Film Deaths
Best Film Deaths Scenes

Part 5


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 5
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

The Children's Hour (1961)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

In this forward-looking story of female attraction between Karen Wright (Audrey Hepburn) and Martha Dobie (Shirley MacLaine) - two headmistress-teachers at the Wright-Dobie School for Girls, self-loathing Martha broke down and confessed how 'guilty' and 'sick and dirty' she felt about her feelings toward Karen - and later committed suicide (by hanging herself in her room - her dangling feet seen in shadowy silhouette) when she realized that the lesbian rumors about herself were true

West Side Story (1961)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

Ex-Jets gang member Tony's (Richard Beymer) death in Maria's (Natalie Wood) arms, and her last words to him: "Te adoro, Anton"

Cape Fear (1962)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

Max Cady's (Robert Mitchum) death by being hit in the head with a rock from protective lawyer-husband Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck) in the original version of this film
 

Carnival of Souls (1962)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The final scene, in which Mary Henry's (Candace Hilligoss) car (with her corpse inside) was dredged out of the lake

Lolita (1962)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The timely death (off-screen) of Lolita's mother Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters) when hit by a car, allowing middle-aged literature professor Humbert Humbert and widower Humbert Humbert (James Mason) to become nymphet teenager Dolores 'Lolita' Haze's (Sue Lyon) legal guardian and stepfather; also the final epilogue scene (a continuation of the prologue) in which Humbert was insanely motivated to commit murder for Quilty's (Peter Sellers) duplicity and his part in seducing, running off and abandoning Lolita - the ending shot was another view of a Victorian, Gainsborough-type watercolor painting of an 18th century genteel young woman with a bullet hole through the face of the young girl - symbolic of the irrecoverably-marked life of Lolita; Humbert had emptied all six rounds of his gun into the portrait, killing Quilty through the painting.

Lonely Are the Brave (1962)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The death of cowboy Jack Burns (Kirk Douglas) during his flight for freedom when run over by truck driver Hinton's (Carroll O'Connor) 18-wheeler  

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The brainwashing tea-party sequence with the demonstration of Sergeant Raymond Shaw's (Laurence Harvey) emotionless killing capacity of a platoon member - with his blood splattering onto a wall poster of Stalin, and the assassinations of both his step-father Senator John Iselin (James Gregory) and his mother Mrs. Iselin (Angela Lansbury) on-stage at a political convention - and then his own suicide as the crazed Sergeant blows his brains out (off-screen) - in the climactic finale

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

In the climactic shootout between novice, left-handed gun-user Ransom "Rance" Stoddard (James Stewart) and violent outlaw/gunfighter Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), it was later revealed in a flashback ("Think back, Pilgrim") that rancher/gunslinger Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) was actually the shooter who killed Valance - he had hidden and shot Liberty to sacrificially protect the love of his life Hallie Stoddard (Vera Miles) from heartbreak, and also for the greater good of the territory poised for statehood

The Birds (1963)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

Lydia Brenner's (Jessica Tandy) discovery of the eye-pecked body of a farmer and her inaudible scream from her open mouth

Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
# 2

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The hat-waving, yee-hawing, bronco-phallic descent to Doomsday of Major Kong (Slim Pickens) while riding an atomic bomb, followed by the ironic tune "We'll Meet Again"

Goldfinger (1964)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The striking image of the naked corpse of Goldfinger's escort Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton) painted gold and lying on a bed

Doctor Zhivago (1965)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The moving death of aging surgeon Dr. Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif) when he sighted his old flame Lara Antipova (Julie Christie) walking down a crowded Russian street, and he chased after her - suffering a heart attack from the stress and effort as he fruitlessly tried to call out to her while waving, and a crowd surrounded his lifeless body in a long overhead shot

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The scene of Sir Thomas More's (Paul Scofield) execution and his poignant words to his executioner: "Be not afraid of your office: you send me to God", in Fred Zinnemann's Best Picture-winning film of Richard Bolt's adaptation of his own play

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
# 5

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The jerky, writhing orgasmic bodies of Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) from a blizzard of bullets in a revolutionary, graphic ambush-death scene

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

Escaped chain-gang prisoner Luke (Paul Newman) looks out one of the church windows toward the Captain (Strother Martin) and other sheriffs in an eerie red light reflected from their cherry-tops. Ultimately unbroken and with a cocky, assured but cool smile, he mocks the Captain with the famous film line: "What we've got here is a failure to communicate", and is tragically shot in the throat and silenced forever by the crack-shooting Boss with no eyes. Flooded by a reddish glow, Luke dies in the back seat of the Boss' car viewed through a rain-spattered car window - his face wears the familiar grin - a sign of the victory of his spirit over death


If... (1968, UK)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The violent, vengeful and bloody finale in director Lindsay Anderson's violent and controversial coming-of-age drama about youth rebellion - an armed shoot-out and revolt by rebellious students from the rooftop of an oppressive, conformist English boarding school (a symbolic microcosm of a repressive Establishment-oriented society) during a Founder's Day ceremony; the attack was led by rebellious, anti-authoritarian anarchist Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell in his debut film role); he was joined by other boys and an unnamed coffee-house waitress/girlfriend (Christine Noonan) who coldly shot the Headmaster (Peter Jeffrey) between the eyes while he pleaded: "Boys, boys, I understand you. Listen to reason and trust me, trust me!"

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The senseless, grim death of sole survivor Ben (Duane Jones) by a shot in the head from a redneck in a lynch mob when he emerges into the daylight, and Barbara's (Judith O'Dea) death by her own zombified brother Johnny (Russell Streiner)

Pretty Poison (1968)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The two bewildering and disturbing murders committed by "pretty poison" high school senior - a perky amoral and corruptible blonde named Sue Ann Stepanek (Tuesday Weld): the first when she sat on the body of wounded plant nightwatchman Sam (Parker Fennelly) and cold-bloodedly drowned him - with her dress hiked up as she pumped him up and down (almost orgasmically); and the second - a matricide when she shot her dissolute, critical and disapproving mother (Beverly Garland) at point-blank range as she ascended the stairs carrying a breakfast of pancakes

Romeo and Juliet (1968)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

The deaths of the two young star-crossed lovers (Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey) from different houses (Montague and Capulet) by poison and dagger stabbing ("Oh, happy dagger")

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

HAL 9000's (voice of Douglas Rains) cold-blooded murder of the astronauts during hibernation - the only sign of death being registered on computer terminals; Frank Poole's (Gary Lockwood) death by cutting off his oxygen supply as he momentarily flailed around in space; also the scene of a pleading HAL's own lobotomizing death as he sang: "Daisy, Daisy'" and Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) removed the higher-function memory cards; and the aging death of Bowman in a bed in front of a monolith - and his resurrection as a "Star Baby"


Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

Bambi's stomped death - the punchline in this very short film - made by a student at the Art Center of Design in Los Angeles

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Purchase at MoviesUnlimited

Outlaws Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid's (Robert Redford) heroic last-stand charge into a hail of bullets and insurmountable odds - with a freezed-frame and transformation to sepia



Previous Page Next Page


Created in 1996-2008 © by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved.