The Most Heartbreaking Deaths In Thriller Movies

Law Abiding Citizen is the story of Clyde Shelton, a devoted family man whose wife and daughter are murdered during a home invasion. He's unhappy with the plea deal prosecutor Nick Rice cuts with one of the culprits. So unhappy, in fact, that he plots revenge. The hitch is that he mysteriously carries his scheme out from a jail cell after being arrested for slaying the guy who got off easy.

For the plot to work, the viewer has to understand how heinous the crime was. Law Abiding Citizen makes certain they do. A bound and gagged Clyde is forced to watch as one of the assailants beats and stabs his wife. Unfortunately, their adorable little girl watches this too. Upon spotting her, the guy picks her up, takes her into a bedroom, and closes the door. What specifically happens in there is left to our imagination, but based on what's already been shown, it's something no child should have to deal with.

Susie, a young girl in the '70s, has lots of hopes and dreams that are shattered when the neighborhood sicko, George, kills her. Her spirit ends up in a weird kind of limbo. From The Great Beyond, she guides her grieving father Jack to clues that help him understand what happened and who did it.

Susie's murder is not shown onscreen, but that just makes it sadder and more chilling. George leads her to a vacant lot where he's built an underground bunker filled with toys and games that appeal to children. He offers her a Coke and appears to be coming off as a nice guy. Then he gets a little weird, leading Susie to understand that his motives for bringing her into the bunker are malevolent. Her narration confirms that this twisted nut job assaults and kills her down there. This naive girl fell into his cunning trap, changing the fabric of her family forever. 

David Fincher's Se7en is a gruesome, gut-wrenching film in which a serial killer stages his murders according to the Seven Deadly Sins referenced in the Bible. Two detectives, David Mills and William Somerset are trying to track the slayer down. It comes as a huge shock when their “John Doe” arrives at the police station to turn himself in. But first, he takes the dramatic step of making it clear the final murder in his series will be based on “wrath.”

To accomplish this, he reveals that he previously visited Mills's pregnant wife Tracy and decapitated her. Tracy's head is now in a box he presents to Mills and Somerset, and he hopes Mills will kill him in retaliation, thus fulfilling his mission. The character's death is traumatizing for two reasons. First, she's a truly innocent figure who has been unwittingly pulled into this madman's scheme. Second, Mills's anguished reaction shows how utterly devastated he is to know his beloved wife and unborn child died in such a gruesome manner.

Megan Is Missing was not a widely released movie, but it has established a well-earned reputation for being brutal to watch. It uses the found footage format to tell the story of Amy, a teenage girl trying to figure out what happened to her friend Megan, who disappeared after meeting up with someone she connected with online. Amy puts the pieces together in this cautionary tale about the dangers of interacting with strangers on the internet.

What she finds is absolutely heartbreaking because imagining anyone, much less an innocent teenage girl, being subjected to such a demise is horrifying. Amy finds pictures of her friend wearing a painful-looking torture device. Adding to the discomfort is a later scene where she discovers her friend's decomposing body inside a barrel. It's clear that whatever happened to Megan was profoundly awful. She was literally thrown away afterward.

Man on Fire features Denzel Washington as John Creasy, an ex-Marine hired to protect Pita, the young daughter of a rich couple living in Mexico City. At first, he's all business, but over time he forms a bond with the girl. When she's kidnapped in an ambush that also leaves him wounded, Creasy decides to stop at nothing to get her back. 

Lots of bad guys die at his hands in the movie. The finale finds Creasy discovering that Pita's own father was part of the kidnapping plot. He tracks down the guy who carried it out, only to be shot in the chest in the process. Creasy frees Pita but dies from his wounds. Although it's heroic that he gave his life to save the girl, it's sad knowing that she has lost the protector and friend who went to great lengths to ensure her safety.

US Marshal Teddy Daniels is sent to a mental institution to investigate the disappearance of a psychotic woman who murdered her children. The woman somehow vanished without a trace, despite heavy security. Daniels grows suspicious of the facility's psychiatric guru, Dr. Cawley, who claims to have developed a cutting-edge treatment for extremely violent offenders.

The story's big twist is that Teddy is actually a traumatized patient in the facility, and the woman who killed her children was his wife Dolores. A flashback scene in which he comes home and fishes his kids' dead bodies out of a pond is emotionally grueling, thanks in part to the palpable anguish DiCaprio brings to the role. The same goes for that scene's end, which finds Teddy shooting Dolores as a result of her actions - and then breaking down a second time as he realizes his entire family is gone.