Whether we weren’t expecting anyone to get killed off, or the death itself is totally random, we just didn’t see it coming. Obviously, spoilers await you.
Donnie - The Big Lebowski
The Big Lebowskiis easily the best movie ever made in which almost nothing happens or gets resolved. After a series of wacky misunderstandings, faked kidnappings, and a bowling ball fight withFleaof the Red Hot Chili Peppers, soft-spoken Donnie (Steve Buscemi), comedy sidekick to The Dude (Jeff Bridges) and Walter (John Goodman) suddenly collapses in a parking lot, dead of a heart attack.
It’s far from shocking that a character would die in aCoen Brothersmovie, let alone one played by Buscemi, but the film is irreverent and relatively lighthearted. Donnie dies with minutes left in the film for absolutely no reason, as if the directors suddenly remembered they were legally obligated to leave no Buscemi alive.
Hoagie - Tag
Technically,Ed Helms’ character Hoagie inTagdoesn’t actually die, but the film ends with the sudden revelation that he has terminal cancer, which is the reason why he’s been pushing his friends to try and tag the untaggable Jerry (Jeremy Renner) before Jerry gets married and retires from the game.
The movie is a broad slapstick comedy, so it cannot be stressed how thunderously out-of-the-blue it is to suddenly tell the audience that the main character has been dying of cancer this whole time. The movie ends with the gang playing tag in the cancer ward, never indicating whether or not Hoagie is going to survive. It’s… it’s a real bummer, you guys.
Ned Plimpton - The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Ned Plimpton (Owen Wilson) is an airline pilot trying to connect with famed undersea documentarian Steve Zissou (Bill Murray), a man who may or may not be Ned’s father. After tracking a giant shark and rescuingJeff Goldblumfrom villainous pirates, Ned suddenly dies in a helicopter crash.
The fact that the helicopter is a piece of junk is a running joke throughout the film, one that we definitely weren’t expecting to be paid off with the death of a major character. Also, the crash happens during a nice, quiet moment between Ned and Steve, not in the middle of a high-stakes action sequence. It’s like Poseidon suddenly became furious with them and decided to destroy their helicopter.
General Zod - Man of Steel
InZack Snyder’sMan of Steel, the movie that launched a thousand memes, Superman (Henry Cavill) stops the villainous General Zod (Michael Shannon) from vaporizing a bunch of hapless Metropolis citizens by snapping Zod’s neck so hard a visible shockwave erupts from his alien corpse.
It’s not necessarily shocking that the bad guy in an action-packed superhero movie would get murked before the end credits, but audiences were more than a little surprised to see the Big Blue Boy Scout, the Man of Steel himself, kill someone with his bare hands.
Cyclops - X-Men: The Last Stand
The third installment of the originalX-Mentrilogy notoriously features the deaths of several major characters, including Jean Grey (Famke Jansen), Professor X (Patrick Stewart), andKelsey Grammer’s dignity. But the genuinely shocking turn was when team leader and second most-famous X-Man Cyclops (James Marsden) is killed in the first ten minutes of the film.
Apparently, the producers were upset with Marsden for deciding to take a role inSuperman Returns, which was filming at the same time. So, rather than trying to work around Marsden’s schedule to allow the fan-favorite Cyclops to actually be in the movie, they unceremoniously kill him off before the movie even really starts.
Russell Franklin - Deep Blue Sea
Money man Russell Franklin (Samuel L. Jackson) is paying a bunch of eggheads to try and find a cure for Alzheimer’s. For reasons that are never adequately explained, this involves genetically engineering a team of super sharks at an undersea base. When the sharks inevitably break loose, Franklin attempts to rally the survivors with an inspiring speech, only to have a shark explode into the room and bite him in half mid-sentence.
This scene has been parodied and duplicated so many times that it’s easy to forget how truly unexpected it was to see the only A-list actor in the film get brutally shark-murdered in the middle of his hero speech.
Ned Stark - Game of Thrones
It’s weird to think about it now that he’s been dead for pretty much the entirety ofGame of Thrones, but the sudden de-headification of Ned Stark (Sean Bean) was pretty shocking when it happened just nine episodes in. Up to that point, Ned had been the main character and the show’s moral center.
Ned’s death was heartbreaking and unexpected, but it emphatically taught us the rules ofGame of Thrones– literally anyone can die at any time, no matter how much you like them or how major of a character they seem to be. It’s an important lesson that also applies to real life.
Chubbs - Happy Gilmore
Chubbs (Carl Weathers) is an aging former golf pro trying to teach violent eternal manboy Happy Gilmore (Adam Sandler) how to win without assaulting anyone. Happy presents Chubbs with a severed alligator head to show his gratitude, but the gift horrifies Chubbs so badly that he falls out of an open window to his death.
In fairness, Chubb’s death is played as a joke, and he comes back a few times as a ghost to encourage Happy, so it isn’ttotallyout of synch with the film’s wacky tone. But “watching a beloved character actor suddenly fall out of a window” wasn’t high on the list of things we expected to see in the latest Sandler comedy.
Everyone - Glass
M. Night Shyamalantook 19 years to make a sequel to his 2000 filmUnbreakable, bringing together Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson), David Dunn (Bruce Willis) andSplit’s Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) for an exciting showdown between real-world superheroes. Then all three of them die in a parking lot.
Yep – all three characters die sudden, inglorious deaths in the parking lot of a mental hospital, never actually making it to the skyscraper atop which they were supposed to battle. We understand that Shyamalan was trying to subvert superhero tropes, but there’s miles of difference between “subverting tropes” and “having the only good guy in the movie get drowned in a puddle.”
Spider-Man - Avengers: Infinity War
Of all the many, many spontaneous dustings triggered by Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his meaty finger snap, none hurt as much as Spider-Man (Tom Holland), mostly because we didn’t believe Marvel would actually make us watch a teenage boy die.
Not only does Spider-Man turn to dust at the very last minute, right when we think the worst of it is over, but he turns to ash in Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey, Jr.) arms, begging Stark to stop it from happening. The pluckiest, most charming superhero ever created passes into oblivion in terrified agony. Thanks, Disney!
