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On the heels of my "Best Chase" thread, here you'll get to vote for the best death scene in a film. Doesn't necessarily have to be a violent death, though I suspect more than a few of your suggestions will be. I'll kick it off:

Al Pacino portraying the final moments of Tony Montana in Scarface. He plays the insanity to the hilt, without actually overacting.

Couldn't help but thinking of the Monty Python sketch "The Death of Mary Queen of Scotts" when I read this.[:D][:D]

B

[:D][:D][:D]

"I think she's dead..."

"No, I'm not!"

(sounds of gunfire and power tools...)

ORIGINAL: Terminus

[:D][:D][:D]

"I think she's dead..."

"No, I'm not!"

(sounds of gunfire and power tools...)

Come to think of it, they had an episode of "Great Deaths" in their first season...the death of Attila the Hun was pretty good too! He standing in front of his tent gazing out over the fields - then springs up and backwards, stone dead![:D]

I think it was actually in the very first episode.[:D]

5) Willem DaFoe in Platoon
4) Christopher Walken in Deer Hunter
3) Ricardo Montalban in Wrath of Khan (or Peck in Moby Dick, take your pick)
2) Lew Ayres in All Quiet On The Western Front.

..and of course, the number one, undisputable champion is

1) "All these memories will be lost in time, like tears in rain." -- Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner.

ORIGINAL: carnifex

1) "All these memories will be lost in time, like tears in rain." -- Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner.

Damn, been too long since I saw that film!

I have already mentioned Errol Flynn today so...

'They Died with Their Boots On'. Flynn played General Custer. As the final man of his unit he fell while fighting desperate battle.

Damn, been too long since I saw that film!

Unbelievably I sat through the awful narrated version recently just because I was too lazy to slip in proper version into the dvd player.

Well, then you only have yourself to blame! [:D]

Another one I just thought of, was actually one where we don't really see the death: the final scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

I'd have to go with the scene in "Saving Private Ryan" where the German sniper is looking through his scope...and for a split second sees the American sniper pointing his gun right at him, and he pulls the trigger...

Bullet shatters German sniper's scope approximately 3 microseconds before it shatters his face....

YEAH!

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Well, then you only have yourself to blame! [:D]

Another one I just thought of, was actually one where we don't really see the death: the final scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Oh yah, I'll go along with you on that one. Great final scene.

I'll put in another nominee:
Steve McQueens' death in 'The Sand Pebles'. Fights off numerous Chinese with a B.A.R., then dies making his run to escape -
"what happened...what the hell happened!"
(I also just love that battle scene when they went up river to break the blockade and rescue everyone at China Light. The whole sequence sends shivers up my spine[:)]).

I totally agree on The Sand Pebbles. Excellent film!

The scene at the opening of "The Mission" is very affecting, with the priest being strapped to the cross-shaped raft, put into the river, and ending with him descending the waterfall. I'm not a religious person, but that ultimate expression of faith and sacrifice is awe-inspiring.

That same feeling is given to me when I see the Willem DaFoe scene in "Platoon". The nobility expressed by sacrificing oneself for your comrades always tugs at my heart.

On the DVD special edition commentary track by Dale Dye, he says just one word when Tom Berenger shoots Willem Defoe:

"Madness"

Couldn't be more apt.

ORIGINAL: Terminus

On the DVD special edition commentary track by Dale Dye, he says just one word when Tom Berenger shoots Willem Defoe:

"Madness"

Couldn't be more apt.

Terminus, have you watched "The Mission"? It features both Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons, and it IS a war movie, given the political climate of the time represented. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Never got around to it, but I've often thought I should. Maybe I'll go hunting for it for this weekend.

Another couple of great movie deaths occurred to me, and both were in Here to Eternity.
First was the anonymous US soldier who is running across the quad at Schofield barracks yelling and panting for breath at the same time " ..the Japs are bombing Wheeler Field..." as a (we assume) Zero comes in low for a strafing run and finishes him off while plastering the barracks pretty well - That scene always gets to me.

The second scene was at the end when Prvt Robert E.Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) gets killed trying to rejoin his unit the evening of Dec 7th. Sneaking across the golf course to their beach position he's gunned down by our own guys. Then Burt Lancaster stands over his dead body telling him what a hard head he's been - as the song "re-enlistment blues" plays softly in the background.
Both very powerful and memorable I thought...

My favorite was the Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine" where Commodore Decker, wracked with guilt over being the only survivor of his wrecked ship and dead crew flies a shuttle into the machine because "A Captian goes down with his ship". You could see the pain and shame that he had.

How about the best death that was a nondeath?

Michael Douglas' apparent suicide in "The Game".