There’s a line in “The Dark Knight” from Heath Ledger’s Joker: “In their last moments, people show you who they really are.” That’s likely why a great death scene can be an actor’s dream come true. They have a chance to portray their character in a wholly different light than what we’ve seen previously. They can deliver one last heart-wrenching line of dialogue that’ll stick with the protagonist. If nothing else, the audience can get blindsided and react accordingly to some shocking deaths they couldn’t have seen coming. 

That’s assuming, of course, the death is written and performed well. There’s nothing worse than having a scene that’s supposed to carry dramatic weight, and the audience can’t help but laugh at how stupidly someone died. Viewers instantly become aware they’re watching a movie and can’t reconcile the tonal dissonance of what they’ve witnessed. There are plenty of death scenes out there, but these are the ones permanently seared into our minds due to how bizarre they truly are. They remind us that someone shot this scene and went, “Yup, good enough!”

“The Room” is noteworthy for its cult status. There’s no bigger “so bad it’s good” movie out there, to the point where the film has stayed relevant in the years since its release, thanks to midnight screenings where people quote the terrible dialogue alongside Tommy Wiseau’s character, Johnny. As much camp value as the film has retained, there’s no denying the quality is definitely lacking, especially when it comes to Johnny’s big death scene. 

Johnny discovers Lisa (Juliette Danielle) is having an affair with his best friend, Mark (Greg Sestero), so he locks himself in a room with a gun, using it on himself. This is par the course for “The Room,” which Wiseau no doubt wanted to be in the vein of a Tennessee Williams drama but wound up with a laughable effort. The film’s filled with dramatic scenes that play comedically, but if there was any scene he needed to get right tonally, it’s the death scene. Don’t get us wrong; it’s fun to watch in a crowded theater at midnight, but it’s objectively not a good death scene. 

“Dante’s Peak” is genuinely a great movie. It’s one of the best natural disaster movies of all time, even better than its 1997 twin film “Volcano,” as it follows a small mountain town suddenly terrorized by an erupting volcano. At one point, our main characters find themselves in a boat on an acid lake. They’re incredibly close to the dock when the propeller gives out, so they start rowing. To help with that final push, sweet Ruth (Elizabeth Hoffman) jumps into the lake to pull the boat to the dock so that everyone can get out, dying shortly after. A traumatized generation watched this grandma yell in pain as the acid dissolved her legs, but it’s also worth noting she didn’t have to do that. 

Harry (Pierce Brosnan) manages to row them pretty close anyway. The boat was getting dissolved by acid, but a few more pushes would’ve gotten them to the dock. If Ruth had just stayed in the boat, she would’ve survived with the rest of them. It’s clearly meant to be a heroic sacrifice, but in hindsight, it comes across more that she was getting impatient and just wanted to be on land.

There’s a quiet profundity to Voldemort’s death in the “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” book. Specifically, his death reads: “Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snakelike face vacant and unknowing.” Voldemort’s mission throughout the series is to cheat death, and when he dies, he’s still a simple mortal. It’s a great idea to show how death comes for us all, and there was nothing truly special about Voldemort at the end of the day. The movie throws that nuance completely out the window.

When Voldemort dies in the final “Harry Potter” film, he bafflingly turns into flakes that float into the air. No one else has died this way before, insinuating that there was something otherworldly about him. The actual explanation for this death probably lies in the fact that the movie utilizes 3D technology, so they wanted something cool for audiences to see with their 3D glasses. But it undermines a key tenet of the story, and honestly, Voldemort’s movie death just looks kind of goofy. 

Gabriel (Esai Morales) is a pretty underwhelming villain in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise. It’s yet another knock against “The Final Reckoning,” which is already one of the weaker entries in the “Mission: Impossible” series. He could’ve made up for his lack of menace with an iconic death scene at the end, but that doesn’t happen. 

He goes up against Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) in what’s otherwise a spectacular biplane sequence. The two fight to acquire the Poison Pill, and Gabriel believes he has the upper hand by declaring he has the only parachute. Then, he slips and hits his head against the rudder. It’s an anticlimactic end for an anticlimactic villain. It’s funny for how jarring it is, proving what a non-entity Gabriel is when compared to the AI Entity. But seeing as how “The Final Reckoning” may be the last “Mission: Impossible” movie, at least for a while, we can’t help but wish the villain got a truly epic death. 

Brian De Palma has directed some incredible films over his career, like “Carrie,” “Scarface,” and “The Untouchables.” That last one features some stellar performances from Sean Connery and Robert De Niro, and it was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning one for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Connery’s role as Jimmy Malone. It’s impressive that the film is as revered as it is, considering one truly awful death scene. 

Toward the end of the film, Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) pushes Frank Nitti (Billy Drago) off a rooftop after Nitti gloats about getting away with murder scot-free. As Nitti falls to his death, the sequence cuts to him flailing his arms and screaming against a blue, sky-like backdrop, even though the ground should be behind him. It’s a bizarre moment in an otherwise grounded film that pulls you out of the moment. Honestly, it’s reminiscent of Dick Jones’ (Ronny Cox) death in “RoboCop,” but whereas that film is more satirical and can get away with sillier moments, this scene completely pulls you out of the dramatic backdrop. 

In “Les Misérables,” Javert’s death is meant to represent a complex crisis of conscience. Javert can’t live with the fact that Jean Valjean saved his life, that a criminal could be a good person. This upends his entire worldview, and he throws himself off a bridge as a result. It’s supposed to be a weighty decision that forces the audience to consider where the line between good and evil should be drawn, but in the 2012 film, Javert’s death is upended with a ridiculous sound effect. 

Javert (Russell Crowe) jumps toward a fountain, but instead of making it into the water completely, he hits the structure itself, leading to a “cruuunch” noise. It completely undermines the moment by trying to make the violence more transparent. They should’ve either cut away before Javert hits the fountain or at least not had a silly bone-crunching sound effect in there that sounds like it was sourced from “Mortal Kombat.” 

One big issue with the live-action Disney remakes is that they feel the need to explain things that really don’t need to be explained. These are children’s movies; it’s okay if some things are left open to interpretation. Yet, for some reason, 2021’s “Cruella” explains why Cruella de Vil (Emma Stone) hates Dalmatians: They killed her mom. 

The movie opens with her mother, Catherine (Emily Beecham), at a party to get some money to start a new life. While in the backyard, a group of Dalmatians races toward Catherine and pushes her off the cliff. It’s dumb, and it doesn’t help that later we learn the Baroness (Emma Thompson) was really the one behind Catherine’s death, using a dog whistle to sic her pooches on her. All of this needlessly convolutes Cruella’s obsession with Dalmatians in the later films. Why kill 101 Dalmatians at all if she knows they’re ultimately innocent in her mother’s death? In trying to fill in the blanks, these Disney remakes and prequels often raise more questions in the process. 

“Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” is the best of the prequel trilogy, which is why people turned out in droves to see its 20th anniversary re-release in 2025. It’s a darker film than the previous two entries while still being pretty campy, but it takes things a step too far with Padmé Amidala’s (Natalie Portman) death in the film’s finale. 

Her death is attributed to a “broken heart,” which, you know what, sure. She just got choked out and saw her beloved go to the Dark Side. That stress, combined with the rigors of childbirth, could’ve been enough to kill her. Her death is still just goofy. She tells Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) there’s still good in Anakin (Hayden Christensen) and then breathes more heavily until she sort of nods off and abruptly stops breathing. We understand she needed to die for the sake of the story, but surely, they could’ve come up with something that wasn’t as jarring as we’re simultaneously seeing Anakin transform into Darth Vader. 

Like “The Room,” no one’s expecting Oscar-caliber acting out of “Troll 2.” But that hasn’t stopped one line delivery from entering the cinephile lexicon. At one point, goblins (not trolls) turn a girl into green mush and begin eating her. This causes Arnold (Darren Ewing) to cry out, “They’re eating her! And then they’re going to eat me! Oh my GOOOOOOOOD!” Quite frankly, writing it out doesn’t do the line reading justice. Go watch the scene for yourself. 

There’s a rule in filmmaking: Show, don’t tell. Despite the fact that we’re already seeing the goblins eat the remains of a girl, the team behind “Troll 2” still saw fit to have Arnold lay out precisely what was happening and what would soon happen to him. Special shoutout to the fly randomly on Arnold’s forehead while he’s screaming all of this. One would think the director would have the good sense to do another take just to get the fly out of there, but no. Everyone was surely aware of how bad this movie would be and just wanted to get it over with.

The ending to “It Chapter Two” is somehow even worse than the book’s finale. The main characters, now adults, go back to Derry to track down and defeat Pennywise the Clown (Bill Skarsgård) once and for all, and that leads to them … making fun of him, causing him to deflate into a pancake. The lesson appears to be that it’s important not to be afraid and that your fears often aren’t as powerful as you think they are. But in the movie, the message seems to be that bullying (which all the Losers went through as kids) can have some perks. 

This is just one of many moments in the film that are tonally inconsistent with the horror. At one point, “Angel of the Morning” by Juice Newton starts playing during what’s supposed to be an otherwise scary scene. Elsewhere, some Losers encounter a Pomeranian, which promptly turns into a monster, but it completely undoes any horror you could get out of that moment. There’s nothing wrong with having some comedy in a horror movie, but all these moments feel utterly out of place. That goes double for Pennywise’s big death scene. 

1997’s “Face/Off” is pure ridiculousness, and we love it. It could’ve been even weirder, with a proposed plot point of Voodoo being involved in the face transplant. With Nicolas Cage and John Travolta both hamming it up, alongside director John Woo’s signature over-the-top stylistic violence and copious doves, the movie is a blast. But you can only take that so far before everything becomes an exhaustive exercise in excess.

Sean Archer (wearing Cage’s face) shoots Castor Troy (wearing Travolta’s face) with a speargun, just as he’s carving off his opponent’s face. It’s a bombastic way to go, punctuated perfectly with a stellar Cage scream. That’s all the scene needed, but then Troy sings, “Ready for the big ride, baby.” It’s a callback to an earlier sequence, but it doesn’t fit here. The audience should really be left to sit with what they’ve just seen. Instead, we get Travolta mumbling his way through a song until back-up arrives, but all the pathos has already been sucked out of the room. 

Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” faced a multitude of challenges to get made, but wound up being a fantastic martial arts film. 1981’s “Enter the Ninja” is clearly trying to emulate its aesthetic but fails at every turn, including in the most pivotal death. 

Charles Venarius (Christopher George) is the film’s antagonist and gets killed via shuriken by our hero, Cole (Franco Nero). A shuriken to the chest should make for a fairly swift death, but Venarius drags it out, letting out a prolonged scream while dropping his gun with a distinct panache. In “Looney Tunes” fashion, he only seems to realize the weapon delivered a death blow once he looks down at it, and only after that, he gives a shrugging look to Cole, almost as if to say, “Eh, what can you do?” It’s like Venarius goes through the five stages of grief within a 20-second period. It’s a terrible yet hilarious death scene, like the actor wanted to milk every last second of screen time he could get.

It’s easy to make fun of bad acting in “Troll 2” and “The Room,” but when you have “The Godfather Part III” with Francis Ford Coppola closing out his legendary crime film series, you expect something of a higher caliber. Many are quick to deride the threequel, but it’s really not bad. It’s just good, whereas the first two are perfect. Arguably, the most glaring flaw in the film is the casting of Sofia Coppola as Mary Corleone, daughter of Michael (Al Pacino). All due respect to Coppola, who’s a phenomenal director, but she’s just not an actor, which is evident in her big death scene. 

A shooting occurs at an opera house, with Mary getting struck by a stray bullet. Mary only seems to become aware of the fatal wound after looking down at it. She falls to her knees, says “Dad” without any emotion, and then keels over to the side. None of it works. It’s way too drawn out, and, apologies once again, Coppola just can’t sell that final line. Mary and Michael’s relationship has been fraught with tension throughout the film. That final “Dad” could’ve had some semblance of emotion in it to show how much she still wanted to be his little girl, but there’s nothing there to give the climax any emotional gravitas.

1996’s “Hamlet” is a curious work. Kenneth Branagh, who wrote, directed, and starred in the titular role in “Hamlet,” kept all of William Shakespeare’s dialogue intact, making it the only Oscar-nominated screenplay where no dialogue was taken out of the source material. But one thing he clearly added was the over-the-top death sequence for Claudius (Derek Jacobi). 

In the play, Hamlet stabs Claudius with a poison-tipped sword and then makes him drink poison, just to be sure he dies. However, Branagh goes for the gusto in the film. He hurls a sword at Claudius and then cuts the cord from a chandelier, sending it swinging toward him to pin him to a chair. With Claudius not going anywhere, Hamlet finally makes him drink the poison. Sorry, is this Shakespeare or a “Final Destination” movie?

Maybe Branagh just wanted to make good use of the medium of film compared to the theatre. We’re just surprised he exercised enough restraint not to stick a piece of dynamite in Claudius’ pants for good measure. 

There are plenty of terrible movie death scenes that could’ve populated this list, and many that could have a claim for the top spot. But for our money, the worst death scene in film history has to be something that’s utterly inexcusable. It needs to come from a great director and actor. It needs to completely break the immersion of the movie and genuinely have no reason for being that awful. Enter: Talia al Ghul’s (Marion Cotillard) death in “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Talia drives a truck with the bomb on board that falls from a pretty good height. However, she doesn’t die immediately, hanging on just enough to deliver an ominous message that the bomb’s going off no matter what before abruptly closing her eyes and getting one last sigh out. You have Christopher Nolan directing Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard, and the best they can do is shut her eyes quickly like she’s a kid who was supposed to go to bed an hour ago. 

Cotillard herself admits the scene was a letdown. “I didn’t nail that scene,” she said. “I didn’t find the right position. I didn’t find the right way.” Still, that seems like it should’ve been up to Nolan to do more takes until they could find something that works.