50 Most Unforgettable Movie Deaths

Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

The Movie Death: Zombie-surviving hero Ben (Duane Jones) makes his way out of the wreckage of a besieged home, only to be mistaken for a zombie himself and shot dead by a callous posse who don't want to take any chances.

Why We’ll Never Forget It: Things have been pretty bleak this far, but this takes things to a whole new level.

The unfairness of it all will haunt you for days.

Up (2009)

The Movie Death: The opening of this Pixar movie takes us through the lives of Carl and Ellie - from their meeting as kids right up to Ellie's tragic death. Sob.

Why We’ll Never Forget It: Animated films making us cry is nothing new, but to open what looked like a lovely adventure flick (which it is) with such an emotional sucker-punch was just plain mean.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)

The Movie Death: Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is clever enough to tell Marion (Karen Allen) to keep her eyes closed as Toht (Ronald Lacey) and his fellow Nazis open the Ark - and promptly meet their maker.

Why We’ll Never Forget It:
Toht's face melts right off in one of the coolest/ickiest scenes ever committed to film. And this is meant to be a kid's movie?

Scarface (1983)

The Movie Death: Having snorted a small country's worth of cocaine, Tony Montana (Al Pacino) defends his home (palace?) from Sosa's men, delivers that iconic line ("little friend") and winds up face down in an in-door water fountain.

Why We’ll Never Forget It:
Well, what a way to end a movie! It's the big blowout we've been expecting all along - and boy does Montana go out with a bang.

Bambi (1943)

The Movie Death: A hunter goes after young Bambi and his mother. As they race through the forest, it seems they might have survived the attack. Except, of course, they haven't.

Why We’ll Never Forget It: It destroyed our childhoods. The immortal words uttered by the stag in some sort of aloof attempt at comforting Bambi are so upsetting that we can't even repeat them here.

The Mist (2007)

The Movie Death : With no hope in sight, David Drayton (Thomas Jane) is forced to shoot his son and three other townsfolk as the mist encloses their car.

But there aren't enough bullets for David to do himself in, too, meaning he's around when the fog clears moments later and it seems the monsters have actually departed.

Why We’ll Never Forget It : It's really, really, really upsetting. We're sitting here sobbing onto our keyboard as we type.

Jaws (1975)

The Movie Death: That infamous opening kill, in which young Chrissie Watkins goes skinny dipping alone - only for something to drag her under the surface, never to be seen alive again.

Why We’ll Never Forget It: Well, it's the first time we hear John Williams' terrifying, foreboding score - and the fact that there are no histrionics and no gore make this absolutely chilling.

Psycho (1960)

The Movie Death: Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) has stopped off at a weirdly-quiet motel for a spot of rest.

Running herself a shower, though, she's interrupted by a towering figure wielding a butcher's knife…

Why We’ll Never Forget It: It's one of cinema's most ingenious twists - killing off our anti-heroine only halfway through the film. To say it's shocking is an understatement.

The Wicker Man (1973)

The Movie Death: Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) is sacrificed by the inhabitants of Summerisle.

As they sing and dance happily, he's shoved into a giant wicker statue of a man and burned alive.

Why We’ll Never Forget It: The last thing you expect in Robin Hardy's film is for our innocent (literally, virginal) copper to come a cropper at the end, but come a cropper he does - and in spectacularly iconic fashion.

Alien (1979)

The Movie Death: Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt) seems to have recovered from his facehugger problem and tucks into his food - only to start convulsing.

And then an alien erupts from his chest…

Why We’ll Never Forget It: Quite simply, it's one of cinema's finest shock moments. So totally unexpected and horrific, it's the kind of body horror that should give even David Cronenberg himself nightmares.

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.