody, amusing, violent, transcendental, unforgettable, spectacular,
frightening, funny, or shocking. The victim's death may be well-deserved,
accidental, expected, sudden, or intentional. Some effective death scenes
even occur off-screen.
 Other
areas of this website have death scenes also. See
Greatest Last Film Lines, some
of which were uttered by a dying character, Greatest
Melodramatic Films with many fine death scenes, or Greatest
Film Scenes with some descriptions of death scenes included,
or some of the Scariest Movie Moments
and Scenes.
Total Film
Magazine (in the UK), in their July 2004 issue, provided an article
on the 50 Greatest Movie Deaths throughout cinematic history.
Their results, based on a non-scientific poll taken from interviews
with film critics, listed the 50 most highly-rated death scenes. Although
there were some excellent and well-deserved choices in the Total
Film list, there are many other great death scenes that were among
the missing death scenes in Total Film's honored list
of "cinema's best daisy-pushers" and "drop-dead moments".
The Total Film selections are marked throughout the following
compilation with this symbol 
and their ranking number.
Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star
 are
the films that "The Greatest Films" site
has selected as the 100 Greatest Films.
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Greatest Movie Death Scenes
(chronological by film title) - Part
1
Intro | Part
1 | Part 2 | Part
3 | Part 4 | Part
5 | Part 6 | Part
7 | Part 8 | Part
9 | Part 10
Part 11 | Part
12 | Part 13 | Part
14 | Part 15 |
| Film Title |
Description |
Example |
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The Birth of a Nation (1915)
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The tense sequence of 'Little Sister'
Flora (Mae Marsh) being chased by 'renegade negro' Gus (Walter Long)
into the woods and jumping to her death - this sequence was later referenced in The Last of the Mohicans (1992), when Alice Munro (Jodhi May) suicidally stepped off a cliff to refuse villain Magua's (Wes Studi) beckoning
Also, the reenactment of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (Joseph Henabery) by John Wilkes Booth while attending a play |
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Broken Blossoms (1919)
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The unforgettable death scene as sensitive
and frail teenage Cockney waif Lucy Burrows' (Lillian Gish) brutal
father Battling Burrows (Donald Crisp) breaks down the closet door
as she cowers and twists to avoid him - and later receives the fatal
blows |
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Nosferatu (1922, Ger.)
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The rat-like vampire Count Orlok's (Max
Schreck) death when exposed to daylight, tricked by Ellen Hutter
(Greta Schröder) into overstaying his welcome |
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Greed (1924)
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The inevitable deaths of two ex-friends,
McTeague (Gibson Gowland) and Marcus (Jean Hersholt), under the
harsh sun in Death Valley as they greedily fight to the death; McTeague
is the survivor of the fight, although he is left handcuffed to
his dead foe; he attempts to free a bird, but it perishes quickly,
and the lone, doomed man is left to die, last seen in an extreme
long shot |
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La Passion de Jeanne D'Arc (1928, Fr.)
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The wrenching burning
execution at the stake, martyred death of persecuted Jeanne d'Arc
(Maria Falconetti) with her shaved head and a look of forgiveness
and pity directed at the gawking onlookers |
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The Wind (1928)
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The nightmarish scene of naive bride Letty's (Lillian Gish) near-rape by amoral salesman Wirt Roddy (Montagu Love) and then her shooting of him at point-blank range - setting up the film's dramatic finale in which she buries him in the sand during a windstorm |
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Applause (1929)
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The heartbreaking ending in which fading and "washed-up" burlesque star Kitty Darling (Helen Morgan), the ailing, self-sacrificing mother of convent-bred 17 year-old daughter April Darling (Joan Peers), suicidally poisoned herself and slowly died in her dressing room, as April vowed to take her mother's place by forcing herself to go out and dance sordid burlesque in front of leering, middle-aged men (and vowed to give the crowd their 'money's worth': "I'll show them"), after telling her mother: "Nothing matters now but you, Mommy. We'll always have each other. Nothing is ever going to separate us again" |
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All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
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The death of German soldier
Paul Baumer (Lew Ayres) by a sniper's bullet as he reaches from
a trench for a beautiful fluttering butterfly |
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Little Caesar (1930)
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Gangster Cesare Enrico
'Rico' Bandello's (Edward G. Robinson) death and final words: "Mother
of Mercy! Is this the end of Rico?" |
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The Champ (1931)
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The melodramatic, tear-jerking
death of boxer Andy "Champ" Purcell (Wallace Beery) in
the locker room, after taking a savage (ultimately fatal) beating
in a match, with young son Dink (Jackie Cooper) at his side
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Dracula (1931)
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The death (offscreen)
of vampire Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi) as Van Helsing (Edward Van
Sloan) drives a sharp, pointed wooden stake into his undead heart |
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Frankenstein (1931)
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The scene of the Monster's
(Boris Karloff) killing of young Maria (Marilyn Harris) by tossing
her into a lake, thinking mistakenly that she will float like flower
petals |
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Public Enemy (1931)
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The scene of gangster Tom Powers' (James Cagney)
bandaged dead body's special delivery to his home - after he's
been kidnapped from the hospital and killed by rival gangsters
- propped up like a wrapped mummy at the doorstep of his mother's
(Beryl Mercer) house; he falls forward face-first (while a scratchy
phonograph record plays an upbeat tune on the soundtrack) in the
final horrifying scene |
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A Farewell to Arms (1932)
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The quintessential deathbed
scene in this tearjerker was one of the most romantic and sad ever
filmed; British nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes) died in her
hospital bed in a maternity ward in Switzerland after her baby died
-- with loving World War I officer and ambulance driver Lt. Frederic
Henry (Gary Cooper) by her side kissing her and professing his love
("I'll never stop loving you"); her prolonged tearjerking
death ("Oh darling, I'm going to die. Don't let me die! Take
me in your arms! Hold me tight! Don't let me go...In life and in
death, we'll never be parted...I believe it and I'm not afraid")
coincided with bells ringing to declare the Armistice; after she
died, he carried her in his arms to the window and affirmed: "Peace,
peace" - as white doves flew into the air and the screen faded
to black |
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King Kong (1933)
# 3
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The thrilling and traumatic death scene of the
giant ape shot down from biplanes while atop the Empire State
Building in NYC, and his fall many stories to the street below
- and the film's coda when Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) was
told that the airplanes finally got the monster, he famously asserted:
"Oh, no. It wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the
Beast" |
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Little Women (1933)
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The sad scene of dying
Beth March (Jean Parker) reassuring her older sister Jo (Katharine
Hepburn): "I'm not afraid anymore! I'm learning that I don't
lose you, that you'll be more to me than ever, and NOTHING can part
us, though it seems to. Oh, Jo! I think I'll be homesick for you
- even in heaven"; also Jo's written ode to her sister titled
"My Beth": ("Oh my sister, passing from me / Out
of human care and strife / Leave me, as a gift those virtues / Which
have beautified your life / By that deep and solemn river / Where
your willing feet now stand"); and Beth's last words: "I
think I can sleep now. Oh look, Jo. My birds. They got back in time")
- and at the moment of Beth's death - birds fly off from the window
sill |
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The Black Cat (1934)
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Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris
Karloff) was skinned alive (seen in dark silhouette) with a scalpel by Dr. Vitus Werdegast
(Bela Lugosi) as the doctor sadistically asked: "How does it feel
to hang on your own embalming rack, Hjalmar?" |
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Cleopatra (1934)
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Queen of Egypt Cleopatra's
(Claudette Colbert) memorable live snake-to-breast death scene as
she took an asp from a basket ("Now give me the basket - it
holds victory") and held it to her naked breast to be bitten,
and then expired while sitting on the throne |
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Bride of Frankenstein
(1935)
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The ending in which the Monster (Boris Karloff)
pulled the fateful lever to bring both creatures and creator to
extinction, as the Bride (Elsa Lancaster) expelled one long, snake-like
hiss at him. Explosions rocked the stone-tower - rubble from the
crumbling foundation buried everyone inside alive |
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Camille (1936)
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The concluding soft-focus
death scene of consumption-wracked Marguerite 'Camille' Gautier
(Greta Garbo) |
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The Petrified Forest (1936)
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The death scene at the finale when idealistic and disillusioned writer/world traveler Alan Squier (Leslie Howard) died in the arms of culturally-starved waitress Gabrielle (Gabby) Maple (Bette Davis) after being shot by ruthless fugitive gangster Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart) in a run-down Arizona desert cafe (as she recited: "...this is the end for which we twain are met"). |
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Captains Courageous (1937)
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Portuguese fisherman Manuel's
(Spencer Tracy) death in fishing waters as he is cut free from the
tangled mast ropes and drowns |
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The Good Earth (1937)
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Chinese farmer Wang Lung
(Paul Muni) tells selfless and ailing first wife O-Lan (Luise Rainer)
that he will sell his land if it will help her to recover, and gives
her two pearls - he tells her that she was always the one, but it
is too late |
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Lost Horizon (1937)
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At film's end, in a fierce
blizzard weather as they plod along after leaving a remote Himalayan
monastery, Maria's (Margo) face ages rapidly as she quickly reverts
in appearance to her actual age, as George Conway (John Howard)
screams out: "Look at her face! Her face! Look at her face!"
Maria dies an old wrinkled and withered woman (aging by half a century,
the time she spent in the valley) - George cannot stand to see the
decomposing body of the beloved woman and throws himself over the
snowy cliffs |
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Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)
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The 'death' of Snow White
eating the poisoned apple, and the demise of the Wicked Queen (voice
of Lucille La Verne), toppling from a lightning-struck cliff to
her death, with two vultures following her descent, in the animated
classic |
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