This is a list of films in which special effects are used to have characters die violently and gorily.
Death from being eaten
- The Alien movies, in which many characters are eaten by aliens, both from the outside and from the inside.
- Beyond (alias E tu vivrai nel terrore - L'aldilą), in which a blind woman gets her throat eaten by her dog.
- The Blob, in which many people are eaten by a gelatinous blob.
- Deep Blue Sea, in which numerous characters are eaten by sharks.
- The Edge, in which a character is eaten alive by a grizzly bear.
- Hannibal, in which three characters are eaten by boars (two eaten alive, one already dead). In addition, a character has the top of his head removed and is fed his frontal lobes, the remainder of his brains being used by Hannibal Lecter to make a packed lunch.
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - a villain is eaten by crocodiles.
- The Jaws series, in which many characters are eaten by sharks.
- The Jewel of the Nile, in which a villain is eaten by a crocodile.
- The Jurassic Park series, in which several characters are eaten by dinosaurs.
- Night of the Living Dead and its many sequels, in which numerous characters are eaten by zombies.
- The Prophecy, in which multiple characters are eaten alive by a mutant bear.
- Shaun of the Dead, in which one of the characters is torn open and eaten by zombies.
- The Spy Who Loved Me, where villian Karl Stromberg feeds his disloyal assistant to a conveniently located shark.
- Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, in which a slave is eaten by a rancor, and several characters (including Boba Fett) are slowly digested by a sarlacc.
- Suddenly, Last Summer, in which a character is eaten by Italian teenagers.
Death by bisection or dismemberment (excluding decapitation)
- Akira, in which several people are torn apart
- Carrie
- Catch 22, in which a character, Hungry Joe, is bisected by an aeroplane propeller.
- Forklift Driver Klaus - The First Day On the Job
- Gladiator, in which a female gladiator is cut in half by sharp bladed chariot wheel.
- Guinea Pig: Flower of Flesh and Blood, a fake snuff film, in which a woman is tortured, dismembered, and partially eaten by a samurai.
- Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2
- Mission Impossible, death by elevator counterweight.
- Predator 2, in which a member of the Predator catcher team is bisected by Predator's razor-frisbee.
- Sphere, in which a man is cut in half by a heavy closing door.
- Sleepy Hollow, in which a character is bisected by a sword.
- Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, in which Darth Maul is bisected with a lightsaber.
- Damien: Omen II, featuring a death by elevator counterweight.
- The Running Man, in which the hunter Buzzsaw is cut in half with his own chainsaw.
- Thir13en Ghosts, in which one character is bisected vertically, separating his front half from his back, by a glass door.
- Total Recall, in which Doug Quaid (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) holds a man by his arms so that they get ripped off by the edge of an elevator shaft (he subsequently falls to his death).
Death by crushing
- Akira, Tetsuo accidently crushes his girlfriend when his powers got out of control.
- Final Destination 2, wherein a character is crushed by a falling slab of glass.
- Various Godzilla movies, in which bystanders are crushed by a giant reptile.
- Various King Kong movies, in which bystanders are crushed by a giant ape.
- Krull, in which a cyclops is crushed trying to hold open a closing door.
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park, in which a man is crushed underfoot by a T-Rex.
- Mars Attacks, in which a man is shrunken and stepped on by a Martian.
- A Tale of Two Sisters, in which a girl is crushed to death by a falling armoire.
- The Wizard of Oz, in which the Wicked Witch of the East is crushed by a house.
- Alien 3, the alien sprays acid in the face of a prisoner and he walks into a huge fan.
- Braindead, a.k.a Dead Alive, a zombie baby is pureed in a kitchen blender and a group of zombies get blendered via a lawnmower.
- Die Hard 2: Die Harder, in which a thug is sucked into a jet engine.
- Gremlins, in which a Gremlin monster is dropped into blender and pureed.
- On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in which a villain skis into a snowblowing machine.
- Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which a Nazi is cut down by a plane propeller.
- Riki-Oh, in which a man is ground up in an industrial meat press.
- The Last Boy Scout, in which an assassin falls off a lighting platform and into an ascending helicopter's blades.
- Frankenfish, in which the main fish monster jumps into the propellor of a flatbed swamp air boat
- 28 Days Later, in which Jim gouges a soldier's eyes out with his thumbs.
- Battleship Potemkin, in which a mother is shot through her glasses by Tsarist soldiers during the Odessa Steps sequence. This scene is rather iconic and has been imitated in several films, including some of the entries on this list.
- Blade Runner, in which Tyrell's eyes are poked out by Roy's thumbs.
- Die Hard 2, in which McLane uses an icicle to kill a sentry.
- Donnie Darko, in which Frank is shot in the eye while wearing a bunny suit.
- Eraser, in which a sniper is shot through his own scope.
- Final Destination 2, in which a character is impaled through the eye by a falling ladder.
- Godfather, in which a Casino owner is shot through his glasses.
- Jurassic Park, in which a man is blinded by a small spitting dinosaurs venom.
- Kill Bill Vol. 1, in which a Yakuza member's eye is poked out by the Bride.
- The Phantom, in which a librarian is tricked into stabbing his own eyes with a rigged microscope.
- Saving Private Ryan, in which a Nazi sniper is shot through his own scope.
- Sniper (movie), in which an Enemy sniper is shot through his own scope.
- Tales From The Crypt: Demon Knight, in which all the lower level demons die from the destruction of their eyes (windows to their souls).
- Zatoichi, in which Zatoichi blinds the gang leader with his katana sword.
- Zombie 2, in which a wooden splinter impales a woman's eye.
- Black Rain, featuring a drive-by beheading by Yakuza.
- Braveheart, in which William's head is cut off by an executioner.
- Conan the Barbarian, in which Conan decapitates Thulsa Doom, and throws his head down a flight of stairs.
- Dawn of the Dead, (partial), featuring the top of a zombie's head cut off by helicopter rotor.
- Demolition Man, in which Wesley Snipes's frozen head is kicked off by Sylvester Stallone.
- Fellowship of The Ring, in which Aragorn slashes an Uruk-hai chieftain's head off.
- Final Destination, in which a character's head is cut off by a freak flying hubcap.
- Final Destination 2, in which a character gets her head stuck in an elevator door which then goes up, decapitating her in the process.
- Forklift Driver Klaus - The First Day On the Job, wherein Klaus loses his head.
- Freddy vs. Jason, in which Jason severs a character's head with his machete.
- Gladiator, featuring the decapitation of a number of enemy fighters.
- Highlander, featuring multiple decapitations of characters who would not be The One.
- Ichi the Killer, (partial), in which a character loses face, literally.
- Kill Bill, in which a Japanese mob boss loses his head.
- Mortal Kombat, (partial), in which a character has a portion of his head sliced off before exploding.
- Ran, in which the beheaded body of Lady Sue is found in the grass, and the beheading of Lady Kaede with a katana.
- Sleepy Hollow, is which many different characters lose their heads.
- Starship Troopers, in which several soldiers lose their heads from the sharp claws of flying "Bugs".
- Star Wars Episode II, in which Jango Fett is decapitated by Mace-Windu by a lightsaber.
- Star Wars Episode III, two clone troopers are decapitated by Yoda in a single swing when given orders to kill him. Earlier, Count Dooku is decapitated by Anakin.
- The Last Samurai, in which the general commits seppuku.
- The Omen, in which a pane of glass comes off the back of a truck and hits a man in the neck.
- The 13th Warrior, featuring various decapitations.
- Theatre of Blood, in which Arthur Lowe's head ends up on a milk bottle.
- Thriller - en grym film, in which the villain has his head torn off by a noose tied to a horse's reins.
- Thursday, in which Casey pulls Nick's head out of a bag.
Death due to contact with a caustic or otherwise deadly substance
- Beyond (alias E tu vivrai nel terrore - L'aldilą), in which, at the beginning of the movie, the Sorcerer has multiple buckets of acid thrown over him.
- Cube, in which an unfortunate fellow is sprayed in face with acid.
- Cube Zero, in which an unfortunate fellow is sprayed with a waterlike substance which in actuality is some sort of acid which changes the flesh and skin to liquid state.
- Dante's Peak, wherein a lady jumps into a highly acidic lake which dissolves much of the lower half of her body; she dies moments later after being pulled onto the shore.
- Jason X, in which a blonde scientist has her face put into liquid nitrogen by the masked killer Jason Voorhees, letting it freeze and then smashing it on a table.
- Magnum Force, in which a pimp kills a prostitute by forcing a can of drain cleaner down her throat.
- RoboCop, in which a character is sprayed with acid and later disintegrates when hit by a car.
- Slaughter High, in which Marty feeds acid into the running bathwater of one of his former high school tormentors.
- The Wizard of Oz, in which the Wicked Witch of the West dies from exposure to water, a substance caustic to her unique physiology.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit, in which "The Shoe" gets "dipped" by Judge Doom. Judge Doom later succumbs to this fate.
- X2, in which "Lady Deathstrike" is pumped full of liquid adamantium metal.
Death from a fall into a molten substance
- Alien 3, in which Ripley dramatically sacrifices herself and her "offspring" by falling into molten lead.
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in which both the T-1000 and the T-800 Model 101 fall into molten metal.
- The Return of the King, in which Gollum falls into molten lava in the Crack of Doom.
- Volcano, in which a rescure worker saves a life by jumping into lava and throwing the man he was carrying into the arms of other workers as he melts.
Death by fluid extraction
Death by gunfire
- Akira, with multiple instances, including a revolutionary shooting a police dog, the same revolutionary being pulped by automatic weapons fire from riot police, Kei shooting a police officer in the face in order to save herself and Kaneda, a tunnel infiltrator being mowed down by a vulcan cannon-armed flying platform, leaving only his arm holding a submachinegun, and rioters being hit with a laser rifle.
- Battle Royale, with multiple instances, but the most notable ones being the two schoolgirls being machinegunned by an ambushing character, killing one outright, and then finishing off the mortally wounded survivor with another burst, and a gunfight where a character's head is blown off with a shotgun.
- Blade Runner, where the replicant Leon is shot from behind and in the head, forming a large exit wound in his forehead. The two female replicants, Zora and Priss, are also retired by multiple gunshots.
- Blue Velvet, where Jeffrey Beaumont discovers in Dorothy's apartment the bodies of Dorothy's husband and the corrupt police detective Tom Gordon. Dorothy's husband is without an ear, bound and shot in the head. Gordon continues to stand even though he's dead. Jeffrey later ambushes Frank Booth, shooting him in the head, leaving a mess of brains.
- Fargo, wherein a state trooper is shot in the face.
- Fight Club, where Robert Paulsen is unmasked, revealing he's been shot in the head. Later, Tyler Durden is also killed by a bullet to the head.
- Full Metal Jacket, with various, but with notable deaths being the murder of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman and suicide of Leonard 'Gomer Pyle' Lawrence, who puts the gun in his mouth and shoots himself, and a scene later in the film, where a sniper almost decimates a Marine squad by putting them in a "honey pot" situation.
- Ghost in the Shell, where a diplomat is shot in the head with an explosive round, a kidnapper is shot with a high powered sniper rifle through an armored car, and Major Kusanagi and an android have their heads blown off by heli-borne snipers.
- The Godfather, with multiple instances of gun death, the most notable being Sonny Corleone's demise from a fusillade from submachinegun-wielding hitmen at a tollbooth on the New Jersey turnpike. 147 squibs, a record number, were placed on James Caan's body to simulate being hit by multiple bursts of automatic weapons fire.
- Hamburger Hill, in which American soldiers are hit by friendly artillery fire and a Viet Cong guerrilla suffers from a M60 machine gun burst at point blank range to the face.
- Kill Bill Vol. 1, in which first a man's shin is blown apart and then he is shot again, in the head
- The Limey, in which Wilson (Terence Stamp) stylishly shoots several minor characters off-screen.
- Out of Sight, in which White Boy Bob trips on a stair step while running toward Jack Foley, falls onto his shotgun and blows off his face.
- Saving Private Ryan, in which many characters are gruesomely killed by gunfire, notable scenes being the face of Miller's radioman being blown off during the Omaha landing and the Germans using a flak autocannon to clear a disabled Panzer of American infantrymen, tearing them to pieces.
- Starship Troopers, where a Mobile Infantry soldier is accidentally shot in the head during a training exercise.
- South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, a character is shot in the head.
- Taxi Driver, in its climatic gunbattle between Travis Bickle and gangsters, where he blows off one man's hand with a Magnum revolver, shoots the pimp, shoots another man multiple times in the face with a small caliber automatic pistol, then finishes off the handless man by shoving a revolver into the man's mouth and shooting him.
- To Live And Die In L.A., where a Secret Service agent is killed by two shotgun blasts to the head.
- Videodrome, in which Max Renn shoots his two co-workers, one graphically in the head, and, later in the film's climax, Max shoots Barry Convex with his "handgun". Convex is struck by cancer bullets, which erupt in grotestque and gushing tumors across his body within seconds.
- Wild at Heart, in which Bobby Peru is shot by police, falls on his shotgun, discharging it into his head.
- The Wild Bunch, with multiple instances throughout, the most notable being the opening gunbattle and the final shootout, know as "the Battle of Bloody Porch" by the crew and fans of the film.
- The Enforcer one bad guy is impaled on the horn of a carousel unicorn.
- The Catcher, in which one player is crucified on the pitcher's mound and battered to death by baseballs hurled at him by a pitching machine.
- Charlie Muffin (aka A Deadly Game), in which a character is impaled by a construction machine.
- Commando, in which the main villain is impaled through his stomach by a metal tube.
- The Last Temptation of Christ, in which Jesus is crucified.
- Lord of the Flies, in which a character is stabbed with several long pointed sticks.
- The Matrix: Revolutions, in which Trinity is impaled with a trio of rebars after crash-landing her ship.
- Mars Attacks!, in which the president of the United States is impaled by a Martian device.
- The Omen, in which a lightning rod impales a clergyman.
- The Passion of the Christ, in which Jesus is crucified.
- The Rock, a terrorist is impaled on a pole after being shoved out of a window by a rocket.
- Spartacus, in which Spartacus and his followers are crucified.
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in which a character, Andy, is hung on a pair of meat hooks, and a girl is gored on a different meat hook.
- The Virgin Suicides, in which Cecilia Lisbon jumps and lands on a pointy fence outside the Lisbon home.
- Monty Python's Life of Brian, in which the title character, along with several petty criminals, is crucified.
- Jason X, where a man is impaled upon an auger and spins on the way down.
- "Godzilla: Final Wars", where Kamacuras (a Giant Mantis) is impaled on an electric tower by Godzilla.
- Star Wars: Episode I, Qui-Gon Jinn is impaled by Darth Maul's lightsaber.
Death due to an improper use of explosives
- A Fistful of Dynamite, in which one of the bandits didn't know about the short fuse.
- A View to a Kill, in which one of the criminals accidentally drops a lit explosive while in an airship, and cannot retrieve it before it explodes.
- Saving Private Ryan, in which a soldier waits too long to insert a sticky bomb into a tank's track.
- Swordfish, in which two hostages are blown to smithereens by explosive belts
- The Thin Red Line, in which Woody Harrelson's character grabs a grenade by the pin during action and dives on it to save his battalion.
- Videodrome, in which, in an attempt to reprogram Max Renn via his chest slit, Harlan's hand has been metastasize into a "hand grenade", which explodes and kills Harlan.
Death by violent organ removal
- Braveheart, in which Mel Gibson's character is tortured by slicing him open.
- Day of The Dead, in which one character is torn apart by zombies, spreading his internal organs across the floor.
- Dumb and Dumber, in which Jim Carrey's character daydreams about ripping somebody's heart out, putting it into a doggy bag, and handing it back to him.
- Hannibal, in which a character is sliced open and pushed over balcony with his intestines still tied to it.
- I Spit On Your Grave, in which a male character dies of blood loss due to the heroine slicing off his penis, as revenge for raping her. In the same movie, another male character is disemboweled after he begs the heroine not to kill him. He is flailing in the lake near her summer house and grabs on to her motor, only to have her restart the engine and kill him.
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, in which sacrificial victim's heart is ripped out.
- Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, featuring ritual disemboweling (seppuku).
- Monty Python's Meaning of Life, where Graham Chapman and John Cleese remove Terry Gilliam's liver.
- Queen of the Damned, the queen of the vampires, rips out the heart of a male vampire and drinks from it.
- The Terminator, in which a nude cyborg assassin tears out the heart of a punk to obtain clothes.
Death from slicing by such a sharp object, that it takes some moments for victim to fall apart
- Blade II, wherein one character is bisected from top to bottom (a moment widely reputed to be an homage to Vampire Hunter D).
- Cube, which opens with a character being sliced into small cubes then slowly disintegrates.
- Cube Zero, in which a man is cut in pieces by sharp wires.
- Equilibrium, in which a character's face sliced by a sword, and slowly slides off.
- Final Destination 2, in which a character is hit by a flying piece of barbed wire fence, slicing him into several chunks.
- Forklift Driver Klaus - The First Day On the Job
- Ghost Ship, in which a cruise ship's patrons are sliced in half by fast-moving wire.
- Godzilla: Final Wars, in which Gigan is decapitated twice (in separate fight scenes) and Keizer Ghidorah is deprieved of two of his three heads.
- Highlander, in which a villain's neck is severed, but his head remains in place long enough for villain to chuckle.
- Ichi the Killer, featuring a slow bisection.
- Izo, in which Bob Sapp's character is sliced in half diagonally with a katana.
- Johnny Mnemonic, in which a character's torso is sliced by a laser whip.
- Kill Bill 2, in which the top of a character's head is bisected by sword.
- Resident Evil, in which a character is sliced into small cubes by a moving grid of laser beams.
- Rob Roy, wherein a character is cleaved by a sword and slowly peels in half.
- Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (See Bisection, above.)
- The Cell, in which a horse is sliced into sections by evenly spaced glass panes.
- The Meaning of Life (Monty Python): in which a soldier falls apart in slices.
- Thir13en Ghosts, in which a character is trapped between glass doors when they slam shut. When they open, half off him slides off the other, revealing that the doors sliced him in two.
- Underworld, wherein a character's head is bisected by a sword.
Death from decompression or over-pressure
- Alien Resurrection, in which the alien-human hybrid is sucked into space through a tiny hole on a glass window.
- Licence to Kill, in which a character is locked into a recompression chamber and explodes when the pressure conduit is axed.
- Men Behind The Sun, in which an experiment subject in a hyperbaric chamber is exposed to such intense atmospheric pressure that his intestines squirt from his anus.
- Outland, in which various characters suffer from explosive decompression from exposure to vacuum of space.
- Total Recall, in which one character dies from lack of air/decompression in the thin of Mars.
Miscellaneous/Other
- Akira, many characters are blown to bits, some are killed from one scene at the bridge, others from gun fights.
- Army of Darkness, in which a man is tossed into a pit containing a Deadite. Moments later, a scream is heard, and a veritable fountain of blood sprays from the pit.
- Battle Royale, characters' deaths result from poisoning, necks being sliced open, jumping off cliffs, explosions, disease, and, most often, gunfire.
- Blade, wherein several vampires are injected with an anticoagulant chemical, EDTA, and explode violently.
- Cannibal Holocaust, in which various characters and animals are raped, impaled, dismembered, decapitated, and eaten gorily. In one scene, a live monkey's skull is hacked open and the brains eaten.
- The Fly, after his outer body features steadily fall off during the latter half of the movie, Seth Brundle (in a struggle with Ronnie) finally grotesquely breaks apart. After his lower jaw is pulled off, Seth's skin breaks into large pieces, revealing the man-fly inside.
- Gremlins, in which a Gremlin monster is cooked alive in a microwave oven where it melts/explodes.
- Gremlins 2: The New Batch, featuring a death by paper shredder, in which a Gremlin monster is killed rather unpleasantly.
- Eraserhead, death by infanticide. Henry goes to Heaven only after killing his baby.
- Fight Club, a stewardess is splattered across a bulkhead when the wing of a colliding airliner cuts another airliner in half.
- Godzilla vs Destoroyah in which Godzilla melts from radioactivity overdosage
- Irreversible, in which one man kills another by crushing his head with a fire extinguisher.
- I Spit On Your Grave, in which one man is killed by a blow to the back with an axe. In the same movie, a mildly retarded man is allowed to have sex with the heroine, who he raped previously. As his punishment, she slips a noose around his neck while he is in a catatonic orgasmic state, and hangs him.
- Men Behind The Sun, in a fictionalization of the Unit 731 frostbite experiments, a female subject has her arms subjected to freezing temperatures. One of the experimenters then pours hot water on her arms, causing the flesh and muscle to slouch immediately off the bones.
- Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, featuring bursting, wherein a character overeats and explodes.
- Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which characters melt when exposed to contents of Ark.
- Riki-Oh, in which one character is killed by simply having his head smashed with a handclap.
- Scanners, which, in its probably most famous scene, features a character's head exploding from psychic energy, and a grisly battle of the minds between the two principal characters.
- Scotland, PA, featuring a death by deep frying. Norm Duncan's head gets shoved into a friolator.
- Sleepy Hollow, wherein the main character's mother is placed in an Iron maiden.
- South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, Kenny is burned to death.
- Starship Troopers, wherein a character's brains are sucked out through straw by an alien.
- Young Sherlock Holmes, wherein young abducted women are sacrificed by covering them with hot wax or oil.
