Warning! This article contains major spoilers for The Long Walk.

The Long Walk is unflinching in its portrayal of death, with 8 losses standing out as truly heartbreaking. The premise of The Long Walk is fairly straightforward: a large group of men enters a compeтιтion to overcome the financial ruin the United States is in by outlasting the other contestants.

The Long Walk‘s main cast must maintain a walking speed of at least three miles per hour. If they dip below, they get a warning. Three warnings, and they are ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, until a sole walker remains. As a result, there is a great deal of death by the time of The Long Walk‘s ending.

Director Francis Lawrence does not shy away from this death, with The Long Walk fulfilling its R-rating with gore, murder, and true grimness. Although there are some changes in The Long Walk from its novel counterpart, written by Stephen King, the film’s main casualties remain (almost) the same.

Some, including the deaths of William Hamilton and Rank Sanders, were unlucky to miss out on this list. Both have emotional endings, yet do more to inform other characters than stand alone as upsetting scenes. With that in mind, here are the 8 biggest deaths in The Long Walk, ranked from least heartbreaking to the most gut-wrenching.

Gary Barkovitch

Gary Barkovitch, played by Charlie Plummer, is one of The Long Walk​​​​​​’s most intriguing characters. He begins as an awkward outcast, quickly villifying himself to the other walkers by showing excitement and relief at the deaths of other contestants. Eventually, he goads another walker into attacking him, resulting in their death.

This slowly affects Gary over the course of the movie, though not without the character’s darker urges coming through in the form of gloating and inhumanity. In The Long Walk‘s third act, Gary loses his grip on his sanity, resulting in his stabbing himself in the neck repeatedly.

This comes just after Gary expresses his desire to be part of Raymond’s group, as he simply wants friends he never had in school. This not only explains the behavior Gary enlisted to alienate himself, but also puts him on a more sympathetic path. Sadly, this ends quickly with Gary’s death, with the shock factor of his suicide making his fate a sad one, if not the most upsetting.

Thomas Curley

Thomas Curley serves as The Long Walk‘s first example, for both the audience and the contestants in the story. Curley is introduced in an overly sympathetic way; he’s the youngest of the contestants at 18, and played by Roman Griffin Davis. As someone who has watched and loved Jojo Rabbit, the latter fact made me warm to Curley instantly.

As alluded to, Curley’s death is the first in The Long Walk and marks the grim reality of the contest for its contestants and the film for its audience.

Curley gets a cramp and, after being helped briefly by Raymond Garraty, falls behind. The Long Walk wastes no time showing Curley being sH๏τ through the face. The death is perhaps the most unnervingly gruesome in The Long Walk and, combined with Curley’s sympathetic depiction, is truly saddening.

Collie Parker

Collie Parker, played by Joshua Odjick, is a lone wolf for much of The Long Walk. He comes off as cold and distant until his walls start to come down. Collie becomes relatable, at least he did to me, by showing his rebellious spirit against The Major’s totalitarian regime.

He reveals he has no family, eventually singing a song for the wife of another of The Long Walk‘s ᴅᴇᴀᴅ characters yet to be listed. This all makes Collie a compelling part of The Long Walk, with his self-imposed death, after the defiant murder of one of The Major’s goons, marking a sad ending.

​​​​​​Stebbins

Garrett Wareing’s Stebbins is somewhat of a mix of Gary and Collie for most of The Long Walk. He walks alone, poking fun, although not as sadistically as Gary, at the other contestants. His cold, dedicated demeanor makes him akin to Collie, until he becomes the third-last member of The Long Walk to die.

Stebbins reveals his true motivation: he is the bastard son of The Major. Stebbins wanted to win and use the wish that is granted upon doing so to be invited into his father’s home. This is a strikingly sad origin story and a grim reminder of The Major’s evil, making Stebbins’ death, inflicted via illness, one of The Long Walk‘s more impactful.

Richard Harkness

Jordan Gonzalez’s Richard Harkness has a somewhat nerdy, awkward personality that makes him easy to root for. Richard reveals he is writing a book about The Long Walk, with this simple motivation driving him and involving him with the film’s other main characters.

Richard is so easy to like that his death is one of the hardest-hitting in The Long Walk, despite his lack of screentime in comparison to other characters. For one, it is brutal, with Richard walking a long way on a broken ankle that is depicted with cringeworthy, brutal realism.

After failing to continue walking on his injured leg, Richard is sH๏τ by The Major’s men. The impact this has on The Long Walk‘s other characters, and the fact that children from a nearby town watch it happen, makes Richard’s death unexpectedly harrowing.

Hank Olson

Moving into the top three, the death of Ben Wang’s Hank Olson in The Long Walk is not the first, by a wide margin, but it is the first where the tears started to flow. Olson is played expertly by Wang, with the character quickly becoming the funny man of the group.

Olson makes jokes, is the brunt of others, and takes things very lightly. This immediately makes Olson real, relatable, and likable. Wang also has the look of someone you’d want to protect, making the second half of his journey in The Long Walk all the more heartbreaking.

The first red flag was when Olson stopped talking and making jokes. Eventually, he loses his way and tries to attack one of The Major’s thugs. He is sH๏τ and left to bleed out rather than being finished off as a warning to the others not to try an uprising.

Olson’s screams of terror make this death one of the most difficult to watch, and the first that truly got me emotional in The Long Walk. Later, it is revealed that Hank had a wife at home, making his death all the sadder after the fact.

Raymond Garraty

Surprisingly, the death of Cooper Hoffman’s Raymond Garraty, The Long Walk‘s main character, was not the most heartbreaking to me. Instead, Raymond’s most soul-crushing moment came upon walking through his mother’s town, spotting her, and trying to hug her while tearfully apologizing for enlisting in the contest.

However, Raymond’s eventual sacrifice to allow David Jonsson’s Peter McVries to win is still suitably distressing. The investment audiences have in Raymond makes this a sad moment, as does the reaction of Peter.

This, combined with the sadness of seeing the film’s protagonist go out, makes Raymond’s death the second-saddest in The Long Walk.

What stops it from being the most heartbreaking is the emotional impact of the last character to be ranked, as well as the culmination of Peter’s character arc. Raymond’s death is quickly followed by Peter’s revenge against The Major, ending the film on a somewhat cathartic note that means another death trumps Raymond’s.

Arthur Baker

Arthur Baker’s death is the saddest in The Long Walk, by a fair margin. Witnessing this scene caused me to break down in tears, primarily due to the simplicity of it and how it encapsulates one of The Long Walk‘s themes.

Arthur, played by Tut Nyuot, is introduced as someone who just wants to make some friends. He becomes part of the group and, despite not being the loudest, funniest, or most talkative, has a stalwart-like presence throughout the entire film.

His death comes after suffering an internal hemorrhage, resulting in him saying his goodbyes to Raymond and Peter. This scene broke me, with the latter two telling Arthur just how good a friend he was. He tells the duo to give his grandmother his necklace and asks them not to watch as he is sH๏τ.

I cannot overtly explain why this scene impacted me more than any others. Perhaps it was the innocence in Nyuot’s performance and, thus, Arthur as a character. Perhaps it was the fact that he achieved the goal he set out to accomplish and made some friends.

Above all, though, Arthur’s death typified the brief moments of beauty, camaraderie, and friendship in The Long Walk, shining a bright light through the bleak mist of the film.