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[Dalek]

Guardians of the Galaxy tops list of deadliest films with 83,871 fatalities

Guardians of the Galaxy, the tongue-in-cheek superhero movie starring Chris Pratt, has comprehensively topped a study of the deadliest blockbusters, thanks to an especially bloody finale.

The film sees the killing of 80,000 Nova Corps pilots in one of its closing scenes, which takes its estimated on-screen body count to 83,871 – that’s 78,184 more than its nearest rival.

The study was conducted by financial services comparison website Go Compare, and totted up the casualties in the best-performing Hollywood films since the 1940s.

It found that the average number of deaths in movies has risen through the decades. In 1940, there was just one film with 50 or more on-screen deaths, rising to four in 1950, 33 in 1960, 44 in 1970, 84 in 1980 and 119 in 1990. Four films from 2014 made it into the top 10.


The top 10 deadliest Hollywood movies
1. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) – 83,871 on-screen deaths
2. Dracula Untold (2014) – 5,687
3. The Sum of All fears (2002) – 2,922
4. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) - 2,798
5. 300: Rise of An Empire (2014) – 2,234
6. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) – 1,741
7. The Matrix Revolutions (2003) – 1,647
8. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) – 1,417
9. Braveheart (1995) – 1,297
10. The Avengers (2012) – 1,019

full list here:
http://www.gocompare.com/life-insurance/directors-cut

Spoiler

#46 Thor: The Dark World

 

[Neoxon]

Wait, didn't Civil War give a finite number of deaths for The Incident (A.K.A. The Battle of New York in Avengers 1)?

 

[Gattsu25]

Blowing up three planets with billions each doesn't count? Star Wars 7 stay slipping.

 

[Xamtheking]

Wait, didn't Civil War give a finite number of deaths for The Incident (A.K.A. The Battle of New York in Avengers 1)?

"on-screen"

 

[Lagamorph]

GoCompare?

That's a strange website to be running a survey like that.....

 

[Screaming Meat]

Alderaan tho.

Blowing up three planets with billions each doesn't count? Star Wars 7 stay slipping.

Exactly. If this is the shoddy work Go Compare do, I shall be seeking [INSERT PRODUCT] elsewhere.

Good day.

 

[Septimus Prime]

No Man of Steel? So you can stop being pouty now, Supes.

 

[CaviarMeths]

Blowing up three planets with billions each doesn't count? Star Wars 7 stay slipping.

There have been several films with inhabited planets exploding. I guess their omission is in how they define "on screen."

 

[BronsonLee]

Wait, didn't Civil War give a finite number of deaths for The Incident (A.K.A. The Battle of New York in Avengers 1)?

It wasn't a lot IIRC

 

[Sub_Level]

Aliens are not people. Maybe 1000 alien lives are worth 1 human life. Skewed numbers.

 

[Plinko]

How is Cutthroat Island not on there? That thing killed an entire studio.

 

[zero_suit]

Star Wars: A New Hope?

EDIT: Forgot about TFA.

 

[Gattsu25]

There have been several films with inhabited planets exploding. I guess their omission is in how they define "on screen."

If they're only counting movies where the precise moment of death is captured on-screen in the final product then Star Wars 7 still counts.

I mean, the people in GOTG are obscured by their spacecraft and many don't even show a single pixel of their person/skin on screen before dying, so obstruction of viewing the person shouldn't matter.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

those planets that got destroyed in The Force Awakens, must've been small af.

 

[Screaming Meat]

How is Cutthroat Island not on there? That thing killed an entire studio.

EY OH

 

[neojubei]

Man of steel should be on that list.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

Just wait until we get to Annihilation.

 

[xxracerxx]

Man of steel should be on that list.

The buildings were empty!

 

[Cartman86]

Star Trek (2009) If you can count Nova Corp ships exploding without seeing the people in the ships then you can count planets.

 

[Raptor]

How is Cutthroat Island not on there? That thing killed an entire studio.

3/10

 

[Dalek]

How is Cutthroat Island not on there? That thing killed an entire studio.

Damn-this is a post worth framing.

 

[Shamrock7r]

What about Independence Day? Showed several of the largest cities in the world being destroyed

 

[Xamtheking]

I think they mean in terms of 100% verifiable statistics (like, they counted the exact number of exploding ships in GoTG

 

[Gattsu25]

What about Independence Day? Showed several of the largest cities in the world being destroyed

Will Smith says "Earth"

 

[Pop-O-Matic]

How is Cutthroat Island not on there? That thing killed an entire studio.

By that metric, Marvel still holds the win since they killed cinema.

 

[neojubei]

The buildings were empty!

Tell that to the people in the Wayne Tower building in Batman v Superman.

 

[Screaming Meat]

I think they mean in terms of 100% verifiable statistics (like, they counted the exact number of exploding ships in GoTG

The ships were empty!

 

[Kinyou]

Wait, didn't Civil War give a finite number of deaths for The Incident (A.K.A. The Battle of New York in Avengers 1)?

I imagine they also count the dead aliens

 

[DrNeroCF]

The pilots in ships? How's that count as 'on screen'? Wouldn't the same logic work for buildings / cites and put Independence Day up there?

Edit: And if only 'ships' count, doesn't that put Titanic at number 3?

There's absolutely no way the MPAA counts that as 80,000 on screen deaths...

 

[neojubei]

By that metric, Marvel still holds the win since they killed cinema.

So salty.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

I'm guessing they wanted to go for on screen battles otherwise stuff like star wars would have been listed. Though I am surprised by the omission of star trek into darkness, the c crash landing ship flattened like 5 city blocks, not counting the opening scenes attack and when the enterprise was ripped to pieces and you saw the crew just get vented into space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHSJ-Xq-flo

I mean seriously what the fuck.

No Man of Steel? So you can stop being pouty now, Supes.

As many times as I've seen that sequence the presentation is so disjointed and it has so many weird transitions and continuity errors that it's almost impossible to tell how much actual destruction is going on there.

 

[Mr. Poolman]

By that metric, Marvel still holds the win since they killed cinema.

Ow The Edge

 

[Screaming Meat]

I'm guessing they wanted to go for on screen battles otherwise stuff like star wars would have been listed.

Two Death Stars, a planet gun and a Super Star Destroyer were destroyed in onscreen battles.

Just sayin.

 

[The Kree]

 

[ffejeromdiks]

No Man of Steel? So you can stop being pouty now, Supes.

You don't actually really see anyone die in Man of Steel. Of course it's implied but it's not like you're seeing people get brutally crushed left and right every 5 seconds of film like everyone makes it sound like. Hell BvS showed more people die in the Metropolis battle than Man of Steel.

If we can count implied deaths then this right here is probably still the bodycount king: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX9hL93HPMI

Still disturbing all this time later too, Cameron had some massive stones to show children being incinerated like that, their lifeless bodies laying there burning remains one of the scariest images I've ever seen in movies. Of course you can say it's just a dream sequence but seeing as how we know it really happens in the original timeline I'd say it counts, I'd say it's the only of the movies listed so far where it's massive display of death is treated horrifically as it should be instead of being a glorified fireworks display to spice up the third act.

 

[Layell]

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy killed off just about everyone from earth, doesn't that count?

 

[Man Called Aerodynamics]

Yeah, it's been a while since I've seen GOTG but that seems like an extremely arbitrary distinction between it and any number of other films where entire cities and/or planets get destroyed.

 

[AlexMogil]

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy killed off just about everyone from earth, doesn't that count?

Just what I was going to say.

(Even though they came back)

 

[Subpar Spatula]

Guardians of the Galaxy is trying really hard to be good at something.

 

[GreySquirrel]

GoCompare is a UK price comparison website for stuff like car insurance and mortgages. They know shit all about movies. This is purely a publicity piece.

 

[The Kree]

Two years from now Thanos looks back on this article and has a sensible chuckle.

 

[PSqueak]

So what's the parameter? Army kills?

Because, i mean, you don't even need to go to TFA's destruction of an entire galaxy, there are movies where the entire population of earth is killed, that is more than enough to top GotG.

 

[Glass Rebel]

this arbitrary distinction is the movie death version of

 

[Subpar Spatula]

You could easily say there's more dead people in World War Z.

Easily.

 

[Whom_Gods_Annoy]

I think their method might be wrong if they have an outlier like that.

 

[Darth Pinche]

I seriously doubt there were 80,000 Nova Corps ships. 10,000 maybe but that is pushing it.

 

[Pamplemousse]

So what's the parameter? Army kills?

Because, i mean, you don't even need to go to TFA's destruction of an entire galaxy, there are movies where the entire population of earth is killed, that is more than enough to top GotG.

Yeah, it doesn't make sense. A New Hope also had all of Alderaan being destroyed. Just counting military deaths is stupid.

 

[Skunkers]

Star Wars: The Force Awakens at number one with gangs of planets being destroyed simultaneously (plus two entire solar systems, when I think about it).

 

[Chezzymann]

Star Wars: The Force Awakens at number one with gangs of planets being destroyed simultaneously.

There was probably some movie that had an entire galaxy or universe destroyed at some point

 

[Fj0823]

Rebuild of evangelion killed every living thing on earth on screen you could hear the screams, oh God the screams...

So I'm not impressed