Best Film Deaths

[aTOMiC]

Commander Sonak in Star Trek the Motion Picture.

Poor bastard.

[lorin]

Everyone (literally) in On The Beach

GREAT movie.


I loved the spectacularly understated death of Bill in Kill Bill.

[finn]

In Independence Day, Marty (Jeff Goldblum's overweight gay workmate) as he gets sits in his car about to get hit by a flying car and giant fireball....."oh crap!"

[matrixman]

Commander Sonak in Star Trek the Motion Picture.

Poor bastard.

"Enterprise, what we got back didn't live long...fortunately." EWWWW.

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

Obi-Wan

[Stone Magnet]

^
Obi-Wan and Vader, for sure.

Hmm...it's a shame I don't remember names of characters in film, but here we go:

-Romero's Day of the Dead, towards the end where the guy gets his head torn off by zombies. Proof that CGI is not needed for an awesome head ripping off scene.
-Same movie, but with the over-acting commander's legs getting torn off and his last words being, "Choke on it...choke on it...."
-Romero's Dawn of the Dead, when the blonde character succumbs to the zombie bite and his friend needs to shoot him in the head. A very touching scene...
-Zombie 2 (are we seeing a theme, yet?)- when that one chick is dragged through a door by a zombie and her eye gets impaled by a piece of wood in the process.
-Romero's Night of the Living Dead:

Spoiler

When Ben gets shot in the head at the end by the redneck, what an ending!

Spoiler

Also, when Barbara gets it has always been haunting to me...

All great picks. Man, Romero was keen in the early days.

Dario Argento does horror death scenes really well. The first death in Suspiria is a great example.

Theres a scene in one of his earlier "detective" style films (Bird with the Crystal Plumage i think?) where a girl is shot through a keyhole, and the camera shows a cross-section of the bullet passing through the keyhole. For the 60's the effect would have been stunning.

The chestburster scene in Alien.

Tommys death in Shawshank.

No-ones mentioned the lawyer Gennaro's death in Jurassic Park. While it surely doesn't rank as one of the best in cinematic history, being eaten off the toilet by a bigass T-Rex is pretty memorable. Of course, i saw it at the theater when I was 7, so its stuck with me.

But nothing beats this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7gIpuIVE3k

I really shouldn't, but I must disagree.

Troll 2
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGFcMXK4OnQ

[Montresor]

^
Dario Argento does horror death scenes really well. The first death in Suspiria is a great example.

That whole film is fantastic, but that really is a great murder scene.

For a different kind of thing, one of the child-killings in In a Glass Cage is done so well it's spine-chilling. The acting of the kid is so good, you'd almost believe they did inject him with poison. Good luck finding the film, however, as it's banned almost everywhere. One of the most effective horror films ever.

There's a film I've only ever seen the preview of, and it looks pretty crap, but it did show a pretty good murder scene - the film is called Epiphany, about a woman who kills an intruder and then becomes addicted to killing more people (come to think of it, the film might be called Epitaph). There's a scene they showed all of in the trailer in which she place a rat in a metal bucket and ties it to a girl's stomach. She heats the bucket up so that the rat digs its way through the girl's stomach to freedom. I remember it being effective on the trailer, though I saw that years ago.

^
I really shouldn't, but I must disagree.

Troll 2
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGFcMXK4OnQ

That extended intro really brings the Shakespeare out of the scene, doesn't it?

[The Dreaming]

"Why cant I move? There must be some kind of logical explanation for this!"

Is there a Mike Nelson commentary to this movie?

Edit: I just saw a movie today that may trump every movie mentioned in this thread. Zombieland!

Spoiler

Bill Murray's cameo and death may be the single biggest laugh ive have ever experienced in a movie theater. Maybe the funniest movie death of all time.

[Cameraman Jenn]

Dreaming, saw it tonight and I must agree. That was awesome not to mention the fabulous:

Spoiler

death of the clown zombie by strongman hammer wielded by nerd to impress the hot chick, simply brilliant.

[Mr. Broken]

In Dogma when Matt Damons Angel of Death character deals with the board of directors of the Mooby franchise. "You didnt say God bless you when I sneezed!"

[lorin]

With out a doubt my favorite death scene is in Blade Runner. Rutger Hauer as an android.

“I've seen things you wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain...Time to die.” Bladerunner (1982)

Way better visually than written.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOphFl88U-g

what a movie.

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

In Dogma when Matt Damons Angel of Death character deals with the board of directors of the Mooby franchise. "You didnt say God bless you when I sneezed!"

Lol! Great one.

[Usivius]

Poor John Hurt's chestbuster from Alien, classic!

And let's not forget the famour Head-Explosion scene from Scanners! Poor Louis DelGrande...

[The Dreaming]

How about the ending to Raiders of the Lost Arc? I know I had one of them as an avatar for a while, and Cail posted a gif of Belloc's head exploding at some point.



Anyone else notice the homage to this at the end of Inglorious Basterds? (Another great death, don't know if I wanna spoiler it yet)

[Loredoctor]

The death of the captain in Das Boot.

Spoiler

The way he collapses as soon as the U-Boat sinks is tragic.

[Montresor]

Anyone else notice the homage to this at the end of Inglorious Basterds? (Another great death, don't know if I wanna spoiler it yet)

Do you mean:

Spoiler

The way the French girl's face laughing over the flames strongly resembled the angel of death at the end of Raiders? I thought that was a nice touch.

[The Dreaming]

Yeah Mont, I caught it instantly. Raiders has the perfect 12 year old jewish boy ending. It's one of those movies you love when you ARE twelve, and later you love it because you remember being twelve. Inglorious Basterds is the kind of movie you love because you WERE twelve, but have an adult knowledge of cinema.

It's boyish fantasy, but of the most enduring kind. Everyone 12 year old wants to save the world, we all think that someday we can grow up to BE Indiana Jones. If I lived in a world where I could devote my life to clobbering Nazis I think I would be pretty happy.

That bizarre, not quite worldly, not quite innocence of adolescent boyhood is a powerful thing. It can be a real pleasure to have it stroked. Raiders is a movie I will never get tired of.

[Akasri]

I am late to this thread, but I'll add my picks - some oldies but goodies that I haven't seen mentioned yet

The murder of Fredo in Godfather II - the way you see Michael hang his head while you see the murder reflected in the windows.

The dude who got his head exploded in Scanners - just for the sheer shock value

Private Pyle's suicide in Full Metal Jacket - that entire sequence at boot camp was amazing. The rest of the movie, not so much IMO

[jacob Raver, sinTempter]

Private Pyle's suicide in Full Metal Jacket - that entire sequence at boot camp was amazing. The rest of the movie, not so much IMO

Same here.