One Million Ways to Die in Hollywood

Did you know that Bruce Willis has been shot and killed more times than Sean Bean? No? Well why would you, nobody has ever collated such information before…that is, until now.

The team at Wildz have sat through over 200 days of movies to reveal every single way the top 200 most killed actors and actresses in the world have met their fate.

This is One Million Ways to Die in Hollywood.

Common Causes of Death

Something that will come as no surprise to anyone, Hollywood loves their guns. Our analysis found that of 3,516 total deaths across 3,509 unique films, 1,054 were caused by the shooting of an armed weapon.

Lee Van Cleef was found to be the ‘most shot at’ actor in Hollywood, having been shot to death a staggering 21 times. Danny Trejo followed close behind in second, being gunned down an impressive 20 times.

In total, our analysis found 179 unique death types across 3,509 films with a reduced variance of death for female actors than male. Female characters were killed in 95 unique ways, while Male characters were killed in 147 – an increase in variety of 54.74%.

Click an actor's name for more details

Top 20 female deaths
Top 20 male deaths
Top 40 causes
Danny Trejo
Dina Meyer
Lee Van Cleef

Won't Somebody Think of the Children

Ever found yourself watching a kid’s movie, thinking certain scenes would be severely messed up in real life? For instance, the sequence from Loony Tunes where Bugs Bunny shot a member of the audience who couldn’t stop coughing?

As many clever edits on the internet have shown, whether it’s a PG-13 cartoon or an R rated horror movie, violence is violence in the cold recording of numbers.

Our analysis found that out of a total of 141 unique causes of death across the selected ratings of G, PG, R and X rated movies, those rated G and PG shared 45.3% of their causes of death with movies rated R and X.

Indeed, of the 64 instances where the cause of death portrayed in G, PG, R and X rated movies were common, we recorded onscreen portrayals of death that included drug overdosing, shooting, strangulation, hanging, being eaten alive, suicide and even decapitation!

Explore the data below to review the count and cause of death by movie rating.

Click the ratings for more details

Most Creative Killers

Have you ever wondered which Hollywood directors are the most creative at killing off their A-list cast?

Of the top 200 most killed actors and actresses in Hollywood, our analysis found that Tim Burton and Ridley Scott were the most creative killers (congrats), being responsible for 10 unique deaths across 10 unique characters.

Tim Burton and James Cameron were tied in joint second place with 10 unique deaths each, followed by Steven Spielberg in third, with 9 unique deaths.

You may be surprised to hear that Michael Bay is just off the top five list. Yes, despite his love for explosions, the former intern of George Lucas managed to find an additional 7 ways to kill off the top 200 most killed actors and actresses in film history, outside of kerosene fuelled eruptions.

Click a director's name for more details

Steven Spielberg
James Cameron
Tim Burton

Data and Methodology

Data sourced from Cinemorgue, the Open Movie Database and IMDB. Data was sampled and tested for accuracy. Deaths were counted if they were either shown on-screen, directly referenced or heavily implied. Voice Actor deaths were counted in animated movies where the actor had a key role.

Please note, this information is purely for entertainment purposes and may not be 100% accurate or definitive.


Image Accreditations

Danny Trejo: By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America - Danny Trejo, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59748137

Christopher Lee: By Screenshot from "Internet Archive" of the movie Dracula (1958) - https://archive.org/details/HorrorOfDracula-Trailer, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11740931

Dennis Hopper: By Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14299816

Lee Van Cleef: Albert C. Gannaway, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Dina Meyer: By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America - Dina MeyerUploaded by MaybeMaybeMaybe, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22876645

Julianne Moore: Nicolas Genin, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Glenn Close: By Mingle Media TV - https://www.flickr.com/photos/minglemediatv/14529187887/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34156043