|
 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.
| Greatest
Movie Death Scenes
(chronological by film title) - Part
11
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 |
| Red Dawn (1984)
|
In this famous US homeland invasion film - the first film to be released with the MPAA's PG-13 film rating, the death of Robert Morris (C. Thomas Howell), one of the defending teenaged Wolverines, in a hail of smoke and heavy gunfire from an approaching Soviet helicopter gunship while resisting the occupational forces in the small town of Calumet, Colorado |
|
| The Terminator
(1984)
|
The final crushing destruction
of the shiny chrome skeletal Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
by a factory's industrial hydraulic steel press machine - its glowing
red eyes were finally darkened - after Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton)
pressed the machine's control panel button, and growled: "You're
terminated!" - lightning bolts snapped out from the flattened
cyborg |
|
| Day of the Dead
(1985)
# 28
|
The spectacularly gory, brutal and grisly
death of maniacal army leader Capt. Rhodes (Joseph Pilato) when he was ripped
apart at the waist by zombies in the hallway, as he defiantly yelled out: "Choke on 'em!" |
|
| Prizzi's Honor
(1985)
|
The climactic finale in
which lovers Irene Walker (Kathleen Turner) and Charley Partanna
(Jack Nicholson) finally carried out their 'hit' contracts on each
other -- Irene was stabbed in the throat by a knife thrown by Charley
while shooting at (and missing) him
|
|
Return of the Living Dead (1985)
|
The grisly warehouse basement murder scene in which a sheet was pulled back to reveal an undead Tar-man zombie (Allan Trautman) - with the battle cry of "Brains!"; the creature munched or chomped on the brains of living victim Suicide (Mark Venturini) dying while sprawled on the floor |
|
Rocky IV (1985)
|
Early in this film, Apollo Creed's (Carl Weathers) sudden and heartbreaking death in the ring in the second round against Russian Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) in Las Vegas - to set up the subsequent pay-back return of Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) to the ring to challenge him |
|
| Witness (1985)
# 48
|
Corrupt cop Fergie's (Angus
MacInnes) smothering at the bottom of an Amish grain silo, as it
filled with grain from above and blocking his escape out of the door |
 |
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
|
The scene in which an Asian martial-arts master Thunder (Carter Wong) (one of the Three Storms) physically expanded in rage - he inflated and then exploded (off-screen); first, his facial cheeks and his feet swelled, and then his entire head filled with hot steamy air before he literally blew up |
|
Deadly Friend (1986)
|
In the infamous 'basketball-toss-to-the-head' decapitating death scene, robotic Samantha Pringle (Kristy Swanson) vengefully killed her mean, crotchety next-door neighbor Elvira Parker (Anne Ramsey) with a swift blow, and then watched as the headless and bloody corpse staggered and wriggled to the floor; in another memorable scene (a shock ending) set in a morgue, Samantha grabbed boyfriend/creator Paul's (Matthew Laborteaux) neck as her robotic skeleton became visible - while she entreated: "Come with me, Paul" |
|
| The Fly (1986)
|
The poignant final
scene of the disfigured, anguished, slowly degenerating and mutating
scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), called Brundlefly, wordlessly
begging girlfriend/OMNI reporter Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis)
to end his monstrous life with a shotgun blast; after her merciful
act of compliance, she tearfully collapsed on her knees to the
floor |
 |
| Henry: Portrait
of a Serial Killer (1986)
|
The many sickening, brutally-violent
cinema-verite killings (over a dozen) by psychotic murderer
Henry (Michael Rooker), including the death of a young woman left
in a ditch, a prostitute (Mary Demas) killed in a bathroom with
a broken soda bottle in her face, shots-in-the-head to a storeowner
couple (Elizabeth and Ted Kaden), and the repeated stabbing of TV
salesman/fence with a soldering iron and then smashing a cheap B/W
TV over his head to end his life |
|
| The Hitcher (1986)
# 31
|
The infamous, grotesque
death of young waitress Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh) when tied hand
and foot by rope between two gigantic trucks and pulled in two (the
gore remained off-screen) |
 |
| Little Shop of
Horrors (1986)
|
Sadistic, Elvis-like dentist
Orin Scrivello's (Steve Martin) accidental asphyxiation on laughing
gas, and nebbish florist assistant Seymour Krelbourn's (Rick Moranis)
feeding of him (chopped up with an axe) to hungry gigantic venus
flytrap Audrey II (voice of Levi Stubbs) |
|
| Manhunter (1986)
|
The scene of Freddy Lounds
(Stephen Lang) strapped to a wheelchair and set ablaze, rolling
down a parking garage ramp towards the camera, with his death occurring
later (offscreen) in a hospital
|
 |
| The Mission (1986)
|
The evocative opening
image of a martyred Jesuit missionary, stripped to the waist, tumbling
over a waterfall (Iguazu Falls) 200 feet to his death while still
crucified on a giant rough-hewn cross |
 |
| Platoon (1986)
# 14
|
The crucifixion martyr
pose of nice-guy Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe) as a helicopter pulled
away, and he staggered into view before NVA bullets overpowered him
|
 |
| Top Gun (1986)
# 36
|
During a failed flight, the death of naval pilot Lt. Nick 'Goose'
Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), following
a tailspin and botched ejection when he hit his own cockpit canopy and was instantly killed; after parachuting into the water, fighter pilot
Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell (Tom Cruise) cradled his buddy in his arms, and hesitated to let him go when he was being hoisted up into a rescue helicopter |
|
| Full Metal Jacket
(1987)
# 32
|
The bloody suicidal death
of tormented, overweight misfit and psychopathic Marine Private
'Pyle' (Vincent D'Onofrio) during boot camp training, by shooting
himself in the mouth and blowing his head off in the bathroom (just
after murdering Gunnery Sargent Hartman (R. Lee Ermey)) |
|
Hellraiser
(1987)
|
Facing death and eternal damnation, Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman) looked lustfully at his niece Kirsty Cotton (Ashley Laurence) one last time while being impaled by dozens of hooked chains, said (infamously): "Jesus wept", and then was torn to shreds |
|
| House of Games
(1987)
|
In the unnerving,
unexpected twist ending of this hoax film about a confidence game
racket, the used and betrayed best-selling author and psychiatrist
Dr. Margaret Ford (Lindsay Crouse) resorted to viciously murdering
self-admitted con-man 'guide' Mike (Joe Mantegna) in cold-blood
with multiple gunshots in an airport baggage terminal (after being
shot, he requested: "Thank you sir, may I have another?") |
|
Innerspace (1987)
|
The memorable, bizarre death of
sinister robotic-armed villain Mr. Igoe (Vernon Wells) at the
hands of daring but irresponsible Navy test pilot Lt. Tuck Pendleton
(Dennis Quaid), both of whom were miniaturized and injected into
the body of insecure, hypochondriacal Safeway clerk/manager
Jack Putter (Martin Short); as they clung onto Putter's stomach
wall, Mr. Igoe attempted to drill into the cockpit windshield
of Tuck's submersible craft-capsule; Tuck growled: "Okay,
buddy, this is how I spell relief!", and let go - both plunged
into Putter's caustic stomach acids, and the unshielded Mr. Igoe
was disintegrated; a nauseated Tuck informed Jack: "Congratulations,
Jack. You just digested the bad guy"; Jack burped in response |
|
Nekromantik (1987, Germ.)
|
Director Jorg Buttgereit's low-budget, cultish and controversial German gross-out, depraved horror film was reviled and banned in many countries for its depiction of necrophilia - sex with corpses, rabbit cruelty, cat disembowelment, and decapitation by a shovel; in one of the film's final sequences, suicidal and manic-depressive ambulance driver Robert "Rob" Schmadtke (Daktari Lorenz) simultaneously masturbated and committed hari-kiri with a knife - culminating in an orgasmic semen-blood mixed expiration; during a threesome, his girlfriend Betty (Beatrice Manowski) also found pleasure in making love to a rotting corpse with a sawed-off piece of a broom handle (outfitted with a condom) stuck in its groin as a makeshift penis |
|
| No Way Out (1987)
|
The startling suicide
of scheming, yet loyal aide Scott Pritchard (Will Patton) who killed
himself when his superior Defense Secretary David Brice (Gene Hackman)
tried to make him the fall guy in the murder of his mistress Susan
Atwell (Sean Young)
|
 |
The Princess Bride (1987)
|
The wine-poisoning "battle-of-wits" death scene in which brilliant kidnapper Vizzini (Wallace Shawn) was given a choice between drinking from two wine goblets by black-masked and garbed Westley/Dread Pirate Robert (Cary Elwes) -- one of which contained an odorless but deadly iocaine powder - in a contest to decide the fate of kidnapped Princess Bride/Buttercup (Robin Wright); although Vizzini cleverly switched the goblets, thinking he could fool Westley when his back was turned, it was in vain, however, since the black-garbed man dosed both drinks (he was immune to the killer powder); while Vizzini laughed about his cleverness and explained: "You only think I guessed wrong! That's what's so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!", he fell over dead |
|
The Princess Bride (1987)
|
The crowd-pleasing revenge-killing of the nefarious, sadistic, six-fingered Count Tyrone Rugen (Christopher Guest) by seemingly-defeated Spanish swordmaster Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin), who repeatedly uttered the phrase: "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die!" When Inigo finally subdued Rugen during a duel, he told the Count: "Offer me money!... Power, too! Promise that!...Offer me everything I ask for!" When Rugen replied: "Anything you want!", Inigo growled as he made a final thrust to fatally stab Rugen in the stomach: "I want my father back, you son-of-a-bitch!", completing his life-long desired revenge |
|
| Robocop (1987)
# 49
|
Bad guy Emil Antonowsky's
(Paul McCrane) melting and liquifying after driving his truck into
a tank of toxic waste (the famed Melting Man scene) - he staggered around moaning "Help me" - his gory death occurred when he stepped in front of Clarence Boddicker's (Kurtwood Smith) speeding vehicle -- his body splattered explosively
across the hood and windshield |
 |
| Robocop (1987)
|
The prolonged, horrifying
torture/murder of Detroit Officer Alex J. Murphy (Peter Weller)
in the line of duty by a drug gang led by Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith); first, Murphy's right hand was mercilessly blown off with a shotgun as the villain joked ("Give the man a hand"), then his entire arm - followed by a non-stop volley of gunshots into his body; later in the film, he was transformed into a half-human, half-robot
super-cop |
 |
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