Death becomes him...
Sean Bean is one the UK's most recognisable actors. Throughout his career he's played romantic heroes, sneering villains, jewel thieves, and even a Bond baddy. Even so, he's still most famous for one thing: he dies. A lot.
Bean has carked it so many times now that even he h🐷as lost count, so we decided to count down 15 of the actor's best on-screen endings. These are the moments where his (usually despicable) characters meet sticky ends by bullets, being blown up and occasionally bovine farm animals...
15. Death Race 2 (2011)
The film:Bean plays crime boss Markus Kane (now thꦚere's a B-movie villain name if ever we heard one, its all about the hard ks), the rotter who puts a price on the head of driver Frankenstein (Luke Goss). Not a vintage movie, to put it lightly, but Bean brings a touch of class to the bone-headed guns n gears action.
How does he snuff it? One of Frankensteins gang♍ster buddies steps in and shoots Kane dead but at least he letsꩲ him smoke a cigar first.
14. Lorna Doone (1990)
The show: Bean rocking flowing locks that make him look like a faded '80s pop star or Pat Sharpe plays the wicked Carv♉er Doone in this TV movie based on Richard Doddridge's famous novel. Carver plans to force Lorna into marrying hi⛦m, but he meets a watery end instead...
How does he snuff it? After 🧸a climactic fight, Carver is punched and topples off a ridge into a river where he drowns.
13. Ca$h (2010)
The film: Chris Hemsworth's Sam Phelan finds a suitcase full of cash, but wishes he hadn't when the hysterically-named Pyke Kꦦubic (our Mr Bean, natch) comes after him. Alas, the Phelans have sp🐲ent some of the dough already and are forced into doing criminal deeds for Kubic to pay off their debt.
How does he snuff it? Leslie Phelan (Victoria Profeta) shoots him while they struggle in🐟 a moving car. Did nobody realise that guns and cars 🅰dont mix?
12. The Hitcher (2007)
The show: Remember '80s classic The Hitcher, which starred the mighty Rutger Hauer? It was brilliant and brutal. This remake... isn't. Still, it does afford our man another meaty villain to add to his rogue's gallery. John Ryder (Ryder and he's a hitchhiker. Hahaha. Ha...) is a thoroughly nasty sort, but he gets his comeu🔯ppance at the end.
How does he snuff it? Sophia Bush's heroic Grace blows his head off w꧂ith a shotgun. ♉Satisfying.
11. The Island (2005)
The film: Cinemas prime exponent of crashes, bangs and Shia LeBeouf, Michael Bay, helmed this middling clone drama. Bean plays a morally dubious scientist (is there any other kind in the movies?) who sets out to destroy his creations when they discover the truth about their creation. Its duff, but infinitely better than any of the Transformers flicks.
How does he snuff it?🧸 Yowch! Hes hit with a grappling hook and then strangled when the gantry he's standing on collapses.
10. Equilibrium (2002)
The film: This dystopian sci-fi abouꦏt a grey future where emotion is outlawed was a well-intentioned flop. Still, it gave Bean a break from the bad guy roles and another scene for his death reel. In it he plays Cleric Errol Partridge effectively a member of the futuristic police who steals an outlawed book of Yates' poetry and begins to experience those forbidden feels.
How does he snuff it? Partridge deliberately provokes Chris♕tian Bale's Cleric John Prestonꦍ into shooting him in the face.
9. Red Riding: 1974 (2009)
The film: British TV doesn't get much-better than this ultra-dark and ultra-brilliant adaptation of David Peace's Red Riding novels. Adapted as a trilogy of films, Bean appears in the first instalment as John Dawson a corrupt real estate developer who iꦰs implicated in a nasty murder in York💟shire.
How does he snuff it? A pre-Spider-Man Andrew Garfield ensures that Dawson isnt around for the sequels by shooting hi👍m wh🔯ile hes lounging on a none-more-70s leather sofa. Its another gun death, but after the horribly believable cruelty depicted in the film it feels thoroughly deserved.
8. The Field (1990)
The film: This little-seen Irish drama finds a pre-Sharpe, pre-fame Bean pl𒀰aying Tadhg McCabe, the son of a farmer who stands to inherit a field, but gets caught🔯 up in all manner of low-key trauma until he meets a final, slightly surreal end...
How does he snuff it? His ♈father goes mad and herds all his cattle off a cliff. Alas, poor old Tadhg gets caught up in it too, making this one of cinem🐻a's rare examples of death by cow.
7. Dont Say A Word (2001)
The film: This slightly plodding thriller f♛inds Sean playing jewel thief Patrick, who comes after Michael Douglas's Dr Conrad and kidnaps ꦓhis daughter as part of a convoluted scheme to retrieve an expensive gem.
How does he snuff it? It's not a great movie, but Patrick does at least get a memorable deat﷽h scene. Conrad chucks the gem in an excavation machine. Bean jum✨ps in to retrieve it and gets buried alive. Brr...
6. Henry VIII (2003)
The show: Bean li🌌kes his historical dramas. In this flashy two-par♉t TV series, he plays Robert Aske the real life lawyer, turned leader of the rebellion in Yorkshire, who met a horrific end at the hands of the king. He does at least go down fighting before his eventual, horrible, demise.
How does he snuff it? He's hung outside by chains and left to slowly die. The real Aske was hung, but the 🤪series plays fast and loose with the chronology.
5. Patriot Games (1992)
The film: This early '90s spy flick was arguably the role that🍬 made Bean a movie star. Playing the villainous, if mundanely-named Sean Miller, he takes on Harrison Ford's CIA agent Jack Ryan in a climactic (and comically overblown) speedboat battle to the death.
How does he snuff it? The fight is going well for Sean, but Ryan wins the day. Mi💛ller is impaled on a spike and then blown up while a storm rages around the combatants. Ah, 90s action movies, how we love thee...
4. Black Death (2010)
The film: One of the grizzlier entries on this list 👍comes from this obscure, but actually really rather good, medieval horror. Bean plays a knight, Ulric, who is leading a mission to find a village that has somehow escaped the touch of the Black Death. There are rumours that a necromancer may be involved, but the truth is far more sinister...
How does he snuff it? Turned on by the villageꦐrs, Ulric is tied to some horses and pulled limb f♈rom limb. Yep, it's a nasty one
3. Goldeneye (1995)
The film:Does this count as two deaths? Pier🌟ce Brosnan's first and best James Bond adventure introduces Bean as Alec Trevelyan AKA 006 a compatriot of Bond who is caught and shot by a Russian soldier in the film's opening sequence. However shock! it's all a ruse. Trevelyan faked his death and, nine years later, he is back and running the Janus crime syndicate.
How does he snuff it? He falls off a radar dish. And then, just to prove that⭕ he really is a goner this time, he gets a big metal array that's also on fire dropped on top of him. What did we just say about the 90s?
2. Game Of Thrones (2011)
The show: For many this was the moment that Game Of Thrones became more than just another fantasy show. Bean plays Lord Eddard Ned Stark, one of 🌠Westeros' few good men and someone that (non-book readers) assumed would carry on throughout the full series. Nope!
How does he snuff it? The daft git makes the mistake of trusting the oily Littlefinger (a man who had previously told N𝔉ed not to trust him) and winds up in a cell. He'll be saved, you keep thinking, but no. King Joffrey has him decapitated right in front of his family. As if to rub it in, the second season teaser poster featured a stark image of Ned's head on a spike.
1. The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001)
The film: Likely the actor's single most famous scene, and his own personal favourite death. Bean plays the noble-but-flawed warrior 🌱Boromir who is 𓃲overwhelmed by the dark power of the One Ring. He chases after ring-bearer Frodo, but returns to lucidity just in time to save him from a horde of Orcs. However, he pays the ultimate price...
How does he snuff it? Boromir's death is hardly sur𓃲prising, but it's arguably the most powerful scene in the movie. Shot full of𓆏 arrows, he keeps on going, hacking away at his enemies, and granting the hobbits a chance to escape.
Will Salmon is the Streaming Editor for GamesRadar+. He has been writing about film, TV, comics, and m♍usic for more than 15 years, which is quite a long time if you stop and think about it. At Future he launched the scary movie magazine Horrorville, relaunched Comic Heroes, and has written for every issue of SFX magazine for well over a decade. His music writing has appeared in The Quietus, MOJO, Electronic So♛und, Clash, and loads of other places too.
