Top 10 British Actors Who Always Die In Movies

Top 10 British Actors Who Always Die In Movies

If you see this lot on screen, don’t bet on them surviving to see the end credits. Welcome to WatchMojo UK, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 10 British actors who always die in movies.

Dying in character is an occupational hazard for film and TV actors, but for this list we’re looking at those performers who draw the short straw more than most. And we’ll be ranking them not just on quantity, but also on the quality of their on-screen deaths. Naturally, there are some seriously sizeable spoilers ahead!

#10: Idris Elba

In arguably his best known role as ‘Stringer’ Bell in “The Wire”, this actor met a famously violent end, and that set the tone for much of his subsequent film career, with Elba’s significant on-screen deaths quickly surpassing double figures. Idris can play the hero or villain, but he was all about the honour for two of his most famous roles.. “Pacific Rim” sees him detonate a bomb on his own Jaeger, and in “Prometheus” he heroically rams his ship into an alien spacecraft. What a guy.

#9: Robert Pattinson

In 2008, R-Patz became a star almost overnight by playing Edward Cullen in the blockbuster teen-lit series, “The Twilight Saga”. As a vampire, he was technically already dead, but Pattinson has plenty more conventional film fatalities to his name, as well - including a role in the emotional ending to 2014’s “The Rover”. But, he most famously kicked the bucket in the “Harry Potter” series. Playing Hufflepuff hero Cedric Diggory, he met a premature end in “The Goblet of Fire”, when his character was murdered as Lord Voldemort returned.

#8: Kate Winslet

Winslet has the dubious privilege of being the only actress on today’s list. And she actually rose to mainstream prominence as one of very few survivors in the James Cameron epic, “Titanic”. However, a year before that she drowned as Ophelia, in Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet”. And since then, Winslet’s personal body count has continued to rise with famous roles in big-screen successes like “The Reader” and the “Divergent” series. And she’s not always an undeserving victim, either. In “Triple 9” she plays the ruthless wife of a mafia boss, and meets a fittingly violent end after betraying one victim too many.

#7: Ralph Fiennes

With his breakout role in 1993 as a hateful Nazi officer in “Schindler's List”, the only complaint you could make about that character’s demise is that it didn’t come soon enough. Fiennes has carved quite the reputation for villainous roles since, but he often ends his movies on the wrong side of a life and death struggle - with the “Harry Potter” films again proving prime example. Even when this actor plays more relatable characters, he seems to die more often than most, and he’s failed to survive many a big budget blockbuster.

#6: Mark Strong

When you play the bad guy as often as Mark Strong does, you have to expect to meet your fair share of grim fates. A versatile actor, Strong has been hanged, and crucified and voodoo drowned – in fact there aren’t many ways in which he hasn’t died on screen. But this actor deserves particular credit for the larger-than-life style of some of his end-of-life sequences. Look no further than the “Kingsman” franchise, or the “Kick Ass” films for full-on, explosive examples of him going out in glory.

#5: Gary Oldman

A well-versed character actor, Oldman has mastered a wide range of roles in his time, so it’s not all that surprising that he has such a large number of notable deaths to his name – and we’re not talking about the ‘passing away peacefully in your sleep’ type, either. Oldman gets extra points for suffering one of the most unusual and unsettling deaths on screen. In “Hannibal”, having previously survived an encounter with Doctor Lecter, he is eaten alive by wild boars. How many actors can stick that on their CV?

#4: Liam Neeson

As a man with a ‘very particular set of skills’, Neeson is usually the one dishing out the hurt. But when he’s not tracking down kidnappers, he’s just as mortal as any other actor. He’s been stabbed by Daniel Day-Lewis, and derailed by Batman - and he met his maker in the appropriately named “A Million Ways to Die in the West”. But his sayonara on “Star Wars” is arguably Neeson’s most famous film death, as Qui-Gon Jinn falls victim to Darth Maul’s lightsaber. The prequel series is constantly criticised, but this was an epic moment!

#3: Christopher Lee

Well known for playing the villain in some of film’s most famous franchises - including “Star Wars”, “The Lord of the Rings” and “James Bond” - Christopher Lee routinely scared his audiences, but he often didn’t make it to the story’s close. Not only does Lee boast the lowest survival rate of any actor ever, he’s also died more than any other performer as the same character, perishing ten times as Dracula. Then again, since Dracula always resurrects in time for the next film, perhaps those deaths don’t count?

#2: John Hurt

In a distinguished career spread across more than 130 films, John Hurt was shot, stabbed and/or hanged on multiple occasions. Script writers rarely went easy on any of this actor’s characters! Of course, he’s also front and centre for arguably the most iconic film death of all time. In Ridley Scott's “Alien”, Hurt’s fellow cast members weren’t even pre-warned about exactly how Kane would be killed, so those expressions of shock and horror are entirely genuine. No one saw this coming.

#1: Sean Bean

He doesn’t yet have the most movie deaths under his belt, but no one’s reputation surpasses Sean Bean’s when it comes to dying in films. So much so, it’s almost a surprise whenever he makes it past the opening credits. Whether he’s stampeded by cows, ripped apart by horses or shot in the face for reading poetry, Bean always brings an inventive edge to every scene he dies in. But, the actor has revealed that his personal favourite on-screen death is also probably his most famous: as Boromir in “The Fellowship of the Ring”, when he’s turned into an Uruk-hai pincushion.