Top 10 Movies Where Everyone Dies
I decided to write a nice cheery list for your Friday. This feels like it should not need to be said, but this list contains EXTREME SPOILERS for the movies on it. While there are no doubt 10 movies where the world just ends & everyone dies, I decided to take a different approach. There are a couple of films like that, but these also some that are a little more contained and just all the character we meet die. One film that didn’t make the list, but I wanted to mention is ‘Lone Survivor’ which doesn’t make the least because, well, there is one survivor.
The Grey- A film about a group of oilmen who survive a plane crash only to come face to face with a deadly pack of wolves. Like extremely deadly. The group is picked off one by one by the pack & other forces of nature. The film ends with the group’s de facto leader, John Ottway (Liam Neeson), coming face to face with the alpha before the film cuts to black. So yeah, he for sure died too.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes- I can already hear you telling me ‘Well Shane not everyone dies because we learn in the next film, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, that Cornelius, Zira, & Dr. Milo manage to Salvage Taylor’s ship and are able to travel back in time to when the humans still ran the Earth and manage to live long enough to procreate and have Caesar which then leads to two more sequels, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes & Battle for the Planet of the Apes before the franchise ended and subsequently rebooted in 2001 & 2011.’ To which I respond, wow, you sure do know a lot about the Planet of the Apes films. Will all that being said, the film I came to discuss does end with the entire planet being blown up by atomics. Though it is retconned in the previously mentioned sequel to which 3 characters live, I am still going to count it & as everyone dying.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story- This is one where you know everyone is going to die going in. Set a week before the events of ‘A New Hope’ this film follows the formation of a small team of rebels in a galaxy far, far away who aim to get the plans for the Empire’s new weapon, the Death Star. Though there are some incredibly likable characters introduced, it really doesn’t matter because the film ends with the Death Star blowing them all up. We have seen the return of some of the characters in the series, ‘Andor,’ which has to be a prequel series because a sequel of these characters would be pretty grim.
Don’t Look Up- In this 2021 film that became a Best Picture nominee, we see two astronomers who try to warn the world of a looming meteor threat, but they are shut down due to the political side of things. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Cate Blanchett, & Meryl Streep. And every single one of them dies when the world gets hit by that meteor, as does everyone else on the planet.
This is the End- This film follows a group of actors playing themselves during the biblical apocalypse & they all have to accept their fates as they realize they weren’t raptured. By the end of the film, all the actors have either died or redeemed themselves so they were able to get sucked up into Heaven.
The Thing- This John Carpenter film follows a group of researchers in Antarctica who must then fight the alien ‘Thing’ which imitates other life forms. They are picked off one by one and the film ambiguously ends with MacReady (Kurt Russell) & Childs (Keith David) sharing some whiskey with one of them more than likely being the titular monster. Whether or not they are or aren’t the two certainly are going to soon freeze to death.
Night of the Living Dead- The 1968 horror film that popularized the modern zombie, the ‘ghouls’ kill almost every member of the cast by the end of the film. The main character, Ben, is mistakingly killed when he is believed to be a ghoul at the end of the film. So that sucks for him.
Final Destination 5- The whole plot of this film series is the characters battling Death. I haven’t actually seen any of them, but I am aware that the fifth installment features every major character die before two of them board a plane. The plane is actually a plane that crashes in the first film, meaning this was a prequel the whole time & the two characters that survived it immediately died. Confusing.
Dr. Strangelove- This film is just like ‘Beneath the Planet of the Apes’ as everyone on the planet dies when a big ole’ bomb is set off. The only difference is that this one doesn’t feature evolved apes. Oh and also is critically acclaimed. Other than that they are pretty much the same movie I think.
All Quiet on the Western Front- I am speaking specifically on the 2022 version, though the 1930 & 1979 have the same ending. The film is set during World War I and every character we meet is killed as the war & film progress. The film depressingly ends with Paul (Felix Kamerrer) being brutally killed right as the November 11 Armistice goes into affect. Though his body is recovered, his dog tag is not so his death remains unknown. Sorry that was a sad list.
