Inspired by Askia’s Death by Gravity thread, I thought it might be interesting to see people’s favorite deaths on the screen. It could be because it was a great plot twist, because it looked cool, or just because you hated the character and was glad to see them gone.
Mine–Lupin the IIIrd: Castle of Cagliostro. Very creative, if you ask me. I love watching him get squished between the clock hands.
Missouri Breaks.
Robert E. Lee Clayton looks up to see Tom Logan bending over him. “The reason you woke up? You had your throat cut.”
Claytin (Brando) was one mean sob who "needed killin’ ".
Raiders of the Lost Ark–When Indiana Jones shoots the swordsman.
Paul Ruebens in Buffy The Vampire Slayer (the movie).
It was a fun takeoff on death scenes.
Which means I’ll have to go to my second favorite death, from Butvch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Did you see LaForce out there?
No.
Good. I thought we were going to be in trouble.
Boromir in Fellowship of the Ring.
Ruteger Hauer (Roy Batty) in Blade Runner.
Bugs Bunny in What Opera, Doc?
Heroic/sad deaths:
George Mason from 24, season 2. He might have been a weaselly administrator, but we saw in the last hours of his life that he was really a good guy with real problems, and he went from a jerk to a good character we really felt sorry for. The way he finally went out was one of the most heroic sacrifices I’ve ever seen.
Boromir from FotR, of course.
Butch and Sundance.
Cool deaths:
Milo, the villain from The Last Boy Scout. Not only does Bruce Willis’ character shoot him, but then he falls off a high structure, presumably to his death… only to get chopped up in the blades of a helicopter as he falls! Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
Nameless thug from The Last Boy Scout. He keeps taking cheap-shots at Bruce Willis, punching him in the face at close range and laughing about it. Bruce’s character says “If you do that again, I’ll kill you.” The guy shrugs it off and punches Bruce again, so Bruce punches him just once, in the nose, driving the cartilage into his brain and killing him instantly–good to his word!
(Can you tell I’m a big fan of Shane Black movies?)
Zed and Maynard from Pulp Fiction. We don’t see Zed’s actual death, but you know some guys were going to go medieval on his ass. After how scary and sick and sadistic the two of them were, you really feel like they had it coming, and you can’t help but cheer.
Getting here too late to post Boromir’s death first, but I’ll add it again anyway. Might not be cool like the one’s noted in the original post, but it’s certainly my favorite Movie Death Scene.
As for a different one - anyone remember Macbeth’s death in Polanski’s movie version of same? Particulary gruesome.
as for unusual - how about the thug who get’s trapped in the feed silo in “Witness”.
Five words: “Top of the world, ma!” Nothing more needs to be said.
For the sheer Rube Goldbergian absurdity of it all, the death of the teacher in Final Destination. Let me see if I can remember…
Cleaning kitchen, teacher hangs dishtowel on knife handle in knife block.
Teacher then pours vodka into her coffee mug (which she doesn’t realize has a hairline crack).
In adjacent room, teacher leaves mug on top of computer monitor, where vodka leaks into the back.
Resulting short-circuit causes monitor explosion, which lodges piece of computer screen into her jugular.
Stumbling back to kitchen, spurting blood everywhere, she collapses short of kitchen counter.
Reaching up for the dishtowel, she inadvertently pulls down knife block, thus causing several large knives to puncture her torso.
Meanwhile, a fire has started from the short-circuiting computer and the vodka trail she created.
Resulting fire causes leaning chair to fall over on her, pushing knives deeper into her torso.
Then the house blows up, putting her out of her misery.
Actually pretty hilarious in a worst-case-scenario type of way. :snort:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Both times.
Star Trek II:
Spock
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs”
“of the few”
“or the one”
From Star Trek TOS
The redshirt who was turned into a dodecahedron and then crushed by some aliens.
The Untouchables
Malone getting gunned down and Nitti being thrown off the roof (Did he sound like that?)
Oddjob (Goldfinger’s assistant)
I loved that scene in Polanski’s Macbeth. I wrote a paper in college once about violence in cinematic Shakespeare adaptations (I majored in Extremely Liberal Arts); discussed that scene, as well as Lady Kaede’s beheading at the hands of a samurai warrior in Akira Kurosawa’s Ran, another Macbeth adaptation. Equally gruesome, if not more so, as I think the blood in whatever FX machine Kurosawa was using had been compressed to about 10,000 psi.
Doyle’s death in Angel was pretty cool. So self-sacrificing. Plus, he gets to cold-cock Angel! 
And Alan Rickman’s in Die Hard, of course. Yeah, it’s a variation of the “long fall”, which usually sucks, but something about the way he raises the gun in slow motion, and gets it almost all the way up before Bruce Willis lets go help it to transcend the usual limitations of the style.
And let’s not forget the last scene of Bonnie and Clyde. Holy crap. Now that’s a lot of bullets.
ArchiveGuy: That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I might have to rent the movie just to see that scene. 
Dennis Hopper in the first season of 24.
Speaking of **Raiders ** - how about them melting Nazis?
Indeed, if the samurai had not killed Lady Kaede her blood pressure certainly would have.
Gus McCrae’s (Robert Duvall) demise in **Lonesome Dove ** always drives me to weepiness; it’s hard to watch Tommy Lee Jones cry.
Who can forget Radar announcing the demise of Henry Blake in MASH? I remember as a kid the hush that fell over our living room the night that aired. Yes, we watched too much TV.
Another death-annoucement scene; Capt. Furillo informing the precinct of Sgt. Esterhaus’ unexpected demise in Hill Street Blues. Amazing how effective that scene was, even though the audience knew it was coming as actor Michael Conrad has passed away earlier that year.
Actually, there a couple of scenes like that in the movie. Half the fun is trying to figure out how the people are actually going to die.