Weirdest and Most Common Movie Deaths Broken Down and Ranked in New Study

MovieWeb

By Ryan Scott

Published Mar 23, 2021

Recent research has revealed the most common ways, and some of the most bizarre ways, that people die in movies.

Death scenes in movies have been commonplace for about as long as movies have been a popular pastime. Yes, things have evolved a great deal over the years, but for one reason or another, people tend to die pretty often in movies. It's just part of the cinematic experience. Now, a new study has revealed the most common, and some of the weirdest, ways people die on screen.

The research was conducted by the folks at Goodluckmate. To determine the most common causes of cinematic death, they looked at the Cinemorgue Wiki, which contains a log of more than 50,000 movie deaths. The study found that stabbing was the most common way people die in movies. 5,978 deaths came about as the result of a stabbing. Coming in at the number two spot was death by explosion, with 3,741 instances counted. Rounding out the top three was shooting, with 3,387 deaths.

These all make a lot of sense for anyone who has watched movies, even casually. Slasher franchises such as Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, which contain many entries over multiple decades, all feature quite a few deaths by stabbing. Not to mention any instances of stabbing deaths in thrillers or action movies. Explosions and guns are also commonplace in cinema, so it makes sense that those causes of death would be right near the top of the list. One might even find it surprising that shooting didn't take the top spot, given how commonly bullets fly in movies.

As for the weird ones, the study also came across some less-frequent, but certainly stranger, causes of death. In three instances, they found that someone died by hiccups. Yes, really. In four instances, someone was killed with a corkscrew. Amazingly, in 12 cases, the cause of death was determined to be laughing. There were also seven instances of flatulence causing death in a movie. And, in one case, someone died by orgasm.

Some of the other causes of death that didn't make the top ten include death by monster attack, which came in at number 15 with 1,243 instances. Being eaten alive also made the list at number 31, and it happened 666 times, which can certainly be interpreted as foreboding. Coming in at the very bottom of the most common deaths list at number 50 was death by plane crash, with 369 occurrences counted. You can check out the full list of the top ten most common and weirdest deaths for yourself below. This news comes to us via GoodLuckMate.com.