Cut

January 25, 2005 7:24 PM

Not another top 50 ! Movie deaths.
posted by johnny7 (37 comments total)

Yeah, whatever.

*dies*
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:36 PM on January 25, 2005

I must go now Clarice, i'm having an old friend for dinner.
posted by nanu at 7:38 PM on January 25, 2005

Neither the main list nor the also-rans includes what I found to be the most disturbing scene in Robocop: the death of the hapless executive in the boardroom. "Put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply."

Perhaps the nascent programmer in me was aghast at the idea of giving guns to a robot with such poorly-tested perception systems.
posted by jeffj at 8:00 PM on January 25, 2005

er, just a heads up it is prob NSFW. Some boobies in a screen cap. oh, and some blood, duh.
posted by edgeways at 8:05 PM on January 25, 2005

Blade Runner did the thumb/eye socket thing first...it was pretty disturbing there, too...
posted by mcstayinskool at 8:07 PM on January 25, 2005

The offscreen death of Bambi's mother made it to number six I assume because of the age range it targets? Personally, though, that scene never bothered me.
posted by hopeless romantique at 8:10 PM on January 25, 2005

Missing Throne of Blood.
posted by Evstar at 8:11 PM on January 25, 2005

JeffL, I always thought the most disturbing part of that scene in 28 Days Later was right after he does that eye-thumbing thing, with all the blood and eye juice presumably still on his hands, he and the girl start passionately making out and he moves his hands all over her face. 'Cause, you know, that's hot.

Scarface should have made it higher.
posted by DyRE at 8:33 PM on January 25, 2005

The first scene of Begotten should be on that list. Don't tell me you can top God disemboweling himself with a straightedge razor.
posted by angry modem at 8:46 PM on January 25, 2005

Adam Goldberg(Private Mellish)'s death in 'Saving Private Ryan' has always stuck with me.
posted by Tenuki at 9:31 PM on January 25, 2005

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
posted by sourwookie at 9:51 PM on January 25, 2005

Should Mel Gibson's Jesus-themed splatterfest get a mention - simply for the duration of the death scene? Just about the whole film is one, extremely long movie death (albeit slightly compromised by subsequent resurrection).
posted by bunglin jones at 9:58 PM on January 25, 2005

Not another top 50 ! Movie deaths.

What about "NOT TO FIFTY!"

Okay, so it was only a mostly-death.
posted by scarabic at 10:12 PM on January 25, 2005

They left out the scene near the end of 28 Days Later, where the hero kills the head military guy by pushing his thumbs deeply into his eye sockets.


Totally.

I also thought the death at the end of Citizen Kane was going to be number one, and was disappointed it wasn't at, or near, the top of the list.
posted by The God Complex at 12:24 AM on January 26, 2005

I'm glad the last gasps of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now didn't make the cut. They pale (as do all the Kurtz-related bits) before the analog in Heart of Darkness.
posted by scarabic at 12:33 AM on January 26, 2005

The best death in T2 is not Arnie mawkishly lowering himself into a vat of metal but Joe Morton panting "I don't know how much longer I can hold onto this thing". So there.
posted by ninebelow at 12:46 AM on January 26, 2005

Neither the main list nor the also-rans includes what I found to be the most disturbing scene in Robocop: the death of the hapless executive in the boardroom. "Put down your weapon. You have 20 seconds to comply."

Perhaps the nascent programmer in me was aghast at the idea of giving guns to a robot with such poorly-tested perception systems.
jeffj
Actually, I think it's implied that the robot kills the executive on purpose, if you mean the scene near the beginning of the movie. If you remember, one of the younger executives is insulting the older Vice President in the men's bathroom, and the older Vice President overhears. The younger executive is then the one who is killed by the security bot being demonstrated by the older Vice President.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:52 AM on January 26, 2005

Good link. Agent Smith's first death in the Matrix when Neo dove into his body was pretty good. Guess it didn't count as a death, or at least a good one.
posted by vito90 at 1:31 AM on January 26, 2005

In the Matrix I'd prefer Switch's death for the pathos, or the agent on the roof 'Dodge this' if we're counting agents.

Not having Spock on the list is a travesty, obviously.
posted by biffa at 2:04 AM on January 26, 2005

Not a bad list overall (I especially love choices #2 and #22), but with all the great deaths in the Indiana Jones movies, they chose Toht's melting face as the only one to represent the series? Everyone knows the human sacrifice scene in Temple of Doom was much cooler.
posted by sellout at 2:30 AM on January 26, 2005

Jack Carter's death at the end of Get Carter should be top 5. Best film ending ever...
posted by i_cola at 3:11 AM on January 26, 2005

I would put in a vote for Polanski, directing and starring in The Tenant (a.k.a. Le Locataire. He moves into an apartment whose previous occupant has committed suicide, and then--partly by his own obsession, partly by some suggestive devilry by the neighbors--begins to take on aspects of her personality, cross-dressing and putting on make-up, and then throws himself out the same window . . . twice.
posted by palancik at 3:31 AM on January 26, 2005

Honorable mention: Harold Shand's (Bob Hoskins) reaction to his being captured by Irish thugs (including a young Pierce Brosnan) at the end of the Long Good Friday. You don't actually see him die a painful death, but that is certainly the implication.
posted by psmealey at 6:35 AM on January 26, 2005

None of the deaths from Carpenter's The Thing? No mutants mutants burning bright, wandering out into the night? No "you gotta be fuckin' *kidding*"?

Not even a mention for any of the classic deaths from the Halloween or Friday the 13th?

And the wrong death in Jaws. The really good one was the kid on the inflatable raft as Bruce comes up behind him and rolls over, biting him as he goes and sending a fountain of blood up high.

For that matter, no Samuel L. in Deep Blue Sea?

Fooey. The hell do they know.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:45 AM on January 26, 2005

Audition. Needles. Eyeballs.

kitykitykitykitykitykitykitykity
posted by robocop is bleeding at 6:47 AM on January 26, 2005

Lots of good suggestions here, but perhaps the coolest death - or perhaps last line - I've ever seen in a movie was the otherwise pretty tepid "Best Seller" wherein James Woods (playing an assassin) infiltrates a house to kill somebody. He catches a bodyguard, and has him lie on a bed, then begins berating the guy on what a crappy bodyguard he is. "Oh, just do it already", the guy says before Woods shoots him.
posted by stinkycheese at 7:00 AM on January 26, 2005

The death of the ultra-religious mother Margaret White (Piper Laurie) from the powers of psychokinetic Carrie (Sissy Spacek) as she is crucified by flying cutlery and kitchenware

When I saw that one I was very irritated by the fact that Laurie's death cries make her sound like she's having an orgasm. Cries of pain and pleasure do sound different. But I blame the director rather than Laurie. After all, he was the one responsible for the locker room scene in which teenage girls strutted around naked. This doesn't happen in female changing rooms - both girls and women hide in the corners.

My picks would include the death of Wing in Paradise Road and the execution in Monster's Ball.
posted by orange swan at 7:06 AM on January 26, 2005

Paul "Pee-Wee" Reuben's death scene in the film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is unforgettable, or at least worthy of #51.
posted by safetyfork at 8:02 AM on January 26, 2005

Drew Barrymore's stabbing in Scream before Maximus's revenge on Commodus in Gladiator?
posted by Ailla at 8:40 AM on January 26, 2005

From Miller's Crossing: the mobster who gets riddled by thousands of Tommy gun bullets and keeps standing up and quivering, long after he's dead, absorbing more and more bullets...
posted by QuietDesperation at 8:51 AM on January 26, 2005

orange swan: Knowing DePalma's obsessions with sex, violence, and sexual violence, I think it's quite likely he very deliberately made Piper Laurie's death scream orgasm-like. Especially since the mother is a violent, sexually repressed woman: her death is some sort of sexual release, in the weird DePalma world which she inhabits.

Not to quibble. I just think DePalma is really interesting, for these and other reasons.
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:03 AM on January 26, 2005

And how could they leave out Inflating Exploding Dude from Big Trouble in Little China?

Or the Wrong Physics Exploding Vacuum Dude in Outland
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:14 AM on January 26, 2005

What about the death of all the Kondarian demons at the end of The Evil Dead? That was so cool, I plan to go that way myself.
posted by Pericles at 9:28 AM on January 26, 2005

Okay, this was on Monkeyfilter a while back. First of all, note the cop-out they have for entry 50 ("all these other scenes! See, we didn't miss anything!"). Back there I was the one championing Spock - which is in entry 50, but I maintain that doesn't count - but biffa already got to that here, so:

Vizzini. Come on! No Vizzini?
posted by furiousthought at 10:30 AM on January 26, 2005

mcstayinskool re: eyeball deaths

Can one actually kill another human by thumbing their eyeballs out? In Bladerunner I thought Batty killed Tyrel by crushing his skull and that the eyeballs getting popped was incidental...

/I may very well likely be completely wrong and offbase, though
posted by PurplePorpoise at 1:09 PM on January 26, 2005

One best of list and it can't even get it up to 100.
posted by nanojath at 7:58 PM on February 24, 2005

foiled
posted by shmegegge at 3:49 AM on February 25, 2005