Even though you may know TV and movies aren't real, it can still break your heart when your
fictional friends fall into a black hole or get stabbed in the neck by their evil clone.
Unfortunately for us and our emotions, this makes for great storytelling, so here are
some of the saddest on-screen death scenes you'll ever see.
In the original Star Wars trilogy, Han Solo undergoes a classic heroic transformation.
When you first meet him, he's a callous rogue who pushes others away, and only cares about
cash, but by the time Return of the Jedi rolls around, he's found redemption, purpose, and
the love of his life. It's a nice, tidy ending, which is what made Han's actual fate in Star
Wars: The Force Awakens so grueling: apparently, even in a galaxy so far, far away, happy endings
are never quite so easy. While fans spent 30 years imagining that Han and Leia lived
happily ever after, it turns out that their bouncing little boy became the next Darth
Vader, their marriage hit the rocks, and Han went back to smuggling. By the time the older
Han finally makes his appearance, his famous wisecracks are now tinged with a sense of
loss.
"This is the Millenium Falcon? You're Han Solo?"
"I used to be."
What makes Han's death the saddest scene in Star Wars history, though, is that he dies
simply for trying to do right by his son. Even though the younger Han would've hit the
road, and the older Han knows Kylo Ren will probably kill him, the famously scruffy nerf
herder can't help but make one final effort to redeem the kid he raised. From the moment
Han approaches Kylo, every fan in the universe knows he's about to get his Obi-Wan moment,
but that only makes the eventual lightsaber stab even harder to watch.
Breaking Bad was packed full of dark, grisly, and uncomfortable moments, but the one that
everyone still winces over is the scene where Jesse's girlfriend, Jane, asleep after a last-hurrah
drug binge, chokes on her own vomit, and Walt does nothing. It's an easy solution to prevent
Jane from exposing him, which she'd earlier threatened to do. His conscious decision to
allow Jane to die might be the moment where Walt truly "broke bad" in the most awful way.
From that point on, there was no going back.
Disturbing as this was, it's even worse when Jesse's later girlfriend Andrea is shot by
Todd in the show's penultimate episode. While Jane and Jesse were largely terrible for each
other, Andrea is just a single mother trying to give her son, Brock, a better life, and
she's only murdered because Jesse refuses to cook meth for Todd's sociopathic gang of
neo Nazis. Todd casually shoots her in the back of the head, while Jesse watches, leaving
Brock an orphan.
"Just so you know, this isn't personal."
"NO!"
The sequence is brief, horrible, and impossible to forget, particularly for Ian Posada, the
young actor who played Brock, who, according to The Hollywood Reporter, reportedly teared
up when he was shown the scene.
The late Michael Clarke Duncan was always a phenomenal actor, but the one movie that
everyone will always remember him by is the screen adaptation of Stephen King's The Green
Mile, in which he plays John Coffey, a wrongfully accused Death Row inmate with supernatural
abilities. The film is filled with tons of tear-jerker moments, as Coffey's kindness,
honesty, and compassion for others is shown in sharp contrast to the horrible treatment
he receives from society.
"I'm tired of all the pain I hear and feel in the world everyday."
Nothing compares, though, to the intensely heart-wrenching scene at the end of the film
where Coffey is finally executed in the electric chair. The characters are crying just as much
as the audience, and the little touches, such as Coffey asking not to have the black hood
put over his face, since he's afraid of the dark, or the close-up of Coffey and Tom Hanks'
Paul Edgecomb squeezing hands, leave a lasting impression.
What's amazing about Sam Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man is it that it somehow made the best superhero
origin story ever…even better. In the original comics, Peter Parker is just an average, selfish
teenage kid preoccupied with girls and popularity, until his big ego results in his father figure
getting killed.
"Hey, Michelangelo, don't forget we're painting the kitchen right after school, got it?"
"Sure thing, Uncle Ben. Don't start without me."
Basically, while the genetically altered spider bite gives Peter strength and confidence,
it's the weight of his own mistakes that forces him to grow up and take responsibility.
All the key elements are the same between Raimi's film adaptation and its source material:
Wise words are spoken…
"Remember: With great power comes great responsibility."
Peter lets a criminal get away, you know the drill. But Raimi's film made one slight alteration
that cranked up the tears. Here, we see Uncle Ben die, right before Peter's eyes, surrounded
by onlookers.
"Uncle Ben?"
"Peter."
"I'm here, Uncle Ben."
The entire movie relies on this scene working, and luckily, Cliff Robertson and Tobey Maguire
knock it out of the park. If there's one big reason the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't
shown Uncle Ben's death, perhaps it's because they knew they couldn't top this scene. Or
this one:
It seems like more Game of Thrones characters ended up dead than alive, and that's not even
counting the whole army of corpses marching down Westeros. But the loss
that hurt the most was Hodor, the lovable strongman who protected Bran with
his dying breath, even though his tragic situation in life was … well, Bran's fault. Time travel
is crazy, eh?
"Hold the door! Hold the door! Hold the door! Hold the door!"
Though Hodor spent much of the show's run as a humorous oaf who just said the same "gibberish"
word over and over, his death scene completely redefined the character forever, revealing
that "Hodor" actually meant "hold the door," and that he'd known this whole time that he'd
someday have to sacrifice his life doing just that. Twitter, and presumably the actual world,
erupted in sadness following Hodor's death. The whole thing only gets more depressing
when you rewatch the first season and realize that he's been lending a massive hand to Bran
this whole time: The first words ever spoken to Hodor are "help Bran down the hall."
Black Panther was perhaps the cinematic event of 2018, and a huge part of that success was
due to the film's antagonist, Erik Killmonger, as played by Michael B. Jordan. Whether Killmonger
is unforgivably torching Wakandan traditions, sending out mass shipments of weaponry, or
simply crying at the loss of his father, he's always riveting, impossible to look away from,
and deeply sympathetic.
"I found my daddy with panther claws in his chest. You ain't the son of a king! You're
the son of a murderer!"
Killmonger is more than just a great character, though, because as The Atlantic points out,
his story also symbolizes "the void" permanently imposed on African culture by the Trans-Atlantic
slave trade.
"These items aren't for sale."
"How do you think your ancestors got these? You think they paid a fair price? Or did they
take it, like they took everything else?"
These deeper themes are exactly what makes his death scene so powerful. After being mortally
wounded by the film's hero, T'Challa, Killmonger mentions that his Wakandan father always praised
the natural beauty of his homeland. Out of compassion, T'Challa then brings his wounded
opponent back up the mountain, so they can watch the sunset together, and offers to use
Wakanda's advanced medical technology to heal him. Killmonger refuses to be saved. Instead,
he asks to be buried at sea.
"Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors that jumped from the ships. 'Cause they knew death
was better than bondage."
While Black Panther had a lot of moments that will go down in pop culture history, this
was one of the biggest.
"We just…made out a couple times."
"'We just…made out a couple times.'"
Oh, Barb, the world hardly knew ye.
Despite the fact that Barb only made it through a few episodes of Stranger Things before being
shredded to pieces by the Demogorgon, this minor character spawned a huge collection
number of fans collectively called the "cult of Barb" by Salon. What it comes down to,
really, is that Shannon Purser's character is just so intensely relatable. While most
people haven't hung out at the pool while an otherworldly monster storms out of the
woods and drags them into a dark dimension, many people can empathize with the feeling
of being left out, or trying to do the right thing while their flaky friend just gets some
action in the other room. Barb's death scene is perhaps the ultimate example of what it
feels like being the so-called "third wheel," and that's probably why so many Stranger Things
fans still miss her to this day.
At the beginning of the 2004 relaunch of Battlestar Galactica, Anastasia "Dee" Dualla was one
of the show's beacons of hope. Youthful, optimistic, and full of life, Dee weathers the many challenges
the fleet experiences, eventually finding love with Lee "Apollo" Adama. Even when Dee
and Apollo's marriage doesn't work out, she continues being one of the show's brightest
characters, as the fleet searches through the universe for their mythical homeland,
"Earth."
"You have no idea what's happened, do you? Today is just another day."
Things quickly collapse when everyone finds out that Earth is actually a post-apocalyptic
wasteland. As the crew tries to recover from this horrible reality, Dee and Apollo go out
on a date and reconnect. It's a sweet, simple moment, leading audiences to believe that
maybe now, even after the crew has seemingly lost everything, there's still hope for the
future. Then Dee goes back to her locker, smiles in the mirror, savors the moment she
shared with Lee…and ends her life. The scene is so shockingly tragic that actress Kandyse
McClure told SyFy that merely reading the script left her floored. It's safe to say
that her fans had similar reactions.
If there's one thing that Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War will go down in history for,
other than being the most ambitious cinematic crossover ever, it's the fact that at least
half of everybody's favorite superheroes get killed by a bad guy snapping his fingers.
Some Infinity War deaths may be more permanent than others, like Loki and Heimdall, but every
single one of them hurts like crazy.
The biggest shock, though, might be that moment on Titan where a certain wall-crawling, web-spinning
underdog turns to dust. While everybody else, from Star-Lord to Black Panther, can barely
blink before they're wiped out of existence, Spider-Man knows something is coming. He feels
his spidey sense tingling, but there's nothing he can do to stop his inevitable erasure.
And then came that damn line:
"I don't feel so good."
And, finally, as audiences everywhere let out a collective ugly sob:
"I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go. Sir please, please. I don't wanna go."
According to Screen Rant, both of these soul-crushing lines were improvised by actor Tom Holland.
Sure, we all know Peter is coming back, what with Far From Home taking place after Avengers:
Endgame...But still, that didn't make watching him go any less heartbreaking.
Sure, Bambi losing his mom was a downer. But if there was one animated classic that made
millions of kids sob into the arms of their confused mothers, it was Don Bluth's 1988
dinosaur film The Land Before Time. What made The Land Before Time such a fantastic kids
movie, and what the numerous sequels got so wrong, was that the script pulled no punches.
From the first scene, Bluth's movie paints a vivid portrait of a once-beautiful world
brought to the edge of despair by famine, where a herd of dinosaurs struggle to find
food while defending attacks from the outside. Despair is everywhere, but at least you know
Littlefoot will be okay, thanks to his wise, strong, devoted mother…
…until suddenly, everything goes haywire. First a Sharptooth storms in, then an earthquake
wrecks the place, and Littlefoot is left stranded. As rain and thunder pour down, the sad little
dinosaur wanders alone through the blighted landscape, desperately crying out for his
mom.
"Mother! Where are you?"
When he finds her, she's already half-dead. He pleads for her to get up, and when she
says…
"I'm not sure I can, Littlefoot."
…even the parents in the audience are probably wiping their eyes.
One of the most memorable scenes of 1994's The Lion King is also the most heartbreaking,
the traumatic death of Mufasa. After saving his son from a stampede, the doomed king desperately
claws his way to safety only to get thrown back into the stampede's path by his own brother,
Scar.
"AGHHH!"
"NOOO!"
Afterward the orphaned Simba tries and tries to wake up his father, until he finally accepts
there will be no waking up. He spends a long moment nuzzled against his father's corpse.
The iconic death scene has a Shakespearean brutality, and it sets the stage for everything
that comes after. Simba's legacy is ripped to pieces by his own uncle. It's grim and
brutal, and not what you normally expect from a Disney cartoon.
If you're a part of a generation who grew up on The NeverEnding Story, the playful grin
of Falkor the Luck Dragon probably still comes back to you from time to time. What you might
forget is that, like so many of your favorite movies from childhood, the underlying themes
tend to be dark. Sure, there's giant turtles and friendly giants, but in a sense they're
just decoration for a story that's all about keeping hope alive in the face of utter despair.
Perhaps the saddest moment in the entire film is the death of Artax, the noble horse. The
beautiful animal meets his painful end while accompanying his young owner, Atreyu, through
the Swamp of Sadness. True to its name, the swamp's oppressive magic threatens to smother
any who travel through it with their own anguish; and that's exactly what happens to poor Artax.
No matter how much Atreyu begs and pleads for his friend to save himself, the horse
is too consumed in his own hopelessness and allows himself to drown in the muck.
It's been nearly a decade and a half since Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain first hit theaters,
and it's easy to forget what a cultural event it was. A love story between cowboys played
by Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger; Brokeback Mountain won awards, accolades, and a domestic
gross of over $80 million against a $14 million budget.
The story revolves around the decades-long relationship between Jack Twist and Ennis
Del Mar, which tragically ends when Ennis discovers through a postcard that his friend
and lover has died. When Ennis calls for more information, he is told that Jack was killed
when a tire he was changing exploded. But Ennis can't help but consider that this might
not be the truth. He imagines a more horrific story, with his mind flashing to the idea
of Jack being brutally beaten to death with a tire iron. Jack's death is a total heartbreaker,
but the uncertainty just makes it worse.
In the real world, the chances that you've cried over a lost volleyball are quite slim.
However, you probably also never found yourself stranded on an island with nothing but a random
piece of sports equipment to keep you company, which is the situation in which Tom Hanks'
character finds himself in 2000's Cast Away.
Though few people have struggled with what Hanks' character endured, it's easy to imagine
how years of extreme isolation could force an inanimate object to become a friend.
That's why when Chuck finally escapes the island, it's so heartbreaking when he accidentally
loses Wilson. He dives into the water, risking his life and his chance to get home; all to
save a volleyball. He eventually gives up, but his cries to his friend are so full of
anguish, it feels like he's leaving a real person to drown.
"I'm sorry! Wilson, I'm sorry!"
The scene also marks the key moment where Hanks begins a traumatic transition back to
the civilized world, a place where volleyballs aren't allowed to be your friends, even if
you draw lovable faces on them.
For 16 years, Hugh Jackman brought Marvel's adamantium-clawed mutant renegade to life,
earning fan adoration and a Guinness World Record for longest career as a live-action
Marvel superhero in the process. Sadly, all good things must come to an end.
While everyone hoped 2017's Logan would be a dark, brilliant conclusion to the most popular
X-Man's story, few could have predicted just how painful it would be to see Marvel's toughest,
grittiest superhero reduced to a bitter, aching old man; poisoned by his own adamantium, with
claws that didn't quite pop right anymore.
While Wolverine never finds true happiness or peace, Logan does find something of a family.
In a battle against his clone, Wolverine gives his life to save a group of innocent mutant
children, including his a girl who becomes a daughter-like figure to him, Laura. As Logan
dies, impaled and covered in blood, he clutches Laura's hand, smiles, and says,
"So, this is what it feels like."
Most superhero movies leave the audience walking out with smiles and laughter, but Logan was
definitely the one where everyone left in tears.
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