|
 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
9
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 |
|
Alien (1979)
# 24
|
The convulsing birth and visceral emergence of
"a chromium-toothed xenosprog" from the innards of crew
member Kane (John Hurt) to the shocked bewilderment of the other
Nostromo crew members |
|
|
Alien (1979)
|
The deaths of the other
Nostromo crew members, including those of Brett (Harry Dean
Stanton) and Dallas (Tom Skerritt) when each were confronted by
the alien; and the scene of the bludgeoning of Ash (Ian Holm) revealing
that he was an android/robot - when Ash's severed head was re-activated,
he warned: "You still don't understand what you're dealing with....I
can't lie to you about your chances, but...(cruel smirk) ...you
have my sympathies" - after which his decapitated head was
incinerated by a flamethrower |
|
All That Jazz (1979)
|
The spectacular finale (and dance-musical number) with its wild, imaginatively-surreal hallucinations that were experienced by near-death, drug-addicted New York choreographer-director Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) after a heart-attack, as he underwent open-heart cardiac surgery; flirtatious angel of Death Angelique (Jessica Lange) tempted him to leave the world of the living; chorus girls danced around his bed (while he and television host O'Connor Flood (Ben Vereen) sang "Bye Bye Life" to a heavenly studio audience; this dark finale ended with Gideon in a body bag being zipped up |
|
|
Apocalypse Now (1979)
|
Col. Kurtz' (Marlon Brando)
sacrificial death (juxtaposed with cross-cut images of the ritualistic
slaughter of a water buffalo) with his famous last words: "The horror. The horror..." |
|
|
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
|
The disturbing death of
two crewmembers who were trapped in a malfunctioning transporter
beam- their bodies slowly deforming into misshapen lumps; an anguished
female screamed before materializing (gratefully) off-camera at
the remote transport location; a jolt of horror occurred soon after
when a shaken crewmember informed Admiral Kirk (William Shatner):
"Enterprise, what we got back didn't live long... fortunately"
|
|
Zombie (1979) (aka Zombi 2)
|
One of the most gruesome eye gouging or 'splinter-into-the-eye'
death sequences ever (in a Lucio Fulci film), in which Paolo Menard (Olga Karlatos) was hiding behind a door to avoid an undead, marauding
flesh-eating zombie from attacking - when her bedroom door was broken down, he
grabbed her by the hair and slowly dragged her right eyeball into a shard of wood
sticking out - after her death, she was eaten by zombies; a similar scene appeared in Fulci's The Beyond (1981) |
|
|
Dressed to Kill (1980)
|
The elevator murder of
Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) by an unknown, knife-wielding blonde
woman
|
|
|
The Elephant Man (1980)
|
The deformed title character
John Merrick's (John Hurt) stretching out for peaceful, suicidal
death in sleep (his normal position for sleeping was sitting up
- lying down would prove fatal), followed by a montage of his spirit
passing into eternity, accompanied by Samuel Barber's haunting "Adagio
for Strings" |
|
|
Friday the 13th (1980)
|
One of the many death
scenes in this film and in the multiple sequels: Jack Burrell (Kevin
Bacon) being grabbed and stabbed by a sharp pointed arrow in the
throat from UNDER the bed; also the death in the finale of vindictive mother Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) when decapitated by sole-surviving camp counselor Alice (Adrienne King) wielding a machete |
|
Heaven's Gate (1980)
|
The fiery death scene of mercenary Nathan Champion (Christopher Walken) outside his wall-papered frontier cabin by the hired killers of evil cattlemen association leader Frank Canton (Sam Waterston) - with his hasty writing of a farewell note to his friends knowing that he would die, and the surprising shock ambush killings of both John L. Bridges (Jeff Bridges) and young bordello madam Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert) in a beautiful white dress - Sheriff Jim Averill's (Kris Kristofferson) lost love died in his arms |
|
|
9 to 5 (1980)
|
The three uniquely-creative
dream-fantasy murders of their chauvinistic boss Franklin Hart (Dabney
Coleman) by three female office workers (Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton,
and Jane Fonda) after they smoke a joint: by a Wild West shoot-out,
by a rodeo hog-tying and spit-roasting, and by a Snow White poisoning |
|
|
The Shining (1980)
# 39
|
Jack Torrance's (Jack
Nicholson) sudden fire-axe (to the stomach) ambush murder of Dick
Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) in the lobby of the Overlook Hotel |
|
|
The Shining (1980)
|
The frightening vision
in the hotel corridor of the murdered twin girls, and Jack's (Jack
Nicholson) frozen death in the hedge maze at the conclusion |
|
The Beyond (1981) (aka E Tu Vivrai Nel Terrore - L'Aldilà, or You Will Live in Terror)
|
Director Lucio Fulci's graphic horror film featured a horrific scene in which zombie Joe (Giovanni De Nava) pushed Martha (Veronica Lazar) headfirst into the blunt end of a nail, causing her eyeball to entirely pop out of its socket; two years earlier, Fulci's film Zombie (1979) featured a similarly gruesome eye-gouging death sequence, making Fulci "the king of ocular mayhem" |
|
Cannibal Ferox (1981) (aka Make Them Die Slowly)
|
The torturous death scene in this Italian exploitation 'cannibal' film of female victim Pat (Zora Kerova) who was impaled by iron hooks through both breasts and then suspended by ropes attached to the hooks to die in the Amazon jungle sun |
|
|
Excalibur (1981)
|
The bloody, climactic
mutual impaling scene, in which King Arthur (Nigel Terry) is stabbed
by a spear wielded by his son Mordred (Robert Addie), who snarls
at his father: "Come father, let us embrace" - Arthur
slides on the spear towards his son, and stabs him in return with
his magic sword Excalibur
|
|
|
Gallipoli (1981)
|
The freeze-frame shot
of Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) as he is shot by Turkish machine guns
on the Anzac battlefield in 1915 in an ill-fated attack at film's
end |
|
|
Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981)
# 34
|
The burning and melting
of evil Nazi Toht (Ronald Lacey) with a blast of God's wrath as
he views the opening of the Ark of the Covenant by Belloq (Paul
Freeman) who also suffers as fire consumes him and his body explodes |
|
The Prowler (1981) (aka Rosemary's Killer)
|
The gory slasher-film scenes in which a sharp bayonet was plunged into victim Carl's (David Sederholm) head, with the end of the sharp instrument exiting through his chin; the man's eyes popped out due to the blunt force - with white pupils; soon afterwards, his girlfriend Sherry (Lisa Dunsheath) was pitchforked in the middle of her chest while taking a shower |
|
|
Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981)
|
The surprise gruesome
death of traitorous Satipo (Alfred Molina) after absconding with
the idol - spikes protrude from his bloodied head as Indiana Jones
(Harrison Ford) retorts under his breath to his unlucky partner:
"Adios, estupido"; also the scene of Indy's shooting of
a sword-wielding Arab; and the blood-splattering off-screen death
of a burly bald German (Pat Roach) in an airplane propeller |
|
|
Scanners (1981)
# 46
|
The infamous exploding-head
sequence in which 'bad' Scanner Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside)
demonstrates his brain-bursting telepathic powers at an ESP conference in the film's opening |
|
|
Blade Runner (1982)
# 26
|
Android Roy Batty's (Rutger
Hauer) last speech on a rain-drenched rooftop about "C-beams"
as he lowers his head and dies |
|
|
Blade Runner (1982)
|
Replicant Zhora's (Joanna
Cassidy) crashing through plate glass windows before her death after
being shot by bladerunner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford); Pris' (Darryl
Hannah) agonized death and screeching as her limbs flail spastically;
and Dr. Tyrell's (Joe Turkel) eye-gouging death at the hands of
Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) |
|
|
