Not a death scene, per se, but the reaction to a death.
Harry Potter Goblet of Fire
When Harry brings back Cedrics body and Amos Diggory’s greiving. It is a very well done scene on that aspect.
I remember that as the final scene. It really bugged me out seeing it as a kid, just the grotesquery of it.
Oh man - what about Fredo in Godfather 2? Who didn’t cry at that? or Ricardo Montalban in The Naked Gun?
mm
“I’m melting! I’m melting!”
From The Wizard of Oz, of course.
Ah, the couple of anime ones reminded me of a scene from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. A man has been trapped in the submarine with a nuclear reactor that has burst a leak. The ship has had all its doors closed to prevent gasses from travelling through the ship, and little boy who was riding on the ship is trying to force the door open which traps the man. So the man starts talking about how he doesn’t mind, that the mission they are on is so very important and he is proud to have served, and that if the door is opened everyone else will die, so he’s okay. Then the core goes, and in an instant the man is screaming from behind the door (though we haven’t seen him at all) “AAAH!! HELP ME! OPEN THE DOOR; I’M TOO YOUNG TO DIE! AHHHHahrhh!!” And the little boy stands there looking at the door…
…I have no idea what age group Nadia was targetted at…
But my favorite “badass” death is the death of Dias Lague in the Shadow Skill TV series. Though after that there was no further purpose in watching the show…
Okay, I’ll throw in a wild one…
In ST: III, the death…of the Enterprise.
“My God, Bones…what have I done?”
After that is the famous scene in the war room, the “mine shaft gap!” stuff, ending in the famous “Mein Führer, I can valk!” Then the “We’ll Meet Again” montage. Roger Ebert proposed that Kong’s scene should be the last dialogue, and come to think of it, maybe he’s right and those scenes should have been flipped or intercut.
The dog’s death in the “Jurassic Bark” episode of Futurama waters my eyes up every time.
What I really hated was the death of The Last of the V-8 Interceptors in The Road Warrior. Damn.
Since lots of anime has been covered, how about Shin’s (presumed) death at the end of Area 88?
The man finally gets what he wants and then pretty much kills himself because he can’t handle life Outside.
-Joe
Okay, don’t laugh please, but I thought the way that the Terminator went down into the vat of molten metal in T2 was pretty touching.
Tim (on “Spaced”): Just… give me a reason. You think I’m unemotional, don’t you? I can be emotional. Jesus, I cried like a child at the end of Terminator 2.
I loved that show.
-Joe
I cried like a baby when Wesley Snipes shattered in Demolition Man. That’s probably because my crush on Wesley Snipes cannot be measured by known methods.
Not sure what the best death scene per se is, but the one I was most affected by was A Home At The End of the World where
the character who is later played by Colin Farrell as an adult is shown to have had a really close relationship with an especially ‘cool’ older brother who accidently dies by walking through the sliding glass door. For the short amount of time the film had to establish the relationship, it was done very well, and ended with a great sense of loss.