User blog:BrianBerta/Top 10 Best Movie Deaths of All Time

Spoiler Warning: This List Will Contain Spoilers.

'''I will only post the movie title. I won't say the character from the film who dies. If you see a film you haven't seen yet or are planning to see, skip it and move on to the next spot.'''

There have been countless great movie deaths in cinema before. However, which ones are the best? With so many out there, it was very hard to narrow it down to 10, but I think I did so as best as I could. Before you start reading this list, keep in mind that this is just my own subjective opinion. Most likely, you guys will have your own personal opinions. You guys can feel free to post your differing opinions down in the comments, but please respect my opinion. Anyways, time to start the list.

10) Platoon (1986)

Starting us off is a death which is often said to be the most dramatic death in movie history. After Sgt. Barnes is worried that Sgt. Elias's testimony could get him in trouble for an illegal killing, he decides that he has to get rid of him. On a mission when Sgt. Barnes is sent to retrieve him, he shoots him since nobody else is around and he lies when he tells the others that he has been killed by the enemy. While they are escaping, they notice Sgt. Elias, mortally wounded, trying to run towards them as he is littered with bullets by the enemy. Just before he dies, he raises his hands above his head before he finally falls down dead. The fact that he tries everything he can to stay alive makes this scene hit harder emotionally.

9) Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

After a woman becomes bored with her job as a waitress, she decides do become an outlaw with a man named Clyde who tried to steal her mother's car. Being wanted by the police for bank robbery and murder, the father of one of the gang members, Ivan Moss, decides to set a trap for Bonnie and Clyde as long as the police lets his son go free who is part of their gang. After they stop to fix a flat tire for Moss, Ivan Moss jumps into the bushes as they are riddled with bullets from the cops hiding in the bushes. After they die, Moss comes out of hiding and has a look of sadness on his face. People who saw this film said that their jaws dropped after they saw the ending, and they said that it was a perfect way to end the film. I can see why.

8) Jaws (1975)

After a man-eating shark kills a few people on Amity Beach, 3 people set out to hunt and kill it. After they have a few encounters with the shark, one of the men (Hooper) volunteers to go underwater in a cage in hopes of killing it. After the shark attacks his cage and forces him to swim to the ocean floor, the shark jumps up on the boat and causes it to tilt. Brody is able to hang on, but Quint loses his grip and falls in the shark's way. It then proceeds to gruesomely devour him. Just before he is eaten, he coughs up blood as the shark drags him underwater. Just before he was killed, he delivered a powerful monologue which explained why he acted so bitter, and the viewer grew a strong attachment to him. It was sad to see a character who we just grew to love die in such a graphic way.

7) Dr. Strangelove (1964)

In this black comedy about nuclear annihilation, a group of politicians and generals desperately try to prevent a nuclear holocaust from happening. After the crew of one plane is about to drop a nuclear bomb, they are unable to open the damaged bomb bay doors. Kong volunteers to sacrifice himself in order to detonate the nuclear bomb. After that, we see a highly comical death scene for the ages as we see him riding it down like a cowboy. The funny thing is that if he didn't drop the nuclear bomb, the world wouldn't have been wiped out. This scene is amazing, because it is funny seeing him ride it down. However, its obvious unrealism and Kubrick's vivid imagination is what cements it in movie history and it makes it stand out.

6) Alien (1979)

After a spaceship called the Nostromo gets a transmission from a mysterious planet, one of the aliens get aboard the ship and they have to kill it before it kill them. The best scene from this film is definitely the first one. After one of the astronauts, Kane, supposedly survives an alien which attached to his face, the alien pops out of his chest while he is eating dinner the night before the astronauts go back into hibernation. To create this scene, Ridley Scott used actual sheep guts. The actors were told that the alien would burst out of Kane's chest. However, they were not told that fake blood would be shot everywhere by using high-pressure pumps. This made the actors give actual, genuine reactions to it. Also, when the blood hit actress Veronica Cartwright (Lambert), she fell over and went into hysterics. This was a perfect way to introduce the alien.

5) Citizen Kane (1941)

This movie is centered on a news reporter who scrambled to find the meaning of a wealthy publishing tycoon's last word before he died: Rosebud. The film opens up with ominous looking shots of a mansion. As the camera moves closer to a room on the top floor, we see what looks to be a snowfall. The camera moves out again to show us what looks to be a small house in the middle of the snowfall. One final shot shows us that it was a snow globe. That, alone, was a pretty creative way to introduce us to the setting of the room this takes place in. Then, we see a close up of Kane's lips as he mutters the famous line: "Rosebud". As he dies, he drops the snow globe as it rolls down a few steps before shattering. This scene has been parodied so many times in pop culture, and it still remains famous to this day. It was a very poetic opening to the film.

4) Psycho (1960)

After a woman named Marion Crane steals $40,000, she takes shelter in a motel called "Bates Motel" after a severe rainstorm hits. While she decides to take a shower, a female figure who is supposedly Norman Bates' mother brutally stabs her to death. The camera cuts away every time the killer stabs her, and it makes her death more dramatic. When the killer leaves, the final shot shows her blood getting washed down the drain as the scene ends. The cinematography surrounding the death is masterfully done. However, what makes it even better is how unexpected it was. Going into the movie, filmgoers all expected that Marion would be the star of a crime thriller of her trying to escape jail time for thievery. However, when Hitchcock chose to kill her off, he changed this film entirely, and he made Psycho into one of the best rule-breaking films ever created.

3) Battleship Potemkin (1925)

NOTE: I have not been able to find out if this character has a name. I looked on the Cast listing of Wikipedia, and they just wrote "Woman with the baby carriage".

Battleship Potemkin is most famous for its famous sequence of the "Odessa Steps". Many people were killed in this scene, but this woman's death is, by far, the best one. During a massacre, the woman begs for the Cossacks not to shoot her, but they fire at her anyways. We see her baby stroller teetering on the edge of the steps as she slowly dies. When she finally falls over dead, she knocks her baby stroller over the edge which rolls down the steps away from all the mayhem. This scene is very shocking and jaw-dropping. The entire sequence is often referred to as one of the most influential scenes ever in cinema since it introduced concepts of film editing and montage. Her death is a perfect way to end the sequence as it's an interesting choice to have her baby stroller roll away from her mother who was recently killed. It can be very hard to watch if you think about it for a little while. In all honestly, I feel like this film is pretty overrated, but there's no denying that this scene is magnificent.

2) Apocalypse Now (1979)

http://forum.rottentomatoes.com/topic/show/1992822 Link this down below.

People who remember |this list| know that Apocalypse Now has my favorite film ending of all time. Captain Willard is sent into Cambodia on a dangerous mission to assassinate Colonel Kurtz. After he eventually finds him, Kurtz eventually lets him roam around the location he's staying at as he has gained his trust. The night that he kills him, he sneaks up to him and kills him by repeatedly hitting him with a machete. While he's doing so, the film cuts to Montagnards ceremonially slaughtering a water buffalo. It's a very good scene to overlap Kurtz's death with at the same time, and the scene is very tense throughout. Also, Colonel Kurtz's final words "The horror...the horror" adds a bit of ambiguity to the scene. Also, another reason why I really love this scene is because the song "The End" by [I]The Doors[/I] is a really fitting song which plays over it, and it makes the scene more intriguing. Coppola handled his death scene perfectly, and he made it as good as it could possibly be.

Before I reveal the number 1 pick, here are a few honorable mentions of films which were considered for this list, but didn't quite make it. They are in no particular order. If you can't figure out what death I'm referring to from one of these films, ask me in the comments and I'll tell you. I thought of a very complicated, yet clever way of revealing it without spoiling anything.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

The Thing (1982)

There Will Be Blood (2007)

White Heat (1949)

King Kong (1933)

Robocop (1987)

Suspiria (1977)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

American History X (1998)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

1) Blade Runner (1982)

It was a very tough choice between |||this||| one and Apocalypse Now. I love both |||death scene|||s almost equally. They both engaged me equally. However, while Apocalypse Now had some ambiguity which makes you think, the meaning of Roy Batty's quote just before he died was incredibly deep and it still sticks with me to this day. Its plot centers around a man known as a "Blade Runner" who |||is||| hired to kill 4 murderous replicants throughout the futuristic city of Los Angeles. After he kills 3 of them, he attempts to escape Batty by jumping across a roof, but he doesn't jump far enough, and he is left dangling on the edge of it. At first, Batty stands there - watching and smiling at him as he slowly loses his grip. It seems like Decker will die in a |||really||| messed up way for a second. However, right as Deckard is about to fall to his death, Batty saves him at the last second. As Batty is about to die, he delivers this famous and |||thought-provoking||| quote: "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." When he dies right afterwards, a bird which was sitting by him flies off into the sky. This quote means that he, and all of the things he experienced in his life will be forgotten after he dies. He will be lost in time. Also, the "Tears in rain" comparison connects to the quotes' meaning, because it indicates how your tears would get washed away very shortly within all of the rainwater. Also, raindrops which continue to fall could resemble new babies being born. What's really |||memorable||| about this quote is that it applies to all of us|||,||| and it's |||sad||| to fathom it. I found this quote very sad|||,||| thought-provoking, |||and chilling.||| It reminds us of how insignificant we are. The reason why this is at number 1 is because it has effected me a lot more than any other death scene I've ever watched before has.

Anyways, how do you think I did on this list. Do you agree or disagree with any of my picks? Can you think of any others that you would've replaced one of these with? If so, feel free to reply with your opinion.