Name some of the best death scenes you've ever seen.

[Matilda]

Death scenes can be corny, messy, shocking, moving, beautiful, powerful.
What scenes from what films made an impact on you, for whatever reason?

Some that I particularly recall are:

The death of Sir Thomas More in "A Man For All Seasons" - the axe
descending, and then the black screen. If anything conveyed the finality
of death, that did. I couldn't move for about a minute afterwards;

The death of Margaret Sullavan in "The Mortal Storm" - fleeing from
Germany to Austria and safety, early in the war, and being shot on the
orders of childhood friend, Robert Young, and dying just as she crossed
the border with James Stewart.

When I was a child, I saw a Disney film called "Old Yeller", and I
remember that Tommy Kirk had to shoot his Labrador dog, Old Yeller, for
whatever reason (I know he was sick, but I don't recall what was wrong).
I cried my heart out.

The death of the last of the Smith brothers in "Oh What A Lovely War".
He leaves the bunker to fight in the last battle of WWI, and when he
returns, he's told to hurry up, "it's almost 11.00". He heads for the
bunker, but finds himself in a room where the leaders of the Great
Powers are signing the peace treaty. The door slams, the leaders look
up, but they see nobody, because he's dead. He follows a line of red
tape through the room and outside, where he begins to walk, then run,
shedding helmet, rifle, jacket, and pack as he heads for a sunlit field,
where he lies down, smiling, with other young men who have died. Sounds
corny, but it's beautifully done, and I tear up every time I see it.

[shenmue]

1. "Gallipoli"

I won't give it away for those who haven't seen it, but for those who have, they'll know. It's just awful.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

2. I cried my eyes out when I saw Old Yeller in the movie theater

I was 6 years old back then in the mid 1950s. I haven't seen the film since but I still remember how sad that was.

Another film I remember having a very sad death was Imitation Of Life. Both the Claudette Colbert version of the mid 1930s and the Lana Turner version of the late 1950s were sad. It's about two women, one white and one black with two young girls who decide to live under the same roof, raise their daughters together, and go into business together. The black mother represents such deep-down goodness, such unflinching love for her dauthter that she's almost like a Saintly figure in both versions of this film. Her young daughter who is light-skinned decides to try to pass for white and ends up rejecting her mother because she's black. The death of this overwhelmingly kind and good woman really touched me. And the funeral scene in which her daughter regrets the way she rejected her mother for being black was profoundly sad.

Also, the last scene in Cyrano de Bergerac, particulary the Gerard Depardieu version (the best film version of this play in my opinion) where he dies is extremely touching. If you understand the original French, it is beautiful beyond words.

[lavenderdiva]

3. that scene in 'Old Yeller' made me cry too....

the one death scene that comes to mind immediately, is the one from 'Wuthering Heights', with Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier. She dies in his arms looking out the window to the Moors, where she will spend eternity walking with Heathcliff. Its very sappy, but I love it.

[eleny]

4. Joan of Arc's being burned at the stake was ghastly to me

[Matilda]

5. A little-known film called "Sunshine"

made in the early seventies. Cristina Raines was in it, playing a young
mother who discovers she has cancer. The effects of the chemo are so bad
for her, she decides to forego treatment and let the disease take its
course. She makes a series of recordings of her thoughts for her young
daughter to remember her by. It was supposedly based on a real-life
story.

There were two very sad scenes - one where her musician boyfriend sings
"Sunshine" to her in a kind of club or disco - very sad, knowing she's
dying, and the end scene, where he can't face her death, and leaves her
in hospital to die alone.

I worked weekends as an usherette when that film screened, and every
female of whatever age came out crying, and for all the weeks I saw it,
I cried every time at those two scenes. But I've never seen it again,
on television, or on DVD, and nobody else seems to remember it.

[CBHagman]

6. That was popular here in the States as well.

Sunshine aired on TV, though, and not in theaters. The music was extremely popular (John Denver was just hitting his stride, and had a hit with "Sunshine"), and the film itself inspired a sequel and a TV series.

Here's the Internet Movie Database entry:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070751/

During that era there were a number of popular movies, both TV and theatrical, that dealt with similar themes. Remember Brian's Song, Love Story, She Lives?

We went through a lot of tissues in that era.

[vireo]

7. Classic "last lines"

"Rosebud"

"Is this the end of Rico?"

Others?

[TahitiNut]

8. "I'm at the top of the world, ma!"

Cagney's signature scene for a long time.

Another of my favorites: "It was beauty killed the beast.”

[vireo]

9. Good ones!

There's also Cagney's death scene in "Public Enemy" but he doesn't say much. The "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" soundtrack, however, is memorable.

[CBHagman]

10. After watching "Lone Star" again...

...I have to say that director John Sayles and written and filmed some of the most memorable death scenes I've ever seen. Watch Lone Star and Matewan -- and believe me, I'm not giving away a thing about either of them -- and you'll see what I mean.

Sayles may build suspense and end it with a death, or not, or he may not let you know the moment is coming at all, or he may pull another trick out of his hat. Something entirely different from that happens in John Huston's Key Largo, which, like Sayles's Lone Star, contains a thoroughly detestable villain. I can imagine that if you screened Key Largo for them, the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu would be jumping up and down on the couch screaming, "Get him, Bogie!" by the end.