That wasn’t Pvt. Joker…that was Pvt. Pyle in Full Metal Jacket.
Personally, I’d vote Saving Private Ryan too. That was violent…I know it happened like that and for Speilberg not to back off of any of it was gutsy. I immediately knew I was in for a shocking experience unlike any other film. Hats off to all vets.
I’m going to nominate the death of Quasimodo’s mother in Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. Frollo grabs the baby from her with such force that it knocks her back and we see her head strike the stone cathedral steps, presumably fracturing her skull. She definitely died on impact.
The entire attack on the town of Rosewood in the movie ROSEWOOD. Scene etched in my brain is the one where they are hanging one of the townsfolk and they cut off one of his ears while laughing and displaying it.
Still can’t look at some people the same anymore after that one, and I REFUSE to watch that movie again for a while,less I change my last name to Shabazz or something.
The drowning of the slaves in Amistad was also pretty hard.
The last half hour of Saving Private Ryan. Much, much worse than the first part because it was all up close and personal, and a lot of it was totally gratuitous.
I had no problem with the beginning of that movie, precisely because it was realistic and done in a matter-of-fact, “this is the way it was” style. The middle of the movie was ok, pretty standard WWII stuff. But the end of that movie was so violent, so unnecessarily violent, so personally violent, so gratuitous that it made me hate the movie.
The scene in We Were Soldiers, when they try to pick up the burned guy and his skin just…slips…
Also the beginning battle scene inSaving Private Ryan.
Most of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
War in the streets is often personally, gratuitously violent. Everything that was shown in the last battle happened in various battles of ww2—not all at once, but the scene was pieced together from various real instances. I’ve read about most of them.
The scene in Clean, Shaven where the schizophrenic guy removes his fingernail. Yikes.
I’ve got a few ideas…
-curbing in American History X
-I seem to remember a scene in Braveheart where you see some guy get hit in the face with a mace. It’s been a while since I’ve seen that so I could be wrong.
-first half hour of Saving Private Ryan
-shootout in Road to Perdition
Pretty much anything in “A ClockworK Orange”, but particularly, the scene where Alex’s ex-friends (now police) try to drown him in a water trough.
I agree with a lot of suggestions here (American History X and Full Metal Jacket in particular). I tend to stay away from movies that are going to be particularly gory because I can sometimes be kind of bothered by it.
But for me, the first thing that came to mind was the beginning of this movie Eye See You. It was a Stalone movie, I was at a friend’s place and it was on. I just saw the beginning, but the bit when the killer is on the phone with Stalone, and he’s in his house, and about to do in his wife in his particularly brutal fashion. Ugh. It even gets me all upset thinking about it again. There was no way I was going to stay and watch the rest. Too much for me.
I can watch the beginning of SPR without too much squirming – it’s disturbing and horrible but I can manage it. But dammit, when that German soldier is stabbing Mellish at the end – slowly pushing the blade into his chest while saying something softly in German – I just want to curl up in the fetal position for a few hours.
Have to also agree with the curbing in American History X and the Reservoir Dogs scene.
The beatings at the end of Casino are rough, but I’m even more bothered by that poor guy whose head they had in a vise.
Oh, and no one’s mentioned Marathon Man? “Is it safe”? 
I agree - it was quite unlike the usual sugar-coated military fare. I didn’t think it at all gratuitous to show battle as hellish, when in fact it was. Shocking and disturbing, but not gratuitous.
It really makes one appreciate the sacrifices that were made, to actually see the horrors that those boys endured - those that survived.
Dagon…all I have to say is the torture scene in that is just very very very nasty. Shocked me muchly, even though it really fit in with the movie. Good film.
I think overall Starship Troopers is one of the most violent movies I’ve ever seen. People getting beat up, getting their arms broken, getting shot and killed, and that’s just while they’re in boot camp. You may not remember if you haven’t seen it in awhile but rewatch it and you’ll notice it’s a damn violent movie.
American History X
I really wish I could remember the movie. Maybe someone can help me out.
It’s an old gangster flick, might have been with a young Richard Widmark… The bad guy flips out and throws his old wheelchair bound landlady down the stairs STILL IN HER WHEELCHAIR, all the while she’s pleading with him in this soft, hysterically frightened voice, “No, Johnny (or Tommy, I don’t remember), please don’t, pleeeeeeeeeeease.” He has this incredibly manic look on his face that is the most frigheningly psychotic glint I’ve ever seen in a movie.
Most of that Mel Gibson Revolutionary War movie The Patriot.
And it wasn’t even a good movie at that.
In The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover, there’s a scene where the bad guys torture young Pup. Man, that was tough to watch.
Caligula. Need I say more?
-Putting a fist covered in butter up someone’s ass.
-Tying someone’s penis so that nothing can come out and then slicing the stomach open as wine spills out.
-When Macro’s head is cut off, although that is pretty tame as far as the rest of the movie goes.
-And, even though it was a pretty fake looking doll, when baby Drusilla’s head is slammed on the wall or ground (don’t remember).
Oh, and Hannibal (SPOILERS)
-Lobtomy of Krendler
-The parts with the pig
-Disembowlment