In every movie, there’s at least one character that we all connect with. Even if that character has shades of grey to them, you still care enough about them to the point where you hope their story has a happy ending. Unfortunately, there are many cases where the story of that character we’ve become so invested in ends in death. Whether it’s because of a drive by shooting, assassination, or even being attacked by a beehive, the deaths of these characters and how they play out can hit so hard that it makes you feel like you lost somebody you know. It’s time to break out the box of tissues as Konscious Kurt breaks down the 10 Saddest Movie Deaths:
10. Cleo – Set It Off
Set It Off centers around best friends Stony, Cleo, Frankie, and T.T. as they rob banks to lift themselves out of poverty. When their last robbery leads to T.T. being killed and a police chase, Cleo makes the unselfish choice to let Frankie and Stony run away so that she could face the cops herself. Lighting a cigarette with tears in her eyes as she knows what her fate is, Cleo drives through all the police cars as they all fire shots at her. Despite the car being filled with bullet holes, a wounded Cleo gets out and fires off her gun in one last act of defiance before she’s shot multiple times and falls to the ground. As she sacrificed herself for her friends and refused to back down from the cops, the way Cleo’s last moments played out are hard to watch without getting emotional.
9. Zack Mazursky – Alpha Dog
Alpha Dog is based on the true story of drug dealer Johnny Truelove having 15-year-old Zack Mazursky kidnapped because of a debt owed to him by Zack’s brother Jake. After finding out from his lawyer how much trouble he could get into if the kidnapping gets reported, Johnny comes up with a plan to kill Zack. Befriending Johnny’s right hand man Frankie through this whole process, Zack thinks his time with Johnny’s crew is all fun and games. Then one night he’s hit with the harsh reality check of what he’s in for when Frankie along with another member of Johnny’s gang Elvis take Zack up to the mountains where there’s a hole already dug up there. Despite Zack begging for his life, an emotional Frankie tapes his mouth up and ties his hands before Elvis knocks him into the grave and shoots him multiple times. The fact that Zack was just a kid who had nothing to do with what his brother did combined with the bond he had with Frankie made his murder all the more tragic.
8. Caine – Menace II Society
Menace II Society revolves around the life of recent high school graduate Caine and all the trouble he gets into living in the Watts section of Los Angeles. Caine’s involvement in the street life gets so out of control that he reaches a point where it’s either going to leave him dead or in jail. As it seems like he’s about to leave that life behind and move to Atlanta with his new girlfriend Ronnie, a man he had beaten up earlier along with a crew of others drive by Ronnie’s house as he’s loading up the car and they shoot him multiple times in the chest. While his friend Stacy urges him to keep fighting as he slowly fades away, Caine reveals through narration that he did care whether he lived or died, but that now it was too late. While the Caine character wasn’t a likable one that constantly made the wrong choices, his death happening at the very end of the movie as he’s about to move away felt like a huge punch to the gut that you couldn’t help but feel sad about.
7. Malcolm X – Malcolm X
Directed by Spike Lee, 1992’s Malcolm X sees Denzel Washington play the role of the controversial Civil Rights leader. At over three hours long, the last 30 minutes of the movie see Malcolm deal with various death threats following his split from the Nation of Islam including his home being set on fire. As he’s about to give a speech one day despite everyone advising him that it wasn’t safe, someone in the audiences creates a diversion that leads to him being shot in the chest with a shotgun as the gunman along with several others then shoot him countlessly. All of this happening right in front of his wife and kids, Malcolm takes his last breaths as his grieving wife holds him in her arms. As sad as it is that he was killed only three months shy of his 40th birthday, it felt obvious in his demeanor leading up to it that he knew it was coming.
6. Thomas J – My Girl
Fresh off his career defining performance in Home Alone, a young Macaulay Culkin co-starred alongside Anna Chlumsky and Dan Akroyd as Thomas J in My Girl. After Thomas shares his first kiss with his best friend Vada, he then goes to find her missing mood ring when he’s attacked by a beehive. Due to the fact that he’s allergic to bees combined with how many of them there were, he tragically dies from the attack. As sad as his death is, the emotions get even heavier when a grieving Vada sees him lying in his casket at his funeral and constantly asks where his glasses are as he could never see without them. The death of Thomas J was one that hit extra hard as it not only showed the sad reality of a kid dying, but also the effect grief can have on children.
5. Carlito – Carlito’s Way
Carlito’s Way follows the life of Carlito Brigante, a former drug dealer wanting to change his ways after a five-year stint in prison. Knowing what’s waiting for him if he stays in his old environment, he comes up with a plan to leave with his girlfriend Gail for the Bahamas. Despite having to shoot off a group of gangsters chasing him through Grand Central Station over a murder that his lawyer committed, he finally meets Gail in time to catch the train out of town. Then right as they’re about to leave, he’s shot multiple times by another gangster named Benny Blanco whom he had embarrassed previously. With it being the last scene of the movie and Carlito being so close to starting his new life, his death made for one of the saddest endings to a movie there’s ever been.
4. Mufasa – The Lion King
In The Lion King, head lion and king of the jungle Mufasa grooms his young cub Simba as the next to take over the throne. Jealous of Mufasa, his brother Scar devises a plan to have him along with Simba killed. That plan results in Simba being put in a position to be killed by a stampede of wildebeest. While Mufasa is successful at saving Simba and then climbs up a rocky canyon wall to plead with Scar for help, his “so-called” brother digs his claws into him and utters the words “Long live the king” as he pushes him down into the stampede. With their bond being one of the highlights of the first half of the movie, seeing Simba discover his dad’s lifeless body as he pleads for him to wake up was heartbreaking.
3. Jack Dawson – Titanic
While Titanic does center around the ship’s voyage before it sinks, the main storyline throughout the movie is the love affair between Jack Dawson and Rose Bukater. As the ship eventually hits the iceberg and sinks, the two are left stranded in the freezing ocean. While Jack stays in the ocean in order to let Rose lay on a floating wooden doorframe, he makes her promise him that she’ll eventually survive and live a full life. As Rose tries to tell him they’ve been rescued moments later when a rescue boat arrives, she discovers that he froze to death as she later lets his hand go while watching him fall to the bottom of the ocean. Considering how much Jack loved Rose and that he literally died for her, the way his demise played out was every bit as tragic as the ship sinking.
2. Ricky – Boyz N The Hood
Boyz N The Hood tells the story of teenagers, Tre, Doughboy, and Ricky as they navigate life growing up in South Central LA. As Ricky has aspirations of playing football in college, it seems like he’s found his way out of the hood. Then one day as he’s walking home, a group of gang members he had a confrontation with earlier chase him along with Tre with their car. As Tre yells Ricky’s name to warn him when they later pull up right behind him, Ricky’s attempt to run away is unsuccessful as they shoot him in the leg followed by the chest and he dies. Things get even more intense as when Tre and Doughboy bring a dead Ricky home, his girlfriend, infant son, and mother all scream in agony as they see his lifeless body. The scene in the movie that hit audiences the hardest, Ricky’s life ending before it really started is an outcome that’s played out all too often in neighborhoods like South Central.
1. Tony Stark/Ironman – Avengers: Endgame
Starring Robert Downey Jr. as the title character, 2008’s Ironman was the start of the Marvel boom that went on throughout the 2010s. That boom also resulted in several movies featuring Ironman as part of the Marvel hero ensemble known as the Avengers. As he along with the rest of the Avengers were up against supervillain Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, Ironman takes the infinity stones away from him and then wipes out Thanos along with the rest of army with a snap of his fingers. Unfortunately, this caused him to suffer a fatal dose of gamma radiation and he dies on the battlefield while his wife PepperPotts and protégé Peter Parker look on. As his funeral takes place in the film’s final act and is attended by all the members of the MCU, the death of Ironman represented the end of an era and the end of that historic Marvel boom period.
Honorable Mentions:
- Kerry Von Erich – The Iron Claw
- T-800 – Terminator 2: Judgment Day
- G-Baby – Hardball
- Oscar – Fruitvale Station
- Mickey – Rocky III
