The 50 Most Memorable Movie Assassinations
Find out which cold-blooded, calculated rub outs hit the mark.
Image via Complex Original
A year ago, the thought of Joe Wright directing an action/thriller about a teenage girl bred to be a cold-blooded assassin made us chuckle. After all, we’ve seen the English’s directors previous films, which, though all well made and respectable, don’t hint that he’s the next John Woo. Check the resume: Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, The Soloist. The only things “tough” about those movies are the British accents and Jamie Foxx’s hairline.
Now that we’ve seen Wright’s violent and lightning-bolt-paced Hanna, however, we’re dining on humble pie. In the film (which opens this weekend), Saoirse Ronan whoops ass Jason Bourne style as a killing machine on the run after she discovers her preordained, homicidal life’s path. There's nothing soft or Jane Austen-like about it.
We do have one major qualm with Hanna, though: Ronan kills a lot of people but doesn’t perform a single assassination throughout the entire movie. That seems like a pretty hefty omission for a flick about someone who’s brought up to, you know, assassinate people, no? Perhaps we’re just being greedy; Wright’s action setpieces are so bonkers that we hoped to see him enter an unforgettable cinematic hit into the history books. Something that’d rival famous sequences from movies like The Godfather or the ending of Apocalypse Now.
Since Hanna left us without a strategically planned kill scene, we’ve softened the blow by compiling The 50 Most Memorable Movie Assassinations, a countdown that makes up for its grimness with filmmaking expertise and tons of Joe Pesci. And that’s a never bad thing.
50. President John F. Kennedy In Watchmen (2009)
Assassinated By: Edward "The Comedian" Blake
Cause of Death: Gunshot
Even if you're an Alan Moore loyalist who hates Zack Snyder's Watchmen adaptation, it's tough to criticize the film's opening credits sequence. Showing history through the Watchmen lens, Snyder utilizes his beloved slow-motion to insert the fictional superheroes into several key events, against a backdrop of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changing."
The sequence's most intriguing historical remix places Edward "The Comedian" Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) on the grassy knoll in Dallas, making him the second gunman responsible for assassinating President John F. Kennedy. Snyder certainly didn't win any fans in the Kennedy family, but we love how well the bit encapsulates the dark and anti-heroic nature of Watchmen. We also appreciate the shot of leggy and sultry Silhouette kissing the female nurse, a parody of the iconic WWII "Japan Surrenders" picture with the sailor. But that goes without saying.
49. Pai Mei In Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)
Assassinated By: Elle Driver
Cause of Death: Eats poisoned fish heads
Oddly enough, Kill Bill sage Pai Mei needed his fish heads to be poisoned before he became terminally sick. Just the thought of chomping down on Nemo's skull makes us feel all queasy inside—we'll stick to crab cakes and lobster, thank you very much.
Pai Mei (Gordon Liu) is a man of ancient traditions, though, so fish heads are like popcorn shrimp to him. Knowing that he loves them so much, Elle (Daryl Hannah) adds some extra, deadly sauce. Back in her training days, Elle was a disobedient shit, so Pai Mei ripped out one of her eyes as a form of cruel and unusual punishment. Elle eventually gets her revenge, shown in a quick flashback before Elle's ass gets kicked by Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman) and left to become a black mamba snake's plaything.
48. Unnamed Target In The Mechanic (2011)
Assassinated By: Arthur Bishop
Cause of Death: Held underwater inside a swimming pool
In the first scene of his most recent dude-kicks-ass flick, The Mechanic, Jason Statham puts in his bid to one day play Aquaman. We hope that never happens, though; Aquaman's cinematic appeal is on par with Keanu Reeves.
Besides, no scene in a movie about the underwater superhero would come anywhere as close to the badass-ness of The Mechanic's opening hit. Statham's assassin character is first seen snatching his lap-swimming mark from the depths of his pool and drowning him while clueless bodyguards look on, unaware that their boss is not diving but dying. When the man's body floats to the surface and his compound erupts in panic, Bishop simply ditches his wet suit for a servant's uni and slips out. Think twice next time you throw on your Speedo (and not just because you're throwing on a Speedo).
47. Shoulders, The Stooge, Rodent, The Brow, And Little Face In Dick Tracy (1990)
Assassinated By: Flattop and Itchy, Big Boy Caprice's top enforcers
Cause of Death: Tommy gun spray
In the pantheon of gangster films, Dick Tracy rarely gets mentioned. Maybe it’s the flick's cartoonish nature, which makes sense considering that Warren Beatty tried to remain as faithful to the original 1930s comic strip as possible, yet that’s precisely why Dick Tracy deserves some love. Sure, the mobsters are mostly hideously deformed goons in shiny suits, and the ruthless conniver behind The Blank’s mask turns out to be Madonna of all people. Despite all of that, we still fucks with Dick Tracy.
Directed by Beatty (who also stars as Tracy), the movie lays its cards on the table right in the opening scene. Five Mafia types are gathered inside a garage for some gambling, among them being such colorfully named, and fugly looking, goons as The Rodent, The Brow, and Little Face. As The Kid watches, two of Big Boy Caprice’s (Al Pacino) thugs crash through the door and unload Tommy gun rounds into all of them.
Multiple homicide, old-school weaponry, and a dude who looks like Jabba the Hut’s mini me in a cheap suit—what’s not to love about Dick Tracy’s opening hit?
46. Damien Thorn In Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)
Assassinated By: Kate Reynolds
Cause of Death: Stabbed in the back with a knife
Talk about anticlimactic: Damien, the Devil incarnate, is killed by a female journalist. Not a cross-wielding priest, or an angel in human flesh, but a wannabe Diane Sawyer who looks pretty hot in her business casual sport-suits. Even though Damien's assassination is a bit underwhelming in the Biblical sense, the scene still plays out with a bizarre toughness in the mediocre horror sequel Omen III: The Final Conflict.
In Damien's (played by Sam Neill) defense, he does manage to slip in one last "fuck you" to the man upstairs. The Hell-spawn challenges Christ to show his face and fight like a heavenly man, but the duel is cancelled once the journalist rams a knife into Damien's back. He doesn't scream like a bitch, though; rather, Damien emits a series of demonic shrieks and other strange sounds, before laughing at Christ—who's finally shown up—and firing one last pot-shot: "You have won nothing." Consider it a draw.
45. Jeriko One In Strange Days (1995)
Assassinated By: Police officers
Cause of Death: Shot to death, execution style
And rappers thought the hip-hop police were bad news. In Kathryn Bigelow's dark sci-fi flick Strange Days, Glenn Plummer plays controversial MC Jeriko One, who suffers a level of police brutality that would leave Rodney King feeling pretty good about himself.
A seemingly routine incident of wrongful 5-0 harassment concludes in One's execution at the hands of an officer, which Bigelow captures through the eyes of a female witness. Right after Jeriko's murder, the bystander (as well as the director's camera) haul ass away in a riveting first-person POV shot that doesn't end well.
44. Umberto Calvini In The International (2009)
Assassinated By: Assassin hired by the International Bank of Business and Credit (IBBC)
Cause of Death: Pricked by an unseen object that causes him to vomit profusely before dropping dead on the street
What's so scary about the assassination that begins The International is how vulnerable is makes us feel. All it takes for the victim, arms manufacturer Umberto Calvini, to fatally keel over is a casual bump into a fellow sidewalk pedestrian.
Think about it: How many folks do you unintentionally touch bodies with on trains, or in crowded shopping malls? It's enough to make you never want to leave the house, or at least invest in a new goose-down North Face coat. It'd take a prick the size of a yardstick to penetrate one of those suckers. Ayo!
43. An Entire Wedding Party In Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)
Assassinated By: The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad
Cause of Death: Ambush with machine guns
Usually more than willing to show a scene's graphic bits, Quentin Tarantino opts for a more suggestive approach in the flashback opening of Kill Bill Vol. 2. After a long and definitively Tarantino dialogue exchange between The Bride (Uma Thurman) and Bill (David Carradine), her wedding rehearsal is cut short by Bill's Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, the secret society that she used to rep.
Parts of the wedding chapel massacre are shown in flashback-form in Kill Bill Vol. 1, so Tarantino must've felt it'd be too gratuitous to show the entire slaughter. Wise move. As it is, the way his camera pans back to an ascending bird's-eye view as the guns burst and victims scream works incredibly well. It's a nice change of pace into subtleness for the Kill Bill double feature, which includes Thurman pulling a man's eye out to initiate a black-and-white color shift. Not that we're complaining; that shit's cool as hell.
42. Park Chung-hee In The President's Last Bang (2005)
Assassinated By: Kim Jae-kyu
Cause of Death: Gunshot through the head, execution style
As vicious as the above scene may be, The President's Last Bang is actually a dark comedy. Did you not laugh while watching a fictionalized version of Korean President Park Chung-hee getting shot to death in cold blood? How could you not? It's a real knee-slapper!
The majority of the movie takes place directly before and after the assassination, so there's not much room to show Park Chung-hee doing anything other than the partying and cavorting that's hinted by in the scene's setting. Not surprisingly, the slain president's son hates the movie, chastising it to the point of public condemnation and lawsuits. Chung-hee is shown as a somewhat goofy lightweight, drinking like a fish and entertaining several chicks at once.
But the real laughs don't kick in until Korean Intelligence Agency director Kim Jae-kyu puts the gun to his head—just kidding. We're not sure how The President's Last Bang qualifies as a comedy, but the assassination scene is nevertheless a brain stain.
41. Oscar Romero In Romero (1989)
Assassinated By: Unnamed gunman
Cause of Death: Shot in the midst of a sermon
Though it's not the most revered of biopics, Romero does depict the religious figure's murder with stark naturalism. Raul Julia plays Oscar Romero, the fourth Archbishop of El Salvador, an outspoken preacher who condemned the government's abuses of basic human rights. On March 24, 1980, he was shot to death by an unknown assailant while giving a sermon to a packed church.
The movie's director, John Duigan, wisely opts to let the actions speak for themselves in his dramatization of the killing. There's no flashy camerawork or slick editing; we just watch the gunman walk from his car to the pulpit, intercut with pieces of Romero's sermon. And then the gun goes off. It's a simplistic approach, yet one that can be quite effective when, as in this case, it's done right.
40. Julius Caeser In Julius Caesar (1953)
Assassinated By: Brutus and other conspirators
Cause of Death: Stabbed to death
Thanks to movies like Gladiator and TV shows such as Spartacus: Blood And Sand, our culture's view of Hollywood-produced Roman empire projects is loaded with dismemberments, hot naked chicks, and dogged barbarism. All great things.
Back when Julius Caesar was made, however, the envelope hadn't been pushed yet, meaning that there was no T&A and essentially no violence. But there's a certain elegance to scenes such as Caesar's assassination, which relies more on the dialogue and acting than it does on effects or camera trickery. That doesn't mean we don't miss the all of those hot naked chicks—we'll just imagine them in black-and-white.
39. Frank Castle's Family In The Punisher (2004)
Assassinated By: Quinton Glass, John Saint, and other anonymous assassins hired by Howard Saint
Cause of Death: Rampant gunfire
Until Hollywood gets their ish together and produces a satisfactory Punisher, we'll have to live with this extremely disappointing Frank Castle flick starring Thomas Jane.
While not a complete trainwreck, 2004's The Punisher suffers from miscasting and an uneven tone. Yet, a few scenes hint at the strong movie that could've been, specifically the execution of Castle's whole family during an outdoor reunion. Director Jonathan Hensleigh doesn't hold back; kids and old ladies are gunned down in what's arguably the grimmest family get-together of the last ten years. That annoying drunk uncle of yours doesn't seem so bad anymore, huh?
38. Lee Harvey Oswald In JFK (1991)
Assassinated By: Jack Ruby
Cause of Death: Gunshot
For those who were too busy chasing tail to pay attention in history class, Jack Ruby was the nightclub owner who bucked down President John F. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, as Oswald was being escorted through police headquarters.
In Oliver Stone's JFK, Ruby isn't a major character, but what makes the brief depiction of Oswald's death so memorable is the fact that Ruby is played by Brian Doyle-Murray—as in, Bill Murray's older brother. Aside from JFK, Doyle-Murray's credits included nothing other than classic comedies (Caddyshack, Wayne's World) and not-so-iconic ones (Cabin Boy, Jury Duty). The casting is bizarre, especially since Doyle-Murray looks nothing like the real Jack Ruby. Maybe Oliver Stone just loved the actor in Sixteen Candles as much as any teenage girl in the '80s.
37. Simon Ross In The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Assassinated By: Paz
Cause of Death: Shot through the head by a sniper
Matt Damon's Bourne films rank as three of the best action movies of the new millennium. The fight scenes are bruisers, the direction is always crisp, and Damon equally shows off his tough-guy and charismatic leading man sides. Of the three movies, though, the most recent one, The Bourne Ultimatum, holds up as our favorite, and much of the credit goes to director Paul Greengrass.
The English filmmaker's kinetic style is typified in this scene, which comes early into the film and sets the livewire tone. Jason Bourne is trying to protect a reporter (Paddy Considine) from a CIA-hired assassin, Paz (Edgar Ramirez), but the guy's obnoxious and unwilling to fully cooperate. Like a dumbass, the reporter shrugs off Bourne's advice, charges into a crowded train station, and feels one of sniper Paz's bullets up close and personally.
Greengrass' signature use of handheld cameras lends the scene an on-the-ground franticness, ratcheting up the tension and showing all of the recent Bourne knockoffs how it's really done.
36. John Dillinger In Public Enemies (2009)
Assassinated By: Charles Winstead
Cause of Death: Shot through the head from behind
Public Enemies is overlong, uneven, and intent on devoting time to several characters that distract from Johnny Depp’s strong central performance as reputed Chicago gangster John Dillinger. Those are our gripes; thinking optimistically, though, director Michael Mann’s choice to shoot the period gangster flick with an HD camera and traditional 35 mm film was quite inspired.
In crystal clear HD, the film’s shootouts and prison breakout sequences feel like on-the-ground documentary footage. For Dillinger’s last stand, Mann pushed for a more dreamlike effect, with cuts between slo-mo and normal speeds and awkwardly framed closeups of Dillinger. Giving the scene a tragic tone, Mann also makes it easy for us to hate Dillinger’s assassins, feeding into the movie’s overall glamorization of the notorious criminal. Only chumps, and that diesel bad guy from Avatar, shoot unarmed men from behind.
35. Reputed Crime Boss Ricorso In Batman (1989)
Assassinated By: The Joker
Cause of Death: Large quill jammed into his throat
The Joker's magic pencil trick in 2008's The Dark Knight gets all of the love, but we're here to point out that the clownish villain performed a similar act of writing-instrument-savagery nearly twenty years prior.
As the Joker in director Tim Burton's first foray into Gotham City, Jack Nicholson basically played the infamous villain as Jack Nicholson in clown makeup; it's nowhere near as immersive a performance as Heath Ledger's. But it's still a hoot, and Nicholson's unhinged portrayal really shifts into gear with this scene.
Looking to make a name for himself, Joker and a bunch of mimes interrupt a politician's press conference. With the public's attention directed his way, the giggling sociopath jams an oversized quill pen into powerful mobster Ricorso's throat with the giddiness of a schoolgirl meeting Justin Bieber.
Ledger's use of the pencil is much more creative, sure, but, sometimes, it pays to get right to the point.
34. Willie Stark In All The King's Men (2006)
Assassinated By: Dr. Adam Stanton
Cause of Death: Shot in the chest and gut at point blank range
In All The King's Men, Sean Penn plays Willie Stark, a fictional character based upon 1930s Louisiana governor Huey Long. Like Long, Stark makes several enemies with his populist ideas, which leads to his assassination inside the state capitol building at the hands of a disgruntled former associate (played by Mark Ruffalo). As Stark is dying, his assailant is also gunned down.
Renowned Hollywood screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List, American Gangster) directed All The King's Men, and his use of contrasting color and black-and-white during the assassination scene is off-kilter yet inspired. The same can't be said for the sequence's last shot, however, a hokey shot of Stark's blood flowing into his killer's within a tile crack on the floor. Fortunately, Zaillian didn't punctuate the moment with images of Penn and Ruffalo frolicking together in the clouds.
33. Raymond Lohan In Hunger (2008)
Assassinated By: Assassin hired by Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Cause of Death: Shot through the back of the neck
Once X-Men: First Class opens this June, British actor Michael Fassbender should ideally become a household name; if so, let's hope that late-comers revisit his hands-down best performance to date, his startlingly immersive turn in Steve McQueen's remarkable Hunger.
Now that he's one of the most in-demand actors in the game, Fassbender is no doubt the film's entry point for casual viewers, but he's not the only great thing about it. First-time director McQueen's flick, about the 1981 Irish hunger strike inside Northern Ireland's Maze prison, is tough to stomach at times, depicting the inmates' hellish routines with unflinching realism.
The film opens on Raymond Lohan (Stuart Graham), one of the prison's officers, a narrative choice that turns out to be cleverly manipulative. Around Hunger's midway point, Lohan, who seems like a major character, visits his catatonic mother in a retirement home; as he's trying to communicate with his vegetable mom, an assassin suddenly shoots a hole through Lohan's neck, splattering blood all over his mother, who doesn't even notice. Lucky her.
32. Unnamed Big Wig In Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)
Assassinated By: O-Ren Ishii
Cause of Death: Gunshot through the back of the head
Everything looks so much cooler in anime, doesn't it? Any of the scenes on this countdown would definitely play ten times bloodier and crazier in the popular Japanese animation style. That gives the random yet amazing anime sequence at the center of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 an edge over its competition here. QT can push things as far as his twisted heart desires in O-Ren Ishii's (Lucy Liu in human form) backstory, and he's clearly aware of the fact.
A flashback in which a young O-Ren's parents are sliced and diced right in front of her eyes prefaces the older and mentally damaged assassin in her common habitat: perched somewhere out of sight, with her scopes set upon a soon-to-be-dead mark. She fires a bullet, from what seems to be miles away, smack dab into the back of an unnamed big dog's head, opening a hole through which dude's two groupies look and shriek.
If any director could handle a scene like this one in real-life, we're sure it'd be Tarantino. But we're glad he didn't.
31. Police Commissioner And Judge In The Dark Knight (2008)
Assassinated By: The Joker
Cause of Death: Poisonous gas and a car bomb, respectively
Christopher and brother Jonathan Nolan's script for the box office abuser The Dark Knight is a meticulously plotted cat-and-mouse game between the Joker and Gotham City's entire law enforcement division, vigilante do-gooder Batman included. For his part, Heath Ledger's Joker doesn't just kill people—he stages complicated death games.
Early into the story, Joker sets out to show the city's organized crime outfits that he's an invaluable asset. His quasi-audition: a double-sided assassination. At the same time, the police commissioner inhales poison and drops dead while the judge responsible for foiling the criminals' plans explodes thanks to a car bomb which sprays "joker" playing cards into the air. No smoking aces, though.
30. Mahatma Gandhi In Gandhi (1982)
Assassinated By: Nathuram Godse
Cause of Death: Shot in public, while surrounded by a crowd of followers
Richard Attenborough's lauded biopic of Mahatma Gandhi is notable for, amongst other things, having an interesting structure. Unlike most tragic biopics that save the inevitable death scene for last, Gandhi opens with the legendary nonviolence advocate's (played by Sir Ben Kingsley) murder, getting the wholly negative event out of the way and allowing for Attenborough to center the film more on Gandhi's teachings and work.
It's one hell of a grabbing way to start a movie. An elderly Gandhi's closest associates help him walk out to meet and greet a crowd of followers, and as he's about to shake hands and kiss babies, Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse strolls right up to Gandhi and empties a round into his chest. For a movie about the power of nonviolence, the assassination opening is a muscular left-hook to the gut.
29. Veronica Guerin In Veronica Guerin (2003)
Assassinated By: Assassins on motorcyles
Cause of Death: Six bullets fired into Guerin's car window
In 1996, Veronica Guerin, a hardnosed Irish crime reporter, caught wind of illegal drug rings in Dublin and vowed to expose the truth. Her pugnacious work ethic ultimately led to her death, however, once drug traders tracked her down. While she was stopped at a red light on the Naas Duel Carriageway, two assassins on motorcycles pulled up alongside her ride, broke the window and shot her to death while she was on her cell phone.
Cate Blanchett played the late reporter in Joel Schumacher's 2003 film, and the assassination scene is quite raw. Most of the camerawork is shot from inside the car, giving the impression of what Guerin herself must've saw during her last seconds, and Blanchett sells the scene with her usual gusto. On a list full of guys being assassinated, the sole female loss is also one of the nastiest.
28. Ox In Belly (1998)
Assassinated By: Female assassin hired by a fallen drug lord's family
Cause of Death: Throat gets slit open
Oh, Hype Williams—what the hell happened to you? The once-innovative music video director used to crank out game-changing clips with ease; today, though, his work—from Ke$ha's shoddy-looking "We R Who We R" to Lil Wayne's uneventful "6' 7""—lacks even a shred of that old creativeness. To see just how visually stunning his output used to be, revisit his sole feature film, Belly.
Top to bottom, Belly looks pristine, combining glowing cinematography with lively camerawork. OK, so everything that happens in the DMX/Nas movie steals from classic drug and/or mob movies, but at least Williams makes it all shine. Just watch this darkly-lit, atmospheric siege upon drug lord Ox's mansion, which is a poor man's version of Scarface's final scene. Cloaked in shadows and darkness, Ox shoots down several intruders with his infrared scope, before a silent female assassin pounces on him from behind and cuts his throat like a piece of meat.
If a filmmaker is going to blatantly rip off an iconic movie scene, they might as well do with as much flash and flair as Williams does here. Unlike the lazy Inception jack in Weezy's "6' 7"" video—damn, Hype!
27. Unnamed Big Wig In Wanted (2008)
Assassinated By: Wesley Gibson
Cause of Death: Gunshot through a limousine's sunroof, administered by a guy flying through the air in a car
In this totally ridiculous Wanted bit, the target's identity isn't given, but that's fine. His name and/or reason for execution are meaningless—director Timur Bekmambetov's graphic novel adaptation isn't about characters or context.
The eventual corpse wears a spiffy suit and is driven around town inside a fancy limousine, so he's clearly a man of importance. Though, one can imagine that he's only riding in a limo just so James McAvoy's character, Wesley Gibson, can flip his sportscar in the air and shoot him through an open sunroof. It's one of those oh-so-convenient scene details that reek of narrative laziness yet pay off wildly enough to let the corniness slide.
26. Francisco Flores In Traffic (2000)
Assassinated By: Sniper hired by General Salazar
Cause of Death: Shot from behind in a parking lot
In Steven Soderbergh's unconventional drug saga Traffic, the world of illegal drug trading is displayed through different viewpoints. The enforcement side features an assassin, Francisco Flores (Clifton Collins, Jr.), hired by a drug cartel to kill an informant. Only, Flores' plan backfires—literally.
Taking the difficult route, Flores plants a car bomb inside the vehicle that his mark will soon board. Right as he finishes the installation, though, Flores himself is assassinated by an unseen sniper, for earlier transgressions. The car bomb then goes off, killing one of the DEA agents but not the intended informant. Somebody should've told Flores that car bombs only work in mob movies.
25. Harvey Milk In Milk (2008)
Assassinated By: Dan White
Cause of Death: Multiple gunshots, including one to the back of the head
As openly gay politician and activist Harvey Milk, Sean Penn gives one of his best performances, going against his surly public persona to play an outright jolly and optimistic man. Throughout Gus Van Sant's powerful biopic, Penn is never less than likeable, earning every bit of good will that the real-life Milk certainly did in his time.
Which is what makes his preordained assassination in the movie all the more emotionally potent. His killer is Dan White (Josh Brolin), a tormented politician who feels betrayed by Milk after one of his proposed bills gets declined. Having lost his job, White takes his rage out on Milk by first shooting him in the hand, then the chest, and then executing him via a gunshot to the back of the head.
Just before the final shot, Milk catches one last glimpse of his life's cause. In Penn's control, you get the feeling that, even as he's being executed, Milk still didn't hate White. The same can't be said for the movie's viewers.
24. Jesse James In The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford (2007)
Assassinated By: Robert Ford
Cause of Death: Gunshot to the back of the head
There's never any mystery as to where The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford is heading—it's right there in the movie's title. So it's a testament to director Andrew Dominik and actors Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, and Sam Rockwell that the inevitable murder is so damn impressive.
Credit is also due to the score's composers, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, because solemn piano notes heard within the sequence enhance the overall effect. Dominik draws out the Ford brothers' (Affleck and Rockwell) double-cross, playing the moment as James' (Pitt) own personal stroll down an imaginary green mile. Pitt handles it perfectly; James knows what's about to happen, and he's ready, though there's still a hint of sadness. Meanwhile, the Fords are on the verge of tears. The scene is intensely somber, culminating in a rather violent slug to the head.
Of course, the real-life killing of James back in 1882 most likely didn't happen as psychoanalytically as it does in Dominik's outstanding film. And James didn't get to wipe off fake blood and go home to a hottie like Angelina Jolie, either. But, hey, those are the breaks.
23. Gaius Germanicus Caligula In Caligula (1979)
Assassinated By: Cassius Chaerea and his servants
Cause of Death: Stabbed with a sword and then repeatedly stabbed with spears
Anyone who's ever been all hot and bothered by a mainstream Hollywood sex scene has director Tinto Brass and Penthouse founder Bob Guccione to thank. Working together on Caligula, a racy biopic about the slain Roman emperor, Brass and Guccione ushered big-time cinema into a new age of sexual liberation. Caligula is regarded as the first movie to ever feature graphic sex scenes acted out by famous actors. Everything has a starting point.
The filmmakers looked beyond just basic humping when making Caligula as hardcore as they possibly could. The dramatization of Caligula's (Malcolm McDowell) assassination is pretty damn explicit, holding little back as the emperor's family is slaughtered and the man himself is repeatedly pierced by spears. The sequence is so gruesome that you'll wish the sex scenes were still in effect. It doesn't take much, though.
22. FBI Director Jacobs In Clear And Present Danger (1994)
Assassinated By: Hitmen hired by Colombian drug kingpin Felix Cortez
Cause of Death: Shot by snipers as rocket launchers blow up everything around him
Clear And Present Danger features without a doubt the most extravagant assassination on this countdown. Most of the entries here deal with shootings; FBI Director Emil Jacobs, however, is killed in the midst of rocket launchers, blown-up cars, and a bunch of snipers running across rooftops. Sure, it's an overcooked way to kill one man, but it makes for a truly badass action movie sequence.
Colombian bad guy Felix Cortez sleeps with Jacobs' secretary to learn that the FBI head is in Colombia to screw Cortez's crew out of money. Upon arrival, Jacobs is met by a welcoming party armed with the aforementioned rocket launchers and sniper rifles; the only person of note to survive the blitzkrieg is Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford), who is of course immune to such things as missiles and bullets. Because, come on—he's Harrison friggin' Ford! Indiana Jones can't die in his own movie!
21. Sonny Valerio In Ghost Dog: Way Of The Samurai (1999)
Assassinated By: Ghost Dog
Cause of Death: Gunshot delivered through a bathroom sink pipe
Understandably, Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai is most remembered for its RZA-produced soundtrack, yet the movie itself is worthy of further talk. If we had to pinpoint one specific scene that best sells Jim Jarmusch's meditative hitman film, it has to be one that involves both Flavor Flav and a bloody sink.
Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker) gets a shitload of points for creativity for the scene in which he breaks into mobster Sonny Valerio's basement, hides out within the underground pipes, positions his infrared-scoped gun directly beneath the bathroom sink, and waits for Valerio to presumably brush his teeth. Before he's ready to floss, though, the Italian gangster indulges in some bathroom karaoke; namely to Public Enemy's "Cold Lampin' with Flavor." The second Valerio looks down at his sink, though, all he sees is the red light as Ghost Dog pops a bullet into his head.
PE's "You're Gonna Get Yours" would've been more fitting.
20. Marcus Aurelius In Gladiator (2000)
Assassinated By: Commodus, his son
Cause of Death: Suffocation
In the undeniably dude-approved Gladiator, Russell Crowe plays Maximus, a noble and barbaric warrior any guy would love to emulate. And then there's Commodus (played by Joaquin Phoenix), the loathsome crybaby son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. He's such a waste of space that his dying father flat-out tells him to his face that he's not fit to claim the throne.
So what does Commodus do? Well, besides pouting like a little girl whose Barbie dolls have been stolen? He suffocates the emperor while giving him a hug, leaving the seat of power to his name, since daddy hadn't told anyone else about his plans to empower Maximus yet. It's just one of the many reasons why the sight of Maximus whooping Commodus' ass before killing him is so damn gratifying. Couldn't have happened soon enough, and to a bigger tool.
19. Senator Carroll in The Parallax View (1974)
Assassinated By: Unseen gunman
Cause of Death: Gunshot
The Parallax View is one of the better thrillers to emerge from the '70s, featuring a great performance by Warren Beatty and an overpowering sensation of paranoia. The plot's series of backstabs and unforeseen reveals kicks off with the assassination of an influential senator as he's giving an on-camera interview.
When watched for the first time, the scene's impact is pretty shocking. The camera hangs around behind Senator Carroll, and all we see from behind is his body rocked by an unseen killer's bullet. The Parallax View's unpredictable mood is cemented from this opening sequence, which also introduces veteran actor William Daniels' all-important character. Anyone who grew up on episodes of Boy Meets World should recognize him as the future Mr. Feeny. From dark thrillers to TGIF—how's that for a career arc?
18. Brick Top In Snatch (2000)
Assassinated By: The Gypsies
Cause of Death: Shot by gunmen hiding in his limousine
Guy Ritchie’s eccentric gangster pic Snatch is full of memorable characters, not least of which is Brad Pitt’s mumbling boxer, Mickey O’Neil. If we had to pick our favorite, it wouldn’t be Pitt—it’d be Alan Ford’s crime boss Brick Top, who rules the city with excessive profanity and unwavering smugness.
Mr. Top catches wind of Mickey’s devastating knockout punch and sees dollar signs, placing bets on Mick’s fights after threatening the lives of the pugilist and his family if he disobeys the brawls’ fixed arrangements. At one point, Mickey refuses to step into the ring, so Brick has his thugs burn the fighter’s mother’s house to the ground.
Mickey isn’t the simple-minded gypsy he appears to be, though. He fudges Brick’s plans and screws him out of large cash sums by winning a bout in the first round. Pissed off, Brick heads outside to his limousine where he’s met by gypsies with shotguns.
17. President John F. Kennedy In JFK (1991)
Assassinated By: Lee Harvey Oswald
Cause of Death: Gunshots
Oliver Stone loves to shake things up, and the conspiracy-laden JFK is the filmmaker at his most polarizing and controversial. Through tense courtroom debates and black-and-white reenactments, Stone dramatizes all of the intrigue that surrounded President John F. Kennedy's assassination, framing history in his own heated lens.
For the movie's defining moment, Stone chose to follow convicted JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) in a flashback recounted through courtroom testimony. An elaborate theory is presented that shows Oswald's intricate plot, a strategically maneuvered transition from unseen gunman to inconspicuous passerby.
We never see the bullets actually strike JFK dead, but we don't need to—that old archival footage of his final moments in Dallas, Texas, are engrained into the popular conscious enough already.
We'll say one thing about Stone: He might love pissing off the establishment, but he's not gratuitous.
16. Edward "The Comedian" Blake In Watchmen (2009)
Assassinated By: Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias
Cause of Death: Thrown through the window of his high-rise apartment
No guns. No knives. And, nope, no rocket launchers. The assassination that opens Zack Snyder's film version of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons classic graphic novel Watchmen happens with little more than punches, kicks, and an overuse of slo-mo. The amateur cagematch pits Edward "The Comedian" Blake against a mysterious attacker (later revealed to be his former superhero colleague Adrian "Ozymandias" Veidt), and the Comedian doesn't stand a chance.
He's thrown around his high-rise apartment like a rag doll, smashing into walls and tables in a rather one-sided fight. Veidt, who's actually half the size of Blake, somehow dominates, though the worn-down Blake gives the impression of self-defeat before the brawl even begins. He probably would've been happy just having his head crushed into the floor or something, but Veidt takes the higher road—as in, skyscraper-high. Just like in Moore's comic tome, Blake is tossed through the glass windows and straight into the afterlife.
15. Sonny Corleone In The Godfather (1972)
Assassinated By: Members of Emilio Barzini's crew
Cause of Death: Machine gun ambush while stopped at a toll booth
Apparently in Mafia films, one bullet to the head doesn't always send a strong enough message. After he's dimed out to a rival family's head by his sister's abusive husband, the Corleone fam's enforcer Sonny (James Caan) gets ambushed by a swarm of hitmen flanking a toll booth.
Not even a 50-pound bulletproof vest could've kept his chest dry from the gunshower he's greeted with; it's almost as if they're trying to spell "Death to Corleones" on his body with slugs, but they keep misspelling words and forgetting to capitalize the "D" and "C" and have to restart multiple times.
14. Bobby Kent In Bully (2001)
Assassinated By: Marty Puccio, Donny Semenec, and Derek Kaufman
Cause of Death: Stabbed in the back and gut, throat is slit, head beaten in with a baseball bat
Some movie scenes are so intense that you need to take a deep breath once they're over; the murder sequence in Larry Clark's Bully makes those scene seem like Saturday morning cartoons.
The teens' half-assed assassination plot against Bobby Kent (Nick Stahl), the son-of-a-bitch who routinely treats them like crap, is sloppy at best, the byproduct of nervous druggies guided by a so-called expert who really doesn't know his ass from his elbow. Despite their lack of finesse, this many-versus-one assassination is easily one of the creepiest on this list.
Clark presents the homicide like a scene from a horror movie. You've got the requisite gore of any classic slasher movie (slashed throat, spilled guts). The edits are increasingly erratic, quickly alternating between the reactions of the scared shitless and the impromptu slayers running on various drugs and pure adrenaline. Put those elements all together and Bully's centerpiece is more frightening than most actual horror films.
13. Oscar Wallace And George In The Untouchables (1987)
Assassinated By: Frank Nitti
Cause of Death: Both shot in the head inside an elevator
Hitmen don't get much more ruthless than Frank Nitti (Billy Drago) in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables. Al Capone's top assassin, Nitti stalks through the movie with a silent force, popping up only to dump bullets into several prominent characters.
His most ruthless act comes at the expense of accountant Oscar Wallace (Charles Martin Smith) and Capone's turncoat bookkeeper George (Brad Sullivan). Wallace and George casually get onto a service elevator inside a Chicago police station, joined by a third man in a police uniform. Their fellow passenger, it turns out, is Nitti in disguise, who skips snappy pre-kill one-liners and simply blows their brains out. As a finishing touch, he then writes "Touchable" in their blood as a message to the the rest of Eliot Ness' "Untouchables" crew. Much wittier than "Nitti was here."
#12. Virgil Sollozzo And Captain McClusky In The Godfather (1972)
Assassinated By: Michael Corleone
Cause of Death: Point blank gunshots
Virgil Sollozzo really had it coming. First, he arranges to have the Corleone family's top muscle Luca Brasi killed, and then he tries to do the same to man-in-charge Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) on more than one occasion. But then, in an idiotic moment of peacefulness, Sollozzo schedules a sitdown with Vito' son Michael (Al Pacino) to squash the beef and walk away in amicable laughter. Bad idea.
Knowing he'll get frisked at the restaurant's entrance, Michael has a revolver stashed behind a toilet inside the restaurant's bathroom. Sollozzo and Captain McCluskey—a shady cop on Sollozzo's payroll and who's present as the security—allow the intelligently prepared Michael to excuse himself for a quick tinkle, but really he's going for a number two. Make that one bullet for Sollozzo's forehead and another for McCluskey's.
11. Nicky And Dominick Santoro In Casino (1995)
Assassinated By: Members of Nicky's own crew
Cause of Death: Beaten with metal baseball bats and then dumped in freshly-dug graves
In Martin Scorsese's Casino, Joe Pesci doesn't just get "whacked" with a metal baseball bat—he gets beaten to a bloody pulp. When the Santoro brothers naively show up for a meeting in a desolate cornfield, they're ambushed by Nicky's (Pesci) own crew, who arranged a deal with the mob bosses to kill the hotheaded Nicky in exchange for clemency.
First, they go all Albert Pujols on his brother's face as Nicky watches, and, as if that wasn't message enough, they give Nicky a few more home-runs swings. Then, while they're both still breathing, Nicky's former associates dump the two batting-practice-dummies into freshly dug holes and bury them alive. A simple whacking would've worked just fine, but what do we know?
10. Adolf Hitler In Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Assassinated By: Staff Sergeant Donnie Donowitz and Private First Class Omar Ulmer
Cause of Death: Face is torn apart by machine gun bullets
In any other director's hands, a fictional assassination of Adolf Hitler might involve little more than a quick bullet to the head. Fortunately, Quentin Tarantino's imagination is always in overdrive.
The climax of Inglourious Basterds is a towering inferno of Nazi killing, as well as the culmination of two simultaneous plots against Hitler and the Third Reich. On one end, you've got Shoshanna Dreyfus, a.k.a. Emmanuelle (Melanie Laurent), a cute theater owner who agrees to premiere a Nazi propaganda film just so she can burn the place down with Hitler and all of his cronies inside. At the same time, the Basterds make their way to the venue to blow the place up themselves.
Neither plan goes off flawlessly, but both sides get what they want: Hitler, along with every other high-ranking member of his evil regime, dies in grandiose fashion. Two of the Basterds (played by Eli Roth and Omar Doom) get to personally send Hitler into Lucifer's playground by unloading an excessive amount of machine gun rounds into his face, basically grounding it into chopped meat. You can practically sense Tarantino's maniacal glee the entire time.
9. Tommy DeVito In Goodfellas (1990)
Assassinated By: Associates of Billy Blatts, whom Tommy killed
Cause of Death: Shot in the back of the head after being tricked into thinking he's about to be "made"
For a guy who talks all kinds of shit and shoots people at will, Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) should've anticipated retaliation of some kind. But there's a clear look of surprise on his face as his big moment of Mafia coronation turns out to be a tragic set-up.
In Martin Scorsese's mobster films, nobody dies better than Pesci; seriously, it's pretty much a prerequisite for Uncle Marty's gangster pictures that the diminutive Pesci's character must die graphically. It says a lot about the actor, then, that his death scenes are always downers, albeit entertaining and masterfully staged ones.
In Goodfellas, Pesci's Tommy is a loose cannon whose bruised ego leads to the sudden murder of Billy Batts. Since it's a mob flick, however, he doesn't get away with it scot-free. After a touching moment with his loving mother, a proud Tommy walks right into a set-up. The room in which he's supposed to earn capo status is empty, and the look of "Oh, shit" understanding is quickly blown off by a handgun. As always, Pesci turns "getting whacked" into an art-form.
8. Jimmy Malone In The Untouchables (1987)
Assassinated By: Frank Nitti
Cause of Death: Machine gun fire
There's nothing like a little bait-and-switch to make a guy feel like a total fool, especially when the "switch" part plays out like it does in this great scene from Brian De Palma's The Untouchables. Frank Nitti (Billy Drago), a first-class hitman, sends a knife-wielding crony into Jim Malone's (Sean Connery) home to lure the old man outside.
De Palma cleverly uses a first-person POV to show the fake killer entering Malone's home, concealing the identity long enough to put Nitti out of one's mind. Once Malone steps foot outside, he catches sight of Nitti and gives an "I'm f'n screwed" look as Nitti pumps him full of lead.
7. Don Fanucci In The Godfather Part II (1974)
Assassinated By: Vito Corleone
Cause of Death: Shot three times at point-blank range
For some guys, an entrepreneurial spirit means they're quick to use a Bachelor's degree in business to launch a new enterprise or two; Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro), however, isn't your average goal-oriented man. When he sees an opportunity to overtake New York City mafia head Don Fanucci, whom Vito sees as inept and susceptible to dethroning, the young go-getter decides to take him out.
Vito runs across rooftops in order to beat Fanucci to his apartment; once there, Corleone patiently waits in a darkened entranceway for the unaware chief. Along the way, one of the many classic pieces of Godfather music plays, a score later sampled for Nas and Jay-Z's "Black Republican" (a fun fact for all you rap dudes out there). Once Fanucci arrives, Vito blasts him three times using a handgun wrapped in a towel (to silence the discharges). Shortly after, Vito becomes the HIIC (Head Italian in Charge) within the neighborhood.
Good luck finding a business school that'd teach that kind of power move.
6. Cyrus In The Warriors (1979)
Assassinated By: Luther, leader of the Rogues gang
Cause of Death: Gunshot
Walter Hill's cult gem The Warriors has its fair share of colorful characters, from the Baseball Furies to the sexy but deadly Lizzies, yet Gramercy Riffs honcho Cyrus has lasted in the pop culture lexicon longer than most despite only a few minutes of screen time. And that's thanks to four oft-quoted words: "Can you dig it?" But then comes weasel Luther, who disrupts Cyrus' peaceful assembly by assassinating the man on the pulpit.
Cyrus' downfall is the impetus of the film's action, with the Warriors being framed for the murder and chased around New York City by an assortment of imaginative gang types. Eventually, Luther shows back up in another climactic scene, saying an equally memorable catchphrase of his own: "Warriors, come out and play-ay!" Maybe Luther killed Cyrus just so he could emerge as the movie's most quoted character; if so, what a petty bitch.
5. Bonnie Parker And Clyde Barrow In Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
Assassinated By: Police officers
Cause of Death: A flurry of machine gun fire
One of the most memorable film endings of all time, the last moments of Bonnie & Clyde are bleak as hell—as they should be, since the movie's about history's notably doomed bank robbers/lovers.
It all starts off so tranquil for Bonnie and her dude Clyde. Driving along an empty country highway on a gorgeous and sunny day, the bandits are feeling like they're on top of the world, and who can blame them. Up until then, they've evaded the law and netted heavy bounties with relative ease.
Exemplifying the old saying, "Crime doesn't pay," Bonnie & Clyde ends with just—and, yes, kind of sad—comeuppance. Clyde pulls their car over to help a double-crossing acquaintance with tire trouble, yet is instead bombarded by gunfire from cops hiding out in the surrounding bushes. It's clips ahoy as he and Bonnie absorb enough lead to start a pencil factory. In the blink of an eye, the film's tone shifts from effervescent to utter gloom.
4. Malcolm X In Malcolm X (1992)
Assassinated By: Armed members of the Nation of Islam
Cause of Death: Multiple gunshots, received while giving a speech
Some might argue that any one of several powerful scenes in Do The Right Thing is Spike Lee's most visceral moment. For us, though, that honor goes to the Audubon Ballroom sequence in his excellent biopic Malcolm X.
Like in all biographical films about slain heroes, this one's tragic outcome isn't a surprise. Anyone who knows the civil rights fighter's story should see it coming from the second Lee's action enters the Audubon. Lee doesn't rest on his laurels, though; setting the event's frantic and nightmarish mood, he takes his time to build the room's crowded feel and its post-shooting eruption into a near riot.
This one scene alone is more explosive than the entirety of Lee's war movie, 2008's Miracle At St. Anna, proving that the Knicks' biggest fan has seen better days.
3. Colonel Walter E. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979)
Assassinated By: Captain Benjamin Willard
Cause of Death: Sliced and stabbed with a machete
We don't know who to feel worse for in Apocalypse Now's phenomenal climax: Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando) or the poor water buffalo?
Francis Ford Coppola's staggering adaptation of the classic Joseph Conrad novella Heart Of Darkness is an altogether unforgettable experience, pummeling senses with horrific imagery, emotional wallops, and Dennis Hopper at his most drug-induced level of hippie awesomeness.
The entire movie centers on Captain Willard's (Martin Sheen) voyage to find rogue military asset Kurtz and assassinate him. Having lost his mind, Kurtz has taken over a hidden Cambodian village and established himself as a false God of sorts.
Willard finally gets his man, a brutal moment that Coppola amplifies with The Doors' haunting song "The End", shadowy images, and the authentic slaughter of a water buffalo. That's a real buffalo, folks—feel free to throw up your lunch. We won't judge.
2. Emilio Barzini, Philip Tattaglia, and Moe Green In The Godfather (1972)
Assassinated By: Assassins hired by Michael Corleone
Cause of Death: Shotgun blasts and handgun bullets
The Godfather's legacy as one of the greatest films ever made is common knowledge, but every superlative piece of work has its highest point. In the first part of Francis Ford Coppola's epic mob trilogy that standout part comes near the end, and it's a whopper.
It's also incredibly haunting. Juxtaposed against church organs and the christening of Michael Corleone's (Al Pacino) nephew, assassins hired by the Corleone's terminate each of their rival crews' leaders. Straightforward hits would've been effective on a bloodthirsty scale, but Coppola goes for an extremely hypnotic effect, using the eerie organ arrangement to give the sequence a Gothic, surrealist feel.
As the guns bust, the music intensifies, and in the cleverest bit, one of the bosses is trapped inside revolving glass doors and mowed down. Who could've imagined that multiple homicide could provide such a religious catharsis?
1. Tony Montana In Scarface (1983)
Assassinated By: Dozens of Alejandro Sosa's goons
Cause of Death: Multiple gunshots leading up to a shotgun blast through his back
It's the quintessential "going out like a G" moment. And to think, Tony Montana's (Al Pacino) last stand is the result of a rare moment of conscientious thinking. Drug kingpin Alejandro Sosa calls upon Tony to assassinate a journalist, but right as the hit is about to happen, Tony sees that his target's family is there with him, and he calls off the job—which, unsurprisingly, doesn't sit too well with Mr. Sosa.
Rather than send a lone assassin to the Casa De Montana, Sosa unleashes a large army of gunmen onto the makeshift palace. Tony ultimately falls to his death, landing in a water fountain, adorned by a sign reading, "The World is Yours." But not before taking upwards of 30 bullets, blowing fools away with an M-16 grenade launcher and sending many foes to Hell with him. Of course, he's hopped up on mounds of cocaine the entire time and doesn't seem to feel a single bullet, but the resiliency is still highly impressive.
The lesson learned here: Don't do drugs. And always keep an M-16 grenade launcher handy.