50 Most Unforgettable Movie Deaths

My Girl (1991)

The Movie Death: Thomas J. Sennett (Macaulay Culkin) goes into the forest to look for Vada's (Anna Chlumsky) lost mood ring, but ends up attacked by hornets and having an allergic reaction that kills him dead.

Why We’ll Never Forget It: This is a kid's film, and so far the narrative's been telling us that it's all going to work out great for Vada in the end. How wrong we were.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991)

The Movie Death: Having saved John Connor (Edward Furlong) from the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) bids sayonara to the saviour of mankind, lowering himself into molten metal.

Why We’ll Never Forget It: The final thumb's up that the T-800 gives John and Sarah (Linda Hamilton) is enough to have us in floods of tears.

Over the course of T2 , we've come to love that great, hulking piece of metal.

Pet Sematary (1989)

The Movie Death: Three-year-old Gage (Miko Hguhes) chases his kite into the road - and lands himself in the path of an oncoming truck. It's not hard to guess what happens next.

Why We’ll Never Forget It:
Child deaths in movies are as harrowing as they come, and Mary Lambert doesn't pull any punches with her Stephen King adaptation.

The Hitcher (1986)

The Movie Death: Waitress Nash (Jennifer Jason Leigh) falls victim to John Ryder (Rutger Hauer), who strings her up between two trucks and releases the clutch, tearing her in two…

Why We’ll Never Forget It: It's grim to say the least - and you really do expect Nash to come out of this alive. That she doesn't - and in such spectacularly horrific circumstances - is genuinely traumatising.

Natural Born Killers (1994)

The Movie Death: Tabloid journo Wayne Gale (Robert Downey, Jr.) gets his comeuppance after profiling Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis) - they butcher him in typically bloody fashion.

Why We’ll Never Forget It:
You just don't expect Wayne to end up dead - he seems like the one person who might survive...

Scanners (1981)

The Movie Death: Renegade Scanner (aka psychic) Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside) interrupts a demonstration of Scanner abilities by blowing up the head of a willing volunteer. Messy.

Why We’ll Never Forget It: It's the best bit in an otherwise routine sci-fi - and a great demonstration of a Scanner's power.

Zombieland (2009)

The Movie Death: Our band of post-apocalyptic survivors stumble across Bill Murray, who's giving his best performance yet as a zombie in order to fool the real zombies. He also fools Eisenberg's hero - he buys the zombie schtick and kills Murray for real.

Why We’ll Never Forget It: When you randomly chuck a massive Hollywood A-lister into the middle of the film, the last thing you expect is for that film to dispatch with said A-lister equally as nonchalantly.

Final Destination 2 (2003)

The Movie Death: Actually a number of deaths, as Kimberly (AJ Cook) has a premonition of a highway pile-up that results in an all-out massacre as cars smash and flip into one another.

Why We’ll Never Forget It: It's both brutal and epic, brilliantly orchestrated by director David Ellis as a chain reaction of maladies pile up and result in all-out carnage.

The only thing that's come close to matching it in the series since is FD5 's suspension bridge scene.

Bonnie & Clyde (1967)

The Movie Death: The police finally catch up with bank robbers Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway), opening fire as they attempt to fix a tyre by the roadside. Cue bloodbath.

Why We’ll Never Forget It:
It's as horrifically graphic as you'd imagine - especially shocking considering the film was made in the '60s - and seeing the two characters you've been following for the past 90 minutes get riddled with bullets is about as disturbing as it gets.

The Departed (2006)

The Movie Death: Undercover good guy Billy (Leonardo Dicaprio) seems to have the quickly-spiralling plot under control in Martin Scorsese's elegant remake - until, that is, a dirty cop unexpectedly puts a bullet in his head. SPLAT.

Why We’ll Never Forget It:
It's pretty much par for the course for Leo to die in every movie he appears in, but this one is so unexpected it'll have you checking yourself for arterial spray.

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.