Best death scenes in movies

I was watching the director's cut of Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid on my DVR (great movie) tonight, and it has one of the more poignant death scenes I've seen in a while.

Slim Pickens plays a sheriff in a cameo role who helps Garrett try to find Billy The Kid. In the brief time he's on screen, his character oozes fatalism that indicates he knows his time is up, but also tells his wife, who is his deputy, that he just wants a chance to build a boat and float away from his town, his life. Like most Sam Peckinpah movies, the whole theme of the film is about how times change and because of it eventually everyone's time is up, and Pickens' character embodies that.

Sure enough, Slim takes a gut shot in a gunfight. As Garrett (James Coburn) finishes off some of Billy the Kid's cohorts, Bob Dylan's Knockin' On Heavens Door begins to play and Pickens drags himself to a stream where he sits and watches the water flow as he dies.

As the lyrics of the song kick in, he is joined by his wife, and in one of those John Ford-like Americana shots, she is shot from a ground angle, so you can see her tears illuminated by the sun and the clear, blue sky in the background. They cut to Pickens who has that half-fatalistic, but half-satisfied look that his time is finally up. Meanwhile, Coburn watches from a distance, silently shattered that his pursuit of his old pal Billy The Kid and his turn towards respectability are claiming the lives of his friends.

It's a great scene, perfectly shot, perfectly scored.

What are some of your favorites?

 

Alec Guiness in Star Wars.
Because when he does it, you have no freakin' clue why he did what he did.

 

Vito Corleone.

 

samuel l. in 'deep blue sea'

 

The mention of Slim Pickens reminded me of his character riding the A-bomb in "Dr. Strangelove." Certainly a memorable (impending) death scene.

 

George Lucas directed Alec Guiness with uber-skill in Star Wars.

There's many scenes that would have meant nothing in 1977, but with the passing of the sequels took on added subtlety later. For instance, when Luke meets Obi-wan in the cave, he asks Obi-wan about his father. Guiness has this pained, knowing expression on his face before he tells Luke his father died.

Today, we knew Obi-wan was hiding something, but audiences in '77 never knew that. His death scene is in the same vein.

 

VERY memorable ... in a totally different way.

 

Sonny Corleone.

 

QUINT

 

Blondie (Clint Eastwood) shooting Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef) into an open grave at the end of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

Second place: When my namesake chopped off Lance Rocke's head in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

 

Maybe not the best death scene in movie history, but edward furlong's death in american history x was pretty shocking at the time.

 

fixed.