Favorite on-screen deaths
 

(This thread-idea was suggested by my wife last night)

Which deaths are the best?

For me, it's a tie between "Thelma & Louise" and "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid." Sometimes, I feel like those are the same scenes, anyway.

Hands down: Shelly Winters in Posideon Adventure.

For the uninitiated, Shelly's character saves Gene Hackman's character, who was pinned by a door underwater. As they're both crawling out of the water, Shelly suffers a massive heart attack and dies.

Hackman chews up the scenery on this one. Clutching Shelly to him tightly and screaming "Not this woman!" At one point you can see a thin line of drool fall from Hackman's mouth onto Shelly's head. Classic.

Back in college I'd been up for several days without alot of sleep. I got home and was too tired to lay down, so I turned on the tv and found the Posideon Adventure playing. When it got to Winter's death scene I just started weeping. Not just crying, but full-out, tears-mixing-with-snot weeping. I'm blaming the sleep depravation.

Movie: <b>Wanted: Dead or Alive</b>, 1986-ish

Actor: Gene Simmons, as a terrorist with a $50,000 reward on his head plus a $25,000 bonus if captured alive.

Scene: Rutger Hauer plays a bounty hunter who has handcuffed Simmons, duct taped a hand grenade into his mouth, and is leading him by the grenade pin toward the waiting authorities. However, before he hands him over, Hauer stops and utters, "Fuck the bonus!", pulls the pin, and walks away. Simmons' eyes widen with terror and he looks around frantically as the cops scatter. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Simmons' head turns into a red mist and his body keels over backwards.

Movie was fairly lame, but that scene made it worth watching.

Paul Reuben's demise in 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer.'
Such a subtle and understated performance....

i think you migh have just nailed it with this one... classic 70's draaama at it's best... :)
thanks for the memory... going to have to see were i can scope out and old copy of that movie... :D

Its the final scene in the Wild Bunch for me. All the slow motion, and quick cuts, with William Holden and Ernest Borgnine getting shot repeatedly. Classic. Peckinpah made violence seem beautiful.

Dang, you stole mine! I like the way it goes on until after the credits.

I thought Boromir had a great death in Lord of the Rings.

and Powers Boothe as Col. Andy Tanner in <a target=new href="http://us.imdb.com/Title?0087985"><b>Red Dawn</b></a>
"Shoot straight, you army pukes..."

I kinda dig the way Taylor Negron falls through the chopper blades in "The Last Boy Scout".

That brings to mind the big German dude that walks into the propeller in "Raiders of the Lost Ark"

Arrgh, when I saw this post I thought about both Paul Reubens in Buffy and that guy in The Last Boy Scout.

Otherwise, any death by internal explosion is good: Tricky's character in The Fifth Element, all of the scanning victims in Scanners, half the cast at the end of Time Bandits.

<a target=new href="http://us.imdb.com/Title?0093870">RoboCop</a>
When on of the bad guys stumbles out of the toxic waste. He's half his face is gone and hes melting and then he gets plowed by the car – he just explodes all over the car. it looked like he was made of water.

Actually, any celebrity death in one of those Irwin Allen disaster flicks is great. It's just that Posideon Adventure and Shelly Winters are the pinnacle IMHO.

Get me drunk enough and I do my Ernest Borgnine imitation, sweaty t-shirt and all.

*broad smile*... if you can make it to Vegas for the get together in October... i can get you drunk...
hell... i'll even throw in the t-shirt if necessary...

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Slim Pickens riding 'the bomb' down onto the russian missile site. Classic classic classic.

The whole Full Metal Jacket Scene with the drill sargent and Private Pile. So well done.

Willem Dafoe as Sgt. Elias in Platoon as he's gunned down by the Viet Cong as his platoon flies away in helicopters.

Cowboy Bebop. I'm not going to say who it is.

Gonna have to agree with this one. Turning the rifle on himself was the best part. :cool:

Character: Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker
Actor: David Prowse/Sebastian Shaw
Film: Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Vader's death and ultimate redemption is brilliantly moving, his final words to his son "you were right" (about me) bring a tear to one's eye... knowing that this Evil man still had some good in him... I can't continue, my eyes are full of tears.. mommy!

LOL that was going to be my pick too!!!!

Oooh! Aaaah! Ooooh!

The death of Hal 9000 in 2001! Saddest on screen death ever! Oooh the bitter irony!:)

My favorite death has to be Bonnie and Clyde got gunned down byt he cops in slow motion in the film "Bonnie and Clyde". There were more bullet holes than humanly possible...

Wafer-thin Mints :)

Seriously, S.P. in Dr. Strangelove

Gotta be the characters in Ghosts of Mars, only because all the deaths are sooooooo cliche. You've got the young, attractive woman who's the "new recruit" who dies, you've got the "rugged experienced soldier" who gets shot up, you've got the random soldier who gets her head cut off... you probably get the idea.

But you'd better just take my word for it, cause the movie's not worth the hour and a half of the time it takes out of your life ;).

Or how about the Chest-Burster scene from Alien? That was pretty horrific...even today, which says alot!

Come on you guys, who can forget Scarface?

He kept insulting them after taking at least 12 rounds.

my favorite is from a barely decent called The Patriot with Mel Gibson.

about half ways through the movie, Mel cracks up for a minute and goes shit crazy with his hatchet......... the movie is worth seeing for the hatchet sceene.
-hackhack-

totally forgot about that scene... and you are right... VERY intense...

you're missing the best one!

Vizzini from The Princess Bride

Never go in against a Sicilian, when death is on the line!!! Hahahahaha, hahaha.

/kerplunk

The truck stop waitress from Maximum Overdrive. Now THAT'S acting.

Oh yeah! I was thinking of the same one. I watched that scene over and over.

I always get welled up when E.T. dies.....between the defibrilator hits and Drew Barrymore's reaction...aww, man.....hard not to get weepy.

Runner-Up: When the Iron Giant think he kills Hogarth....that was another tough one.

One of the Friday the 13th movies has Jason grabbing some co-ed in their sleeping bag, cinching it up, and then swinging the bag like a baseball bat into the side of an oak tree. That's frigging hilarious.

On a more serious note, my favorite death scene is Mr. Orange's slow, miserable bleeding to death in Reservoir Dogs. Unfuckingbelievable. I've never watched someone bleed to death, but I'm sure this is the best acted death ever. Add to that the fact that Tim Roth has a full blown British accent and he did that entire scene with a full American dialect....I didn't even know Roth was british until I saw Pulp Fiction, and even then I thought he was American doing a british accent. Amazing

For me the most moving deaths are in Twin Warrior starring Jet Li.

Basically Jet Li's closest friend Jin Bo (they were Buddhist Monks together) has joined the oppressive army in his quest for power, and of course, Jet Li has to fight for good with his band of 'merry men'. Jin Bo, at the early stage, however, still has the element of trust (he had just joined, he would sneak out to be with Jet Li, etc) and was considered a good guy. Then he tells Jet Li about a military attempt to invade a province and that if they acted now and attacked the sparsely attended war camp it would be prevented. So, Jet Li, trusting his oldest and closest friend, goes with his merry men and attacks, only to find that it's a trap. He has been betrayed. All of a sudden you see an absolute OCEAN of soldiers surround Jet Li's people, and on the word, Jin Bo fronts the attack on them. They are absolutely surrounded. If you saw the film you'd think "shit, this is fucking hopeless". So they fought on bravely, nine or ten vesus a couple hundred thousand (tha ones at the back fill the spaces of fallen soldiers, thus maintaining the formation), and they are one by one by one slain. One guy takes a barrage of spears in his torso and keeps on fighting, then he collapses, and anotha guy jumps in to keep him upright, and he gets slain, until all but Jet Li and the cowardly doctor (who smears himself with blood and feigns death!) and another guy are left, and are saved by a lasso and a horse. The scene zooms out with the sight of one girl fighting on bravely while the formation of soldiers gets tighter and closer.

She, of course, is slain, but in person by Jin Bo (who used to love her).

Fucking sad shit man. I don't care.

I thought of another on-screen death that is outstanding; Jonathan E's best buddy (Moonpie?) in the original "Rollerball."

It's a terrific Peckinpah-type slow-motion shot of his friend being forced to his knees by the Japanese players, and they fatally punch him in the back of the head with those spiked gloves while Jonathan can only watch from a distance and do nothing to stop it.

The near-dead and beseeching look on Moonpie's face, the sneer on the Japs' faces, and the totally silent and emotionless stare on Jonathan's face are unbelievable. After looking at Jonathan's face, you just know that some Japanese blood is about to be splattered everywhere.

Giovanni Ribisi's death scene in Saving Private Ryan was good.....made me pretty uncomfortable.

My favorite over-the-top death sequence was from the movie Commando with Arnold Schwarzenegger. During a brawl with the villain, Arnie grabs a huge pipe and hurls it at him javelin style. The guy gets impaled onto a furnace, and you can see steam from the furnace pouring from the pipe in the guys chest. At this point, Arnie chimes in with "Let off some steam!" Gets me every time.

Nappa...
Did Ribisi play the jewish soldier that was really bold...he would say "juden" to German POWs...he was the one that was slowly stabbed by the german...if so, yes, it made me very uncomfortable, one of the only movies that makes me truly realize death...

On a brighter note, Al Pacino in Scarface has to have the best death in terms of coolness and badassedness...he consumed a mountain of cocaine and recieved a hail of bullets...ahh, thats the way I want to go...

Fudd,

Ribisi was the medic shot in the cow field. But now that you mention it, that jewish character's death was pretty darn gruesome too.

Alan Rickman in Die Hard was a good one.
Alan Rickman in Robin Hood was another good one.

Pretty much anytime Alan Rickman dies onscreen ;)

all of bill murray's deaths in groundhog day

Christopher Lloyd's death in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

C'mon.
His wailing creeped me out big time when I was a kid. :)

I gotta agree with Tempboy.. haha

I'm meltiiiiing!

Clockwork Orange
 

Clockwork Orange, with death by giant plastic wang. I think it may be Freudian... But If I want to cry like a prison bitch I watch the end to Boyz in the Hood.

Brad Pit meets car in Meet Joe Black. I loved seeing pretty boy eat winshield

I can't believe no one has mentioned Samuel L. Jackson's death scene in "Deep Blue Sea". CLASSIC.

yeah, deep blue sea was classic. you could totally see it coming too. nobody has mentioned mel gibson in braveheart yet? c'mon people! oh yeah, tyler durden from fight club was good too.

The Donut Shop scene in Boogie Nights. The way the cashier's blood splatters all over the one guy left alive is classic.

With out a doubt the greatest death scene is the opening scene in JAWS....if you don't think so, it's been a while since you have seen it. The fact that you don't see what is attacking her is what makes it so horrifying

Veccini was funny as shit.

My favorite would be when Joe Pesci stabs the guy over and over with the pen in Casino. Not sure why, I just love that scene. It sets the tone for the rest of the movie, which would have been better if there was more mob and less Stone and Robert interaction.

Oh yeah..Pitt in Fight Club and Mel in Braveheart. Mel was classic.

excellent post... had totally forgotton about that one... and you are so right...
that scene... keeps some people of of the ocean to this very day... now that's lasting impact if you ask me...

What he said :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

The Emperor in the final fight scene of Gladiator.

The whoel crows falls silent as they see their leader die in front of them.

the baptism deaths in Godfather One. The fact that this scene is still imitated, parodied and revered as both graphic and understated....it goes down as my favorite use of fake blood ever.

Friday the 13th part IV (I think)...when Jason picks up the kid in the sleeping bag and swings like a baseball bat into a tree...so godawfully bad that it is classically good...

I've seen all of these, and they are good, no doubt about it. But my favorite death scene comes from a little gem called Raising Arizona. In the final fight scene where Nick Cage comes away from Randall 'Tex' Cobb holding the pins to all of the grenades strapped to Tex's chest... The look of pure sorrow that crosses Nick's eyes as he dives for cover, and the look of absolute panic that overcomes Tex. Priceless. Depresses and cracks me up at the same time, every time.

He's not exactly the type of thespian that would come to mind in a thread such as this, but Randy Quaid in Independence Day was just awesome I thought. And Kevin Spacey in American Beauty too.
Although, I guess Pee Wee Reubens isn't exactly the type of thespian that would come to mind for this either, so........

Oh, yeah, and Full Metal Jacket and Dr. Strangelove were damn good ones, too. Stanley Kubrick was a twisted, twisted genius.

Indy actually killed that guy twice... the German mechanic from Raiders who gets the propellor to the face is ALSO one of the Sherpas in the Nepalese bar fight.

My favorite on-screen death? Well the most memorable one I can think of right now is from Final Destination, when Amanda Detmer (very hot, btw) gets waxed by the bus. I saw it in the theater and that one COMPLETELY caught me by surprise, along with everyone else in the theater. She's in the middle of a sentence and then WHAM! Just a spatter of blood on the guys she was talking to. All the deaths in that movie are pretty good, come to think of it.

-Mikey

Speaking of Joe Pecsi... His death in Goodfellas. The look in his eyes when he sees the plastic lined room... Great performance.

ohhh.. I love Joe Pesci's death in Casino too. Him and his brother. With the baseball bat's in the cornfield.
Such a hopeless seen for him.

arnold in total recall "see you at the party richter."

any death in the Godfathers...

maximus at end of gladiator,

the captain at the end saving pirvate ryan...

more I cannot think of.

The baby in Trainspotting....and then its resurrection in Renton's hallucination. That's some scary shit.

Though some of the recent comedic deaths like Zoolander's 3 roommates or Mustafa in Austin Powers are pretty funny.

One of the greatest deaths, and greatest movies, was Jennifer Jason Leigh in the Hitcher. When Hauer has her tied up to the Semi and its trailer, then slowly lets the clutch out while the cops are standing right there trying to talk him out of it. I kept thinking the entire time that they are going to save her, they just have too. But nope, drawn and quartered by a truck.

Also just about any of the deaths in Day Of The Dead (not Dawn of the Dead, big difference) are too good not to mention. Especially the leader of the militia when, after being shot repeatedly by one of the "trained" zombies, opens a door to what he thinks is his escape, only to fall in to the arms of a throng of waiting zombies, who subsequently rip him apart at the waist, pulling his legs off, while he screams "choke on 'em!" over and over again. Romero is a genious.

Yeah, that Zoolander three-in-one death was funny as shit.

Forgot one... the Ewok in Return of the Jedi. Best moment in the film.

-Mikey

scarface

With out a doubt, Leonardo DiCrapio in Titanic.

Best part of the whole fucking movie is when she pries his cold dead hands off of the wood and pushes him down into the water.

Now that was cinema.

Any death in Cube, they were all shocking.

Kyle Reese in The Terminator. I so did not expect him to die when I saw that the first time. I was like "uh...he can't die...he's the hero!"

the previously mentioned first death in Jaws is also high up on my list.

I read an account of that shot which explained why she did such a good job acting like she was in extreme pain. The three divers below her with ropes attached to her got their signals mixed up and ended up breaking some of her ribs.

Ouch!

Willem Defoe falls on his shotgun in Wild at Heart

Bruce Willis' death in Armageddon was pretty good. The part where the dude asks "permission to shake the hand of the bravest man I've ever met" was like a punch in the gut.

The Hitcher ruled.
Also Raising Arizona is one of the greatest films ever.

The following is a spoiler for the little seen movie "To Live and Die in LA"

that overly dramatic guy in CSI is the lead actor and it's a pretty cool film with an amazing car chase scene and a great fight scene with wilhem dafoe and some big white guy kicking some huge blacks guys' asses.

anyway the main character dies and the second in command takes over. again the main character dies and the movie is not over nor is it a dream.

cool.

Ben Kingsley in Sexy Beast.

4 people gather around him and are beating his bullet riddled body to a pulp, and as he's coughing up blood he turns to one of the guys, Aitch. And says "I fucked her," refferring to Aitch's wife who is also beating him to death.

Nice.

E.T Dies?!?!?!?!

There's so many of them, but what springs to mind immediately is Ed Harris' death in Enemy At The Gates. The entire movie builds up to the meeting between the two great snipers and the moment Harris steps over that railroad and sees the Russian sniper in the corner of his eye is just breathtaking.

Kevin Spacey in Se7en. Mostly because due to what brings about his death.

David Lynch's version of Dune

At the end, Muadeeb finished the fight
by shoving a knife under the chin of Sting
and right through his noggin.

And a big "AAAAA-CHA!" from Muadeeb to boot.
To cave in the floor by shoving the body further into it with his power,
and split his chest wide open with the force.

Now that's the way to kill a person.:cool:

Can we include TV? If so, Jimmy Smits on NYPD Blue. Damn episode still makes me teary-eyed.

On the big screen, I gotta go with Alan Rickman in Die Hard, too.

Just watched We Were Soldiers, and it had one of the most gruesome "death" scenes I have ever seen. I put death in quotes because it is unclear if the guy actually dies, but if he didnt, he probably wishes he had.

Anywho, it is when the Asian American soldier gets caught up in a misdirected napalm blast and is severely burned on most of his body. The medic comes over and asks a photographer to help him move the soldier to the chopper, and tells him to grab his legs. When the photographer does, he pulls, and takes handfulls of chared skin off the guys legs, almost down to the bone, as he screams bloody murder. When they finally get him on the chopper, he tells the photographer to tell his wife and kids he loves them. That scene sends chills down my spine even now.

Nobody's mentioned the man-being-eaten-by-Tyrannosaur-while-sitting-on-toilet death from Jurassic Park? Excellent stuff.

It's kind of a cult-type movie, but Riki-O: The Story of Ricky has some of the best deaths out there. In the last scene, Ricky stuffs the still-fighting monster-warden into a giant meat grinder, then pitches his severed head at the camera, where it busts into a bloody mess.

Yeah, that one. I was a kid when I saw that by accident. I didn't sleep for about a week...seriously, I didn't sleep AT ALL.

It still gets to me when I think about it. nasty.

Yeah... damn good scene...
but, did you see at the beginning of the film, when there's a french platoon being ambushed?
There's a french soldier who, as he is about to blow a bugle gets shot in the throat... I thought that was brilliant :lol:

I gotta agree... Willem Dafoe in Platoon... very dramatic

all these are really good death scenes, but my favorites are when Buliwyf, the leader of the North Men, dies in the 13th Warrior, and the scene where all those people die from the lasers in Resident Evil. His eye juice came out. Oh, and when Samuel L. Jackson killed those two punks in A Time to Kill, not so much for how cool the death scene was, but mainly because those punks deserved it so much after what they did that it was very satisfying.

the crow had some kick ass death scenes all around.

Ass end of donnie darko when he dies.

When jewels preaches before killing the guy in Pulp, thats always good stuff

TV- Tasha Yar's death on TNG.

The mothers death in igby goes down, first time i saw that i was like :confused: Kinda crazy like.

And what was alluded to in KIDS. With casper, left my mouth gaping.

and im spent

(worst- Dizzys death in Starship troppers, on the shuttle up...wow, just an awful thing.)

Damn, I was going to say Rickman in Die Hard, too :)

The death at the end of Dead Poets Society. Always gets me.

5 words :

Yipee kay yay MOTHER FUCKER!

Ripley's death in Alien 3. For some reason that one always gets to me.

The police officer in Resevoir Dogs....ear cut off and doused in gasoline.

Bishop in ALIENS where he just ripped to pieces.

Conan the Barbarians mom getting killed by Thulsa Doom, you see him holding onto her hand, then her head drops past him out of camera shot to the ground at his feet. Her body falls sideways letting go of Conan and he stares at his hand.

I can't believe The Green Mile hasn't got a mention!
Theres the scene where one of the guards doesnt wet the sponge before the guys electricuted and he literally fries! and the scene at the end where big 'ol John Coffey has his turn in the electric chair. every time i see that i always 'get something in my eye'

:thumbsup: perfect ending to a powerful series

one that no one has mentioned yet...
Falling Down (1992) with Michael Douglas - right before he draws the toy gun.."I'm the bad guy?"

And the Third Man with Orson Welles

any character in a monty python film
......the obese fellow at the diner.
.........man crushed by a cow.
........slain by a rabbit.
......etc......on and on........

Best death line ever. Hunt for Red October

Capt. Vasili Borodin: "I would have liked to have seen Montana."

Spocks death at the end of Kahn was pretty cool too (when you didn't know they would just bring him back).

The end of "The World According To Garp", where Koo comes back to gun down Garp in the gym...

I had nightmares about that for WEEKS.

speaking of Star Trek....Data's death was quite a way to go as well, but the thing with the brother (Lore, isn't it?) at the end struck me as a cheap cop-out though.

The main black guy in Romero's Night of the Living Dead is memorale as well - he goes through all that just to get shot down like one of the zombies

and one brief comment on Titantic, seeing Leonardo sink at the end was the best part of the film and ALMOST made that film bearable.