Film Deaths
Best Film Deaths Scenes

Part 2


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, such as Greatest Last Film Lines, some of which were uttered by a dying character, Greatest Melodramatic Films with many fine death scenes, Greatest Film Scenes with some descriptions of death scenes included, or some of the scenes in Scariest Movie Moments and Scenes.

Key to Iconic Symbol:

  • - Entries in Total Film Magazine's article (July, 2004 issue), 50 Greatest Movie Deaths (with ranking number #), based upon the results of a non-scientific poll taken from interviews with film critics ranking the most highly-rated death scenes in cinematic history. 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" that are included in this list.
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 2
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 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20
Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25

Film Title Description Example

King Kong (1933)
# 3

The thrilling and traumatic death scene of the giant ape shot down from biplanes while atop the Empire State Building in NYC; when shot he touched his bloody wounds with his giant paw and examined the blood; then he fell many stories to the street below - in 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"



Little Women (1933)

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 flew off from the window sill

The Black Cat (1934)

Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff) was vengefully 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?"

Cleopatra (1934)

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

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

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


Camille (1936)

The concluding soft-focus death scene of consumption-wracked Marguerite 'Camille' Gautier (Greta Garbo)

The Petrified Forest (1936)

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")

Captains Courageous (1937)

Portuguese fisherman Manuel's (Spencer Tracy) death in fishing waters as he was cut free from the tangled mast ropes and drowned

The Good Earth (1937)

Chinese farmer Wang Lung (Paul Muni) told selfless and ailing first wife O-Lan (Luise Rainer) that he would sell his land if it would help her to recover, and gave her two pearls - he told her that she was always the one, but it was too late

Lost Horizon (1937)

At film's end, in a fierce blizzard weather as they plod along after leaving a remote Himalayan monastery, Maria's (Margo) face aged rapidly as she quickly reverted in appearance to her actual age, as George Conway (John Howard) screamed out: "Look at her face! Her face! Look at her face!" Maria died an old wrinkled and withered woman (aging by half a century, the time she spent in the valley) - George could not stand to see the decomposing body of the beloved woman and threw himself over the snowy cliffs

Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)

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 fairytale

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

Rocky Sullivan's (James Cagney) execution scene in which he became "yellow" on his way to the electric chair (accompanied by an incredible Max Steiner score)

Dark Victory (1939)

The quiet, upstairs death of young socialite and heiress Miss Judith Traherne (Bette Davis) with a brain tumor

Destry Rides Again (1939)

Bawdy saloon singer "Frenchy"'s (Marlene Dietrich) death - a heroine's sacrifice for Destry (James Stewart), in the final scene

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 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20
Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25

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