Whether you believe in Heaven, reincarnation, or the mead halls of Valhalla, death is still a bummer. The endpoint for us all, our lives are made all the more precious with the knowledge that they are fragile and brief. Many of us hope to go out surrounded by friends and family (or maybe in a gloriously cool skydiving accident), but not all of us are that lucky. Art imitates life, or death, in this case, and movies show the bevy of ways that each of us could meet our bitter end. Thankfully, there’s a pretty low likelihood any of us will get got by interdimensional monsters or starve in nuclear winter like some of these film characters, but it’s still a possibility. Prepare a eulogy; these are the 10 saddest deaths in movie history.
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Atrax — The NeverEnding Story
On-screen deaths of beloved animal companions are always hard to stomach, but Artrax’s agonizing demise in Wolfgang Petersen’s The NeverEnding Story sits at the top of the list. The film begins like any other great coming-of-age fantasy, with a young boy answering the call to a realm-saving adventure. The film’s family-friendliness gets a lot unfriendlier once Atreyu and his trusty steed end up in the Swamp of Sadness; a depressing bog where, if you’re not careful, the intrusive thoughts will win. While Atreyu manages to not give in to despair while crossing this bummer bayou, his horse isn’t so lucky. Atrax becomes stuck in the mud and loses the will to live, pitifully sinking into the mire as his rider sobs in anguish, traumatizing a generation of young movie-goers in the process.
Elle — Up
Before there was the waterworks-inducing, life-spent-with-you romance between Bill and Frank on The Last of Us, there was the lifelong love story in Up. In ten gut-wrenching, award-winning minutes, Up showed us Carl and Ellie Fredricksen’s decade-long relationship through all its beauty and heartbreak. Childhood dreams, wedding days, picnics in the park, doctor’s appointments, miscarriages, deferred vacations, the realities of aging, hospital stays, and finally, a funeral. The saddest part of Elle’s death isn’t her passing (though it’s certainly an emotional doozy) but the effect it has on the now-alone-in-the-world Carl. Once a bright-eyed and optimistic young man, Carl is reduced to a bitter and grey-haired shell of his former self. Grief is the price of love, and poor Carl’s debts came due.
Annie Marshall — It Follows
While it’s not as famous as some of the other deaths on this list, It Follows‘ opening sequence features one of the most heartbreaking and horrifying demises in cinema history. Before the audience knows all the gory details of the film’s perambulatory antagonist, they’re given a demonstration of its methods through the eyes of its victim. A young woman desperately tries to outrun the slow-walking horror, but finally gives up once she runs out of land. On the shore of a desolate beach, she calls her dad, hoping to say a final goodbye before the bitter end. The film then smash cuts to her brutalized corpse, a sight that becomes twice as devastating upon rewatch. Later in the film, we learn that The Entity takes the form of a victim’s parent before going in for the kill, meaning this poor girl was likely murdered by an apparition of her own father. Her bent-back leg also clues the viewer in on exactly how the film’s monster kills, and as we come to understand, it’s truly horrifying. Lonely, terrified, and tortured to death, Annie Marshall deserved better.
Setsuko — Grave of the Fireflies
The saddest film in Studio Ghibli’s oeuvre, Grave of the Fireflies follows two Japanese children orphaned by the devastation of World War II. After losing their mother during the Allied bombing of Kobe, Seita and his sister Setsuko set out from their home in search of a better life. They find anything but. While lesser films might tell a tale of survival against all odds, Grave of the Fireflies shows war in all its real-life brutality. Unable to provide for his sister, Seita is forced to watch as she slowly succumbs to sickness and starvation. He did the absolute best he could, but he and his sibling were ultimately undone by tragic circumstances too big for either of them to understand.
The Survivors — The Mist
While Stephen King’s original novella ends with hope, Frank Darabont’s The Mist executes that hope along with the majority of its protagonists. After escaping a grocery store full of religious fanatics and interdimensional horrors, David Drayton, his son, and a few survivors pile into a car in search of safety. Their gas runs out before they escape the titular mist, and so does David’s optimism. As the group sleeps, David uses his last remaining bullets to mercy-kill the survivors, including his own kid, an act that becomes more horrific when you realize that some of them must have woken up before the end came. Out of ammo, David steps outside the car to commit suicide-by-monster, only to find himself face to face with an army of soldiers come to save civilians. He collapses on his knees, screaming in agony, and honestly, I almost did the same when I watched. Oh, the tragic irony.
Bing Bong — Inside Out
Leave it to Pixar to inflict generational trauma with a character named Bing Bong. The imaginary friend of Inside Out‘s protagonist Riley Andersen, Bing Bong was once Riley’s inseparable bestie, but he finds himself ignored and out of a job as she ages. To save Riley’s happiness, Bing Bong sacrifices himself so Riley’s other emotions won’t be forgotten. Before fading away from Riley’s memory, he tells Riley’s personification of happiness, Joy, to “take her to the moon for me, okay?” This scene hits like a truck because it captures a tragic truth about growing up, and poor Bing Bong is forced to throw himself in front of that 18-wheeler. The saddest part? He does it without a moment’s hesitation.
Thomas J — My Girl
Who in their right mind marketed Howard Zieff’s My Girl as a rom-com? While the film starts as a tender-hearted coming-of-age love story between an adolescent boy and girl, it sure doesn’t end that way. Audiences were lulled into a false sense of security by the hand-holding and first kisses, and that security was brutally stung away by a swarm of bees. Thomas J. (that sweet summer child) goes off into the woods to find his sweetheart Vada’s lost mood ring and tragically dies after having an allergic reaction to bee stings. The wake sequence is rip-your-skin-off sad, with Vada frantically, tearfully putting Thomas J.’s spectacles on his lifeless body because he “can’t see without his glasses.” It’s a scene certain to make Velma from Scooby-Doo cry.
The Shoe — Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit was framed as a family comedy, but a generation of other viewers and I were framed into thinking it’d be funny. All I remember is being traumatized by the gruesome, agonizing death of a cartoon shoe that appears in the film for all of 30 seconds. To demonstrate the toon-killing power of “dip,” the film’s antagonist, Judge Doom, dunks an innocent piece of sentient footwear into the concoction. As trusting as a puppy, this sweet shoe just wanted to be loved and be loved by all, but Judge Doom dissolves the poor thing in acid while it’s whimpering and terrified. It’s one of the most surprisingly disturbing death sequences in a movie — a “kids'” movie, no less.
The Father — The Road
Like the famously depressing Cormac McCarthy book it’s based on, John Hillcoat’s The Road is a dismal dirge of a film. Wandering through a post-apocalyptic world, a nameless father and son struggle to keep themselves and their hopes alive. In sequences that scream “childhood trauma,” the poor boy is forced to watch his dad face down robbers and cannibals who have abandoned their humanity entirely. By the film’s end, the boy’s ailing father eventually succumbs to despair himself, weeping while holding his sleeping son, knowing death is around the corner. By morning, his end comes. All that sacrifice and pain, just to protect his child from the inevitable a little while longer. But that’s what parents do, after all.
Everyone Else on the Titanic — Titanic
Yes, Jack Dawson’s death in James Cameron’s Titanic is tragic, so tragic that he’s become the poster boy for sad movie deaths everywhere. I’m not going to argue about that, or about the fact that he possibly could have survived had Rose scooted over on that door; I’d rather take this moment to talk about all the other devastating deaths in the movie. The musicians playing as the boat sinks. The captain drowning at the helm. The poor mother reading one last bedtime story to her doomed children. The frozen corpses of a mother and her baby. The men trapped in the engine room. The passengers locked behind the gate. The unnamed thousands who never made it onto the lifeboats. And of course, the old couple lying together in bed as the water floods in. My heart will go on, breaking, that is.
(featured image: Studio Ghibli)
