Death scenes in movies are part of great or hilarious storytelling. There have been some great death scenes that moviegoers couldn't wait to see, especially if it involves the death of an evil antagonist. Then there is the unnecessary death of Derek Zoolander's friends in "Zoolander" who just wanted to have fun spraying gasoline on each other. However, there are also deaths that shock moviegoers to their core. These death scenes tug on our heartstrings and bring us uncontrollable tears. They also remind us of the frailties of life. It's why we've made a video that lists the saddest on-screen deaths of all time.
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00:00Great death scenes make for great storytelling.
00:03If you're feeling inclined to relive the sadness of losing all those beloved and iconic characters,
00:08well, get a tissue box ready, because the waterworks are coming.
00:12Here are some of the saddest death scenes in film and TV.
00:16In the original Star Wars trilogy, Han Solo undergoes a classic heroic transformation.
00:21When you first meet him, he's a callous rogue who pushes others away and only cares about
00:26cash.
00:27Every time Return of the Jedi rolls around, he's found redemption, purpose, and the love
00:32of his life.
00:33It's a nice, tidy ending, which is what made Han's actual fate in Star Wars The Force Awakens
00:38so grueling.
00:39Apparently, even in a galaxy so far, far away, happy endings are never quite so easy.
00:45While fans spent 30 years imagining that Han and Leia lived happily ever after, it turns
00:50out that their bouncing little boy became the next Darth Vader.
00:54Their marriage hit the rocks, and Han went back to smuggling.
00:57By the time the older Han finally makes his appearance, his famous wisecracks are now
01:02tinged with a sense of loss.
01:04This is a Millennium Falcon.
01:06You're Han Solo.
01:08I used to be.
01:11What makes Han's death the saddest scene in Star Wars history, though, is that he dies
01:15simply for trying to do right by his son.
01:18Even though the young Han would've hit the road, and the older Han knows Kylo Ren will
01:22probably kill him, the famously scruffy nerf-herder can't help but make one final effort to redeem
01:28the kid he raised.
01:29From the first moment Han approaches Kylo, every fan in the universe knows he's about
01:34to get his Obi-Wan moment, but that only makes the eventual lightsaber stab even harder to
01:39watch.
01:41Breaking Bad was packed full of dark, grisly, and uncomfortable moments, but the one that
01:46everyone still winces over is the scene where Jesse's girlfriend, Jane, asleep after a last-hurrah
01:51drug binge, chokes on her own vomit, and Walt does nothing.
01:56It's an easy solution to prevent Jane from exposing him, which she'd earlier threatened
02:01to do.
02:02His conscious decision to allow Jane to die might be the moment where Walt truly broke
02:06bad in the most awful way.
02:08From that point on, there was no going back.
02:20Disturbing as this was, it's even worse when Jesse's later girlfriend, Andrea, is shot
02:25by Todd in the show's penultimate episode.
02:28While Jane and Jesse were largely terrible for each other, Andrea is just a single mother
02:32trying to give her son Brock a better life, and she's only murdered because Jesse refuses
02:37to cook meth for Todd's sociopathic gang of neo-Nazis.
02:42Todd casually shoots her in the back of the head while Jesse watches, leaving Brock an
02:46orphan.
02:47Just so you know, this isn't personal."
02:55The sequence is brief, horrible, and impossible to forget, particularly for Ian Posada, the
03:01young actor who played Brock, who, according to The Hollywood Reporter, teared up when
03:05he was shown the scene.
03:08The late Michael Clarke Duncan was always a phenomenal actor, but the one movie that
03:12everyone will always remember him by is the screen adaptation of Stephen King's The Green
03:17Mile, in which he plays John Coffey, a wrongfully accused death row inmate with supernatural
03:23abilities.
03:24The film is filled with tons of tear-jerker moments, as Coffey's kindness, honesty, and
03:29compassion for others is shown in sharp contrast to the horrible treatment he receives from
03:34society.
03:35I'm tired of all the pain I'm feeling here in the world, every day."
03:42Nothing compares, though, to the intensely heart-wrenching scene at the end of the film,
03:47where Coffey is finally executed in the electric chair.
03:49The characters are crying just as much as the audience, and the little touches, such
03:54as Coffey asking not to have the black hood put over his face since he's afraid of the
03:58dark, or the close-up of Coffey and Tom Hanks' Paul Edgecombe squeezing hands, leave a lasting
04:04impression.
04:06What's amazing about Sam Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man is that it somehow made the best superhero
04:13origin story ever even better.
04:15In the original comics, Peter Parker is just an average, selfish, teenage kid preoccupied
04:21with girls and popularity, until his big ego results in his father figure getting killed.
04:26Hey, Michelangelo, don't forget we're painting the kitchen right after school, got it?
04:30Sure thing, Uncle Ben.
04:32Don't start without me.
04:33Basically, while the genetically altered spider bite gives Peter strength and confidence,
04:38it's the weight of his own mistakes that forces him to grow up and take responsibility.
04:43All the key elements are the same between Raimi's film adaptation and its source material.
04:48Wise words are spoken.
04:49Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.
04:55Peter lets a criminal get away, you know the drill, but Raimi's film made one slight alteration
05:00that cranked up the tears.
05:02Here we see Uncle Ben die, right before Peter's eyes, surrounded by onlookers.
05:07Uncle Ben?
05:09Peter.
05:10Over here, Uncle Ben.
05:16The entire movie relies on this scene working, and luckily, Cliff Robertson and Tobey Maguire
05:22knock it out of the park.
05:24If there's one big reason the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't shown Uncle Ben's death, perhaps
05:28it's because they knew they couldn't top this scene.
05:31Or this one.
05:34At this point, it seems like more Game of Thrones characters are dead than alive.
05:45And that's not even counting the whole army of corpses marching down Westeros.
05:49While there's still another season primed to shatter everybody's heart, the loss that
05:52currently hurts the most is Hodor, the lovable strongman who protected Bran with his dying
05:58breath, even though his tragic situation in life was, well, Bran's fault.
06:03Time travel is crazy, eh?
06:05Hold the door!
06:07Hold the door!
06:09Hold the door!
06:11Though Hodor spent much of the show's run as a humorous oaf who just said the same gibberish
06:15word over and over, his death scene completely redefined the character forever, revealing
06:21that Hodor actually meant, hold the door, and that he'd known this whole time that he'd
06:26someday have to sacrifice his life doing just that.
06:29Twitter, and presumably the actual world, erupted in sadness following Hodor's death.
06:35The whole thing only gets more depressing when you re-watch the first season and realize
06:39that he's been lending a massive hand to Bran this whole time.
06:43The first words ever spoken to Hodor are,
06:45"...help Bran down the hall."
06:48Black Panther was perhaps the cinematic event of 2018, and a huge part of that success was
06:54due to the film's antagonist, Erik Killmonger, as played by Michael B. Jordan.
06:59Whether Killmonger is unforgivably torching Wakandan traditions, sending out mass shipments
07:04of weaponry, or simply crying at the loss of his father, he's always riveting, impossible
07:09to look away from, and deeply sympathetic.
07:11"...I found my daddy with panther claws in his chest.
07:14You ain't the son of a king, you're a son of a murderer."
07:16Killmonger is more than just a great character, though, because as The Atlantic points out,
07:21his story also symbolizes the void permanently imposed on African culture by the transatlantic
07:27slave trade.
07:28"...These items aren't for sale."
07:30"...How do you think your ancestors got these?
07:34You think they paid a fair price?
07:35Or did they take it like they took everything else?"
07:38These deeper themes are exactly what makes his death scene so powerful.
07:42After being mortally wounded by the film's hero, T'Challa, Killmonger mentions that his
07:46Wakandan father always praised the natural beauty of his homeland.
07:50Out of compassion, T'Challa then brings his wounded opponent back up the mountain so they
07:55can watch the sunset together, and offers to use Wakanda's advanced medical technology
08:00to heal him.
08:02Killmonger refuses to be saved.
08:04Instead, he asks to be buried at sea.
08:06"...Just bury me in the ocean with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, because they knew
08:12death was better than bondage."
08:15While Black Panther had a lot of moments that will go down in pop culture history, this
08:19was one of the biggest.
08:21"...We just made out a couple times."
08:25"...We just made out a couple times."
08:28Oh Barb, the world hardly knew ye
08:31Despite the fact that Barb only made it through a few episodes of Stranger Things before being
08:36shredded to pieces by the Demogorgon, this minor character spawned a huge collection
08:40of fans called The Cult of Barb by Salon.
08:44What it comes down to, really, is that Shannon Purser's character is just so intensely relatable.
08:50While most people haven't hung out at the pool while an otherworldly monster storms
08:53out of the woods and drags them into a dark dimension, many people can empathize with
08:57the feeling of being left out, or trying to do the right thing while their flaky friend
09:02just gets some action in the other room.
09:04Barb's death scene is perhaps the ultimate example of what it feels like being the so-called
09:08third wheel, and that's probably why so many Stranger Things fans still miss her to this
09:13day.
09:14At the beginning of the 2004 relaunch of Battlestar Galactica, Anastasia Dee Dualla was one of
09:26the show's beacons of hope.
09:28Youthful, optimistic, and full of life, Dee weathers the many challenges the fleet experiences,
09:34eventually finding love with Lee Apollo Adama.
09:37Even when Dee and Apollo's marriage doesn't work out, she continues being one of the show's
09:41brightest characters as the fleet searches through the universe for their mythical homeworld,
09:46Earth.
09:47You have no idea what's happened to you.
09:51Today is just another day."
09:54Things quickly collapse when everyone finds out that Earth is actually a post-apocalyptic
09:59wasteland.
10:00As the crew tries to recover from this horrible reality, Dee and Apollo go out on a date and
10:06reconnect.
10:07It's a sweet, simple moment, leading audiences to believe that maybe now, even after the
10:11crew has seemingly lost everything, there's still hope for the future.
10:15Then, Dee goes back to her locker, smiles in the mirror, savors the moment she shared
10:20with Lee, and ends her life.
10:22The scene is so shockingly tragic that actress Candice McClure told SyFy that merely reading
10:27the script left her floored.
10:29It's safe to say that her fans had similar reactions.
10:34If there's one thing that Marvel's Avengers Infinity War will go down in history for,
10:39other than being the most ambitious cinematic crossover ever, it's the fact that at least
10:43half of everybody's favorite superheroes get killed by a bad guy snapping his fingers.
10:48Some Infinity War deaths may be more permanent than others, like Loki and Heimdall's, but
10:53every single one of them hurts like crazy.
10:56The biggest shock, though, might be that moment on Titan where a certain wall-crawling, web-spinning
11:01underdog turns to dust.
11:03While everybody else, from Star-Lord to Black Panther, can barely blink before they're wiped
11:07out of existence, Spider-Man knows something is coming.
11:10He feels his Spidey-sense tingling, but there's nothing he can do to stop his inevitable erasure.
11:16And then came that heartbreaking line...
11:17"...I don't feel so good."
11:22And finally, as audiences everywhere let out a collective, ugly sob...
11:27"...I don't want to go, I don't want to go, sir, please, please, I don't want to go."
11:32According to ScreenRant, both of these soul-crushing lines were improvised by actor Tom Holland.
11:37Sure, we all know Peter is coming back, what with Far From Home taking place after Avengers
11:42Endgame, but still, that didn't make watching him go any less heartbreaking.