Sci-fi movies use imaginative and futuristic concepts to eclipse the real-life limits of science, logic, and fact. Unfortunately for the characters who inhabit the genre, this status quo means that their on-screen fates can be worse than anything that exists in reality. As such, science-fiction has played host to a number of movie deaths that viewers will never get over, no matter how many times they watch them play out.

From the tragic losses of core characters to more speculative forms of death and suffering, many of the best sci-fi movies of all time prove that there’s no set formula for an unforgettable demise. Enacting a devastating emotional toll upon their audience, these moments compound their movies’ impact and leave viewers thinking about them long after the credits roll. Some of these on-screen fates are so shattering that viewers couldn’t forget them even if they tried.

10

Kay Harrison – Alien: Romulus

Murdered By The Offspring

The Alien movies are known for possessing some of the most brutal kills that science-fiction has to offer, with 2024’s Alien: Romulus proving no exception to this gruesome status quo. While there’s a litany of horrible ends to choose from amid Fede Alvarez’s foray into the movie series, Romulus’ crowning jewel is unequivocally the macabre fate of Isabela Merced’s Kay Harrison.

The pregnant Harrison eventually gives birth to a nightmarish human-Xenomorph hybrid during the movie’s climactic sequence, a complication arising after she imbibed a dose of Z-01 to heal rapidly. While Kay’s actual moment of death at the hands of her own monstrous offspring thankfully takes place off-camera, the visual of her abhorrent “child” feeding from the corpse of its lifeless mother is one that audiences won’t be forgetting in a hurry.

9

Seth Brundle – The Fly

Mercy Killed By Ronnie

Widely regarded as body-horror director David Cronenberg’s best movie, 1986’s The Fly bestows one of cinema’s most disturbing fates upon its lead character. Attempting to perfect teleportation, Jeff Goldblum’s scientist, Seth Brundle, undergoes a nightmarish transformation after inadvertently splicing his DNA with a housefly, eventually turning into an abhorrent fly-human hybrid by the time the movie reaches its conclusion.

A horrific miscalculation from Brundle in The Fly’s climactic sequence sees Goldblum’s demented scientist accidentally fusing his nightmarish form with his metal teleportation pods. This leaves him in perpetual agony and begging his love interest Ronnie to mercy kill him. Unable to speak after his final transformation, the desolating sight of Brundle silently pleading for death by lifting Ronnie’s sH๏τgun to his own head is a visual that has lingered in audience’s minds since 1986.

8

Spock – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Killed By Radiation Poisoning

While he may have returned to life in 1984’s Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, the demise of Leonard Nimoy’s Vulcan charge in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is such a devastating moment that many fans have struggled to move past the trauma ᴀssociated with the sequence, despite Spock’s subsequent resurrection. In one of science-fiction’s most emotional and intense scenes, Spock willingly sacrifices his own life by entering the radiation-flooded engine room to repair the Enterprise’s damaged warp drive.

Talking to Spock through a perspex screen, William Shatner’s James Kirk is forced to watch his dear friend slowly succumb to radiation poisoning in soul-cleaving fashion. Nimoy’s charge tugs on the audience’s heartstrings further with a rare display of emotion, telling Kirk that he will always be his friend before producing his iconic Vulcan salute and turning away to die quietly. Whatever Spock’s canonical fate, the loss of such an inimitable character in such upsetting fashion never fails to hit home.

7

Alderson – Cube

Dissected By The Cube

The first entry in the Cube movie series, cult classic Cube sets the bar high for disturbing deaths in its very first scene. Introducing audiences to the film’s unforgiving universe with a sinister bang, the sequence depicts Julian Richings’ Alderson attempting to escape from one of the franchise’s signature cube-shaped rooms. Unfortunately for Alderson, he chooses the incorrect escape hatch, precipitating a particularly gruesome kill scene that many fans still likely haven’t gotten over.

Alderson dies in a flash, but that doesn’t take any of the shock factor out of his brutal end. Richings’ charge freezes in shock before thin red lines appear all across his body, with blood starting to pour rapidly from his wounds. Alderson is revealed to have been literally “cubed” by a grid of razor sharp wire. His dismembered body slowly collapses into a heap of bloody cubes, a gory and unsettling vision that will stick with viewers.

6

Miranda North – Life

Hurtling Endlessly Into Deep Space

Boasting an all-star ensemble cast, 2017’s Life follows a group of scientists aboard the ISS who find themselves hunted through the space station by a murderous extra-terrestrial enтιтy dubbed Calvin. Boasting some of the more unenviable fates that science-fiction has to offer, Life saves its most unforgettably traumatic demise for last — a remarkable state of affairs given that death is merely implied.

These horrific circumstances are bestowed upon Rebecca Ferguson’s Miranda North in the movie’s final scene. Attempting to launch Calvin into deep space using an escape pod, the survivors’ plan backfires in appalling fashion. The alien ends up plunging to Earth instead, presumably precipitating the end of humanity. North’s pod is left hurtling unchecked into oblivion, leaving Ferguson’s charge with no recourse but to scream in despair until her oxygen supply inevitably runs out. It remains one of science-fiction’s most terrifying endings.

5

Edgar – Snowpiercer

Sacrificed By Curtis

The English-language debut of Parasite director Bong Joon-ho, 2013’s Snowpiercer depicts a visceral class struggle aboard the тιтular locomotive, which bears humanity’s final survivors after a global extinction event. There’s no shortage of emotionally loaded deaths in Snowpiercer, but the fate of Jamie Bell’s Edgar arguably serves as the most memorable pick of a harrowing bunch.

The endlessly upbeat Edgar is killed in a brutal battle around the movie’s halfway mark. Chris Evans’ Curtis abandons Bell’s charge to his doom, despite having an opportunity to save him. He sacrifices his right-hand man in order to take Tilda Swinton’s loathsome Minister Mason hostage. A tear-jerking death that lives long in the memory, the heartbreaking nature of Edgar’s murder is further compounded when Curtis later reveals that he killed the young man’s mother when the apocalypse first broke out.

4

The Fairgoers – Nope

Devoured Alive By Jean Jacket

The third feature film offering from modern horror virtuoso Jordan Peele, 2022’s Nope serves as a blend of the director’s traditional parent genre and fully-fledged science-fiction. Chronicling a mysterious series of unexplained phenomena as a predatory extra-terrestrial organism referred to as “Jean Jacket” terrorizes rural California, Nope features one of the most unforgettably harrowing death sequences in recent memory.

Compounding its shock factor, the scene sees a huge group of fairgoers killed by Jean Jacket in one go, rather than just depicting the death of a single individual. After these unfortunate victims are hoovered up by the alien, Peele produces the horrifying reveal that they are now being slowly digested alive in Jean Jacket’s digestive tract, bringing this nightmare to life through an array of horrifically claustrophobic sH๏τs and traumatizing howls of despair.

3

Han Solo – Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens

Stabbed By Kylo Ren

Bringing back one of the most iconic sci-fi characters of all time after an absence of more than 30 years, only to swiftly and brutally do away with him, sounds like an unimaginable course of action. However, that’s exactly the approach that Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens decided to adopt. The much-anticipated debut of the sequel trilogy saw Harrison Ford’s Han Solo murdered by Kylo Ren, run through with a lightsaber while attempting to make his estranged son see reason.

The sequel trilogy may have been rightfully lambasted by the vast majority of the Star Wars fan base, but this is undoubtedly one of the most moving scenes that the entire franchise has to offer. Chewbacca’s roar of despair and the visual of a mortally wounded Han reaching out to tenderly touch his son’s face never fails to tug on the heartstrings. It results in what is arguably Star Wars’ saddest death scene to date.

2

Romilly – Interstellar

Blown Up By A Booby Trap

Brought to life by Paul Gyasi, it’s hard to escape the notion that sci-fi masterpiece Interstellar’s Professor Romilly is one of the most unfortunate characters that sci-fi has to offer. The scientist spent 23 years in complete isolation aboard the Endurance after his crew was trapped on a planet where time was severely dilated. He’d given up hope that he would ever see a human face again by the time they eventually made it back to the ship.

Unfortunately, things only got worse for Gyasi’s charge from there. Serving as the cherry atop the most tragic of cakes, the scientist met his doom soon after the crew returned, when he was unexpectedly killed by a booby trap engineered by Matt Damon’s Dr. Mann. Bearing the unenviable accolade of Interstellar’s whipping boy, Romilly was a kind and empathetic individual, compounding the emotional devastation ᴀssociated with this character’s undeserved fate.

1

Roy Batty – Blade Runner

The Replicant’s Life Cycle Ends

Contentiously sci-fi’s most iconic demise, Roy Batty’s final moments serve as the crowning jewel for one of the greatest genre offerings of all time. With his body failing, Rutger Hauer’s replicant goes out in unforgettably poignant fashion after using the last of his strength to inexplicably save Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard before producing what is arguably cinema’s finest soliloquy with his immortal “tears in rain” speech.

Speaking of the wonders he has seen throughout his life-cycle, Batty mournfully laments that “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” Hauer’s flawlessly delivered monologue is only 42 words long but never fails to invite an inimitable level of existential introspection from anybody watching. Batty may have been a replicant, but his dying words encapsulate the universal human experience of being afraid to die in a manner that few sci-fi characters have ever come close to replicating.