3. Thelma & Louise - The car drives over the edge of the canyon and film ends with a freeze frame of the car in mid-air. We never see girls crash into the rocks below, but we don't need to. Would've been epic though.
2. Fargo - Carl played by Steve Buscemi, is murdered by Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) with an axe, but the screen cuts to black right before the magic happens. It’s more Carl’s messy ‘burial’ involving a wood-chipper that is the trademark of this film more than his death.
1. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - Butch (Paul Newman) and Sundance (Robert Redford) both wounded and surrounded by 100 soldiers of the Bolivian cavalry, burst through the door to face an essential firing squad. The film ends with a freeze frame sepia tone shot of the pair exiting the house firing their guns, accompanied by the sound of dozens of rifles being fired. It’s not only one of the most compelling death scenes, but one of the most iconic moments in cinema history.
There really should be 4:
ReplyDeleteIn the original Alien (1979), the character Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) experiences a clearly implied death rape by the alien. Although Ridley Scott used footage of the "Brett death scene" for her death instead, her gasping/moaning/screaming and the flashes of her tremmoring as the alien performs this act (off-screen as Ripley runs through the corridors and is heard over the intercom). Her body is also seen naked when "Ripley" arrives at the scene. Veronica Cartwright discussed this and was even featured in a Starlog column titled "I was raped by an alien", where she also discusses her original "heart attack in the locker" death scene which was never used.