Warning - there are spoilers for many of Sean Bean's TV and movie roles throughout this article, but then it could be argued that Sean Bean himself is a walking spoiler!
There are certain actors who seem to have built a career on dying in the movies. John Hurt pops his clogs quite often, Leonardo DeCaprio likes a good death scene in his scripts, it's 50/50 if Denzel Washington will make it to the end of the film and Mickey Rourke kinda looks like he's dead anyway!
But none of them can match the death count ratio of Mr. Sean Bean.
So far he has been beheaded, shot with arrows, frozen, turned into a statue, buried alive, knifed, crushed, hooked, fallen of a cliff, had his throat slit, skewered, drowned, ripped apart by horses, poisoned, blown-up and shot by a huge variety of firearms!
From his first film in 1986 called Caravaggio, where he had his throat sliced open, to the HBO show Game of Thrones, when he was beheaded by a sword, Sean Bean has died on film at least 25 times, as this Sean Bean Death Reel shows us...
February 6th sees the release of the long delayed Jupiter Ascending, and in the Wachowski's new film Sean Bean plays a character called "Stinger". I've been looking forward to it for some time, and whereas I only know limited details about the plot there's one thing I' pretty much expecting - "Stinger" won't survive all the way to the closing credits!
How "Stinger" goes out (if he goes out, I don't know for a fact, but it's gotta be a safe bet, right?), I don't know. Will it be a classic Sean Bean death scene? Could it beat any of these? Stand by your horses for the 5 best Sean Bean death scenes we've seen so far...
5. Game Of Thrones
I'd never read the George R.R. Martin novels before watching Game Of Thrones on TV, but once I saw Sean Bean was Ned Stark I figured he was not long for this world. The trouble is he made such an impact in the first 8 episodes that it literally left me screaming "Why must Sean Bean always die?". Unfortunately he was beheaded by that little bastard Joffrey and who then displayed his head on a spike for all to see.
4. The Field
Sean Bean's character, Tadgh McCabe, had one of the most unusual deaths on film ever. I'm not sure how many people have lost a loved one to 'death by cow' but my condolences go out to the McCabe family. Tadgh was running from a stampede of cattle, he just couldn't get away and the only escape seemed to be over a cliff. Along with Tadgh, a flock of sheep also plummeted to their deaths. We finally see a lifeless Sean Bean floating in dead sheep infested waters. Only a true death scene professional could've pulled that of convincingly.
3. Black Death
After refusing to renounce God, Sean Bean's character Ulric has ropes tied to his limbs. These are then attached to horses who are sent in different directions. One of the most graphic death scenes our Sean has ever filmed, that's for sure!
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2. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Sean Bean goes out in spectacular fashion. Death by Orc's. It's a heroic death. His character, Boromir is protecting Frodo and his fellow hobbits, but he is ultimately unsuccessful and they are captured. Boromir goes down fighting though, he takes two arrows in the chest, before finally succumbing to a third.
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1. Goldeneye
Not one, but two death scenes for Mr. Bean. I think that must be how they got him to be in the movie after he'd previously lost out on the part of Bond to Timothy Dalton in the 80s.
Early on in Goldeneye we see his character 006 Alec Trevelyan seemingly take a bullet to the head for Queen and country. But after the reveal that he's actually a double agent and the big bad of the movie, Bond must do battle with his former ally. The two fight on an antenna platform five hundred feet in the air. Trevelyan falls but 007 catches his foot at the last moment....
Is Sean Bean going to survive and spend the rest of his traitorous days behind bars? No, of course not, it's Sean Bean after all!
Bond drops him, yet Bean’s character somehow survives the fall! It seems that by 1995 Sean Bean had died so many times he was almost indestructible. However moments later a flaming facility falls on top of him, finishing him off once and for all.
These are just my 5 favourite Sean Bean death scenes, but with so many to choose from let us know your favourites in the comments below...
Sean Bean will be dying on a screen near you soon.
