List of films about suicide

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This is a list of films about suicide, divided between those in which the suicide is the main theme of the and those in which the act of suicide is committed but is not the main theme.

Contents 1 Main theme 2 Occurrence 3 Attempted suicide 4 See also

[edit] Main theme

• 2:37 - The story takes place during a normal school day. At precisely 2:37 a tragic suicide will occur, affecting the lives of a group of students and their teachers.
• 2 Days - Paul Rudd plays a struggling actor who is making a documentary about the last two days of his life before committing suicide.
• Bad Dreams - In the mid-1970s, a cult called Unity Field commits mass suicide, but a young girl survives. After being in a coma for thirteen years she wakes up in a psych ward, not remembering the incident. A psychiatrist tries to help her remember, but she begins seeing the leader of the cult talking to her from the grave, and the other members of her therapy group begin to commit suicide around her. Or is it suicide?
• The Bridge - A 2006 documentary offers glimpses into the darkest corners of the Golden Gate Bridge[1]
• Dead Man on Campus - Two college friends attempt to find a depressed roommate in order to push him over the edge and receive As, as per the stipulation in the school charter that you get straight-As if your roommate commits suicide.
• Heathers - After high school student Veronica accidentally causes the death of her best friend/worst enemy, Heather Chandler, one of the most popular girls at school, she disguises her death into a suicide with the assistance of her somewhat deranged boyfriend. Heather's supposed dramatic decision of ending her life makes suicide a trend among her classmates, with several of them attempting suicide.
• The Hours - Writer Virginia Woolf contemplates suicide while writing Mrs. Dalloway and eventually drowns herself in the river several years later. In 1949, one of the main characters, Laura Brown, reads Woolf's book and also - unsuccessfully - attempts suicide in order to escape her sense of suffocation. Fifty years later, Laura's son (who is dying of AIDS) kills himself by jumping from the window.
• Joy of Life - stunning landscape cinematography tells two San Francisco stories: the history of the Golden Gate Bridge as a suicide landmark, and the story of a lesbian in San Francisco searching for love and self-discovery
• Mar adentro (The Sea Inside) - This film is based on real-life events and stars Javier Bardem as Ramón Sampedro, a Galician fisherman left quadriplegic after a diving accident who fought a 28-year campaign in support of euthanasia and his right to end his own life. "Mar Adentro" has also been praised for its realistic and accurate display of the Galician people, languages and landscape.
• Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters - A film that chronicles the life and ritual seppuku of the Japanese author Yukio Mishima.
• My Suicide - A teen dramedy in which a high school media geek announces to his school through a video project his plans to commit suicide.[2]
• 'night, Mother - What would you do if someone you loved sat down with you one night and calmly told you that they were going to end their life before morning? This is Thelma Cates' dilemma. Her daughter, Jessie, has had it. A middle-aged epileptic unable to hold a job, with a failed marriage and a drug-addicted son on the wrong side of the law, Jessie can find no reason to go on living. Adapted from the play by Marsha Norman, "'night, Mother" is the story of a parent's worst nightmare. How can Thelma convince her daughter that life is worth living if she can't feel her pain? How can she end her daughter's embrace of death before morning?
• Noriko's Dinner Table - a prequel to the film Suicide Circle (see below). Noriko's Dinner Table explored in details about the history of one the girls in the pact and explained why she end up in the Suicide Circle.
• Suicide Circle - After the mass suicide of 54 high schools girls, a wave of seemingly unconnected suicides strikes Japan.
• Suicide Manual - A movie inspired by a controversial book published in 1993 Japan, The Complete Manual of Suicide.
• The Virgin Suicides - About the suicides of five sisters
• What Dreams May Come - Annie Collins-Nielsen (Annabella Sciorra) commits suicide by poisoning.
• Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself - A man tries to commit suicide regularly, but his brother interrupts him every time.

[edit] Occurrence

• 24 Hour Party People - Ian Curtis hangs himself while watching Stroszek by Werner Herzog
• Aliens - Private Vasquez detonates a grenade so as to eliminate two aliens approaching herself and Lieutenant Gorman - and fully aware of committing suicide, she detonates it and all four beings (two humans, two aliens) are lost in the explosion.
• Alien 3 - Main character Ellen Ripley kills herself in the end in order to avoid being captured by people of the company she worked for, whose purpose is to use the alien queen Ripley harbors in order to reproduce the species.
• Battle Royale- Two of the characters jump over a cliff to avoid playing the game.
• The Best of Youth - The suicide of Matteo, on New Years Eve, leads to his brother Nicola discovering an unknown nephew and happiness with a new love.
• Blade - Rather than become a vampire, Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) shoots himself.
• Bram Stoker's Dracula - Princess Elisabeta commits suicide upon hearing the (false) news of her husband's death in a battle.
• The Butterfly Effect (director's cut) - The main character, Evan Treborn, kills himself in the end to change destiny.
• Casino Royale - Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) locks herself in the elevator as the Venician building collapsed, and drowns in the canal before James Bond (Daniel Craig) can save her.
• The Chumscrubber - The school drug dealer, Troy, hangs himself at the beginning of the movie.

Constantine - Angela Dodson's twin sister commits suicide to escape the torment of seeing demons and angels walking on Earth.

• Cookie's Fortune - An eccentric Southern widow shoots herself in grief for her deceased husband.
• Dances With Wolves - The commander of Kevin Costner's fort commits suicide early on in the movie, possibly because of mental illness.
• Dawn of the Dead - A new SWAT recruit becomes overwhelmed with the carnage that surrounds him and after shooting a zombie shoots himself.
• Day of the Dead - As the zombies over run the base, Pvt. Steel (G. Howard Klar) finds himself cornered. Rather than be eaten alive he puts his gun to his head and pulls the trigger. Another character, bitten by a zombie and clearly mentally ill, allows himself to be eaten.
• Dead Poets Society - A student shoots himself after being emotionally rejected by his father
• Death and the Maiden - Dr. Mirando kills himself willingly at the end, by jumping off the cliff.
• Death of a Salesman - Willy Loman (Dustin Hoffman) kills himself near the end of the movie by supposedly driving his car into a wall (this happens off-screen).
• Donnie Darko - Donnie, to stop the world form being destroyed he travels back in time and lets the engine crush him. Considered suicide because he could have moved but sat there and let it happen.
• The Departed - Mr. French shoots himself near the end of the film to avoid burning to death in his car after a crash.
• The Devil's Advocate - Lomax's wife commits suicide, after being driven mad, and later Lomax also kills himself, rejecting Milton's offers (however, the ending suggests that all these took place only in Lomax's mind).
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb - Jack D. Ripper, a delusional Air Force general commits suicide by firearm.
• End of Days - Jericho Cane impales himself to a sword after he was possessed by Satan which not only killed Jericho himself, but Satan as well.
• Full Metal Jacket - a Marine in boot-camp shoots himself after killing his drill instructor.
• Gattaca - Jerome Eugene Morrow (Jude Law) incinerates himself at the end of the film.
• Girl, Interrupted - Daisy (Brittany Murphy), one of the characters from the mental hospital commits suicide.
• Hamlet - Mad Ophelia drowns herself in the lake.
• Hard Candy - Patrick Wilson's character is forced to kill himself after Ellen Page's character tells him things would be worse for him if he didn't due to the fact he is a Internet predator.
• Harold and Maude - Harold fakes suicides regularly. Maude takes an overdose of pills on her 80th birthday.
• The Haunting - Eleanor, possessed by the forces of the house and completely mad, commits suicide at the end of the film while her friends are trying to remove her away from the mansion.
• House of Sand and Fog - Ben Kingsley's character Behrani suffocates himself with a plastic case after he learns of his son's death.
• Hostel - Kana, after being tortured with a blowtorch has half of her face horribly disfigured. Unable to bear the stigma of being disfigured, she jumps into the path of an oncoming train, her body crushed and head smashed in to process.
• Imaginary Heroes - Matt, one of the two sons of the Travis family, commits suicide in the beginning of the film. Later on, Matt's brother meets a fellow patient in a clinic who had attempted suicide by cutting his veins.
• Interiors - The family's mother suffers from depression because she is perpetually rejected by her former husband, and eventually commits suicide by walking out into the ocean.
• In the Line of Fire - A would-be Presidential assassin (John Malkovich) who is dangling over the edge of a long drop allows himself to fall to his death rather than be captured.
• Kairo - Taguchi, a lonesome youngster hangs himself.
• Ken Park - Ken Park commits suicide by handgun as a result of excessive teasing
• Land of the Dead - After being bitten by a zombie one of the mercenaries shoots himself rather than turn into a zombie.
• Last Days - A character loosely-based on Kurt Cobain commits suicide.
• Le Locataire - The main character (played by Roman Polanski), dressed as a woman, jumps from his apartment balcony to the street. Gravely injured, he is transferred to the hospital (and presumably succumbs to his injuries later, though it is never shown as film ends).
• Lethal Weapon - Mel Gibson's character considers shooting himself early on in the film (he has suicidal tendencies ever since his wife died). Also, the young girl who dies in the opening scene is thought to have killed herself, although the truth is only revealed later.
• Letters from Iwo Jima - several characters commit suicide with hand grenades after it becomes apparent they've lost the battle on Iwo Jima. Ken Watanabe's character kills himself with a gun he received as a gift for his service before the film ends.
• Lilja 4-ever
• Looking for Alibrandi - Matthew Newton's character kills himself by cutting his wrists right before HSC.
• Man on Fire - Marc Anthony's character, Samuel, shoots himself with the "dud" bullet the Denzel Washington character tried to kill himself with earlier in the film.
• Million Dollar Baby - Frankie Clint Eastwood assists Maggie Hilary Swank on her suicide as she is paralyzed and without him assisting would have caused doctors to save her.

• Monster's Ball - Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton) works as a prison guard on death row. His son, Sonny (Heath Ledger) works with him. When Sonny realizes his father doesn't care about him at all, and even hates him, he shoots himself in front of his father.
• Mulholland Drive - In the conclusion of the film, the main protagonist (Naomi Watts) commits commits suicide by use of a firearm.
• Muriels Wedding - Muriel's mother takes an overdose of sleeping pills after her husband humiliates her by leaving for another woman. However the suicide is disguised as a heart attack so not to further ruin Councillor Heslop's already tattered reputation.
• Natural Born Killers - Mickey's father commits suicide with a shotgun.
• The Ninth Gate - In the very beginning of the film, rare book collector Andrew Telfer hangs himself.
• Nyfes - Melancholic Haro, one of the women on the ship en route to America, commits suicide by jumping into the sea.
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Billy Bibbit commits suicide by cutting his throat because of Nurse Ratched's mockery.
• Ordinary People -In the aftermath of an attempted suicide, suburban teenager Conrad Jarrett deals with his brother's death in a boating accident. Late in the film, a friend of his kills herself off-screen. Best picture winner.
• The Others - At the end of the movie, it is revealed that the mother of the two children murdered the kids before killing herself, coming back as a ghost without the knowledge of her own death.
• The Prestige - (Rebecca Hall) hangs herself.
• Rules of Attraction - The secret admirer of Sean Bateman, known only as 'The Food Service Girl' kills herself by slashing her wrists in a bath and exsanguinating.
• Romeo & Juliet - Romeo ingests poison and Juliet stabs herself in the chest.
• Scum - One boy commits suicide after his wife dies on the outside. Later in the film the shy introverted boy commits suicide after being raped in the greenhouse.
• Shawshank Redemption - The prison warden shoots himself to avoid imprisonment for corruption. Earlier, a former inmate hangs himself after he is paroled when he can't cope with freedom.
• The Sixth Sense - Vincent Gray commits suicide because he sees dead people.
• Snatch - In a discussion to find out who can replace the incapacitated Gorgeous George (Adam Fogerty), Tommy (Stephen Graham) is informed one of his choices (John The Gun) shot himself.
• Stay - Ryan Gosling's character, Henry, is suicidal for the whole movie and kills himself at the end. It is later revealed, however, that it was merely a fantasy.
• Sylvia (2003) - biographical picture about Sylvia Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow); Plath commits suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.
• The Talented Mr. Ripley - A young girl in a small Italian town drowns herself when the rich American who impregnated her will not pay for an abortion.
• Thelma and Louise - The title characters drive off a cliff at the end.
• The Right Way - The contrasts suicide with abortion
• The Three Musketeers - Rebecca DeMornay's character is sentenced to be beheaded. After revealing Cardinal Richelieu's plans, she ends her life by jumping off the cliff.
• Titanic - First Officer William McMaster Murdoch shoots himself after killing Jack Dawson's friend in self defence. Also, villain Caledon Hockley is said to having committed suicide years later, after the stock market crash that began the Great Depression.
• Totally F***ed Up - James Duval's character commits suicide by drinking a cocktail of cleaning products.
• The Unsaid - The Andy Garcia character's son commits suicide at the beginning of this film.
• Vanishing Point - Main character drives into a road block.
• White Mischief - One of the characters, Alice, succeeds in killing herself after several failed attempts.
• White Oleander - One of the characters, Claire, commits suicide because her husband doesn't love her and she's afraid of losing Astrid's love also.

[edit] Attempted suicide

• About A Boy - The main character's mother attempts suicide by overdose of sleeping pills early in the film.
• The Apartment - Feeling dejected by her married lover, Fran Kubelik Shirley Maclaine overdoses on sleeping pills and is nursed back to health by C.C. Baxter [Jack Lemmon].
• Bang Bang You're Dead - Trevor (Ben Foster) attempts to hang himself while on the phone with a friend. His foot unexpectedly slips from the ladder and the rope chokes him, but the overhead pipe breaks from his weight, dropping Trevor to ground, still alive.
• Bulworth - Depressed main character Jay Bulworth (Warren Beatty) hires an assassin to kill him because he cannot bring himself to do the job personally.
• Better Off Dead... - The main character (John Cusack) humorously attempts suicide many times throughout the film unsuccessfully.
• The Cable Guy - Near the end of the film, the title character (Jim Carrey) throws himself off a ledge overlooking a long drop into the TV satellite; Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick) tries to save him, but the cable guy lets go after telling him of his loneliness. He, however, survives the fall (albeit very badly injured) and is transported to a hospital by helicopter at the end of the film.
• Hannah and Her Sisters - Woody Allen attempts to kill himself with a rifle. Because of his excessive perspiration, the rifle slips as the gun goes off and misses.
• Crimes of the Heart - Babe (Sissy Spacek) attempts suicide twice (first, by hanging herself and then by putting her head in the oven) but fails both times. Additionally, the mother of the three sisters had committed suicide after her husband left her.
• Dawn of the Dead - With the zombies having found the location of the survivor's base, Peter (Ken Foree) puts a gun to his head as the first zombies approach. As he cocks it, he suddenly turns it on the nearest zombie and escapes.
• Delicatessen - Aurore (Silvie Laguna) builds many elaborate and darkly humorous Rube Goldberg machines that all lead to her suicide, although they all fail in the most roundabout and coincidental ways.
• The End - Burt Reynolds directed and starred in this 1978 black comedy about a man who finds out that he does not have much longer to live and has several bungled attempts at suicide. Sally Field and Dom DeLuise co-star.
• Full Monty A depressed security guard tries to kill himself by carbon-monoxide poisoning until he is saved by main character Gaz and his accomplice. In the film we learn he is depressed because his mother is very ill, he has no friends, and he can't cope with his repressed homosexuality.
• Girl, Interrupted - Winona Ryder's character is confined to a mental institution following a suicide attempt. Brittany Murphy's character is later a successful suicide.
• Groundhog Day - Bill Murray's character attempts suicide to avoid living through another Groundhog Day.
• House of Sand and Fog - The main characte attempts suicide by a drug overdose when she believes she has been abandoned.
• Last Life in the Universe - A suicidal, obsessive-compulsive Japanese librarian is forced to hide out with a pot-smoking Thai woman at her shabby beach-side home.
• Le Divorce - Naomi Watts' character attempts suicide while pregnant because her husband left her for another woman.
• Little Miss Sunshine - Steve Carell plays a man who attempts suicide by opening his wrists. His failed suicide is a running theme of the film.
• The Magdalene Sisters - After losing a precious St. Christopher medal, a treasured keepsake that connects her with her son, the character Crispina tries to make herself sick with pneumonia in order to die. When it fails, she attempts hanging herself with bedsheets.
• Martin and Orloff - Martin attempts suicide early in the film.
• MASH (film) - The character Painless Pole, believing he is committing aided by the doctors in his unit, is really taking a placebo, as part of a plot to save his life.
• Office Space - A character in the movie tries to kill himself by carbon monoxide inhalation but decides not to at the last minute, only to be struck by a truck as he backs out of his drive way.
• Permanent Record A high school student (Keanu Reeves) kills himself, leaving friends to deal with loss.
• Resident Evil - Escaping via the overhead pipes, the surviving members of U.B.C.S. (umbrella biohazard countmeasure service) are divided with Kaplan (Martin Crewes) left on his own. He then tells his comrades to move on - as there is no hope for him to escape, he then proceeds to put his gun to his head (with only one bullet left), he is about to pull the trigger when he quickly turns it on a clambering zombie. Whilst, hearing the gunshot his friends fear the worst.
• The Royal Tenenbaums - Richie Tenenbaum attempts suicide after he discovers his sister, who he is in love with, has been having an affair with his best friend.
• Titanic - Rose DeWitt Bukater attempts to commit suicide by jumping off the stern of the ship, until Jack Dawson rescues her.
• Sabrina (1954 film) - Audrey Hepurn or, Sabrina in the film attempts to commit suicide by inhalation of car fumes or carbon dioxide, over the pain she feels about losing her love. Humphrey Bogart saves her.
• Saw 2 - Jigsaw reveals his attempts to commit suicide.

[edit] See also

• List of songs about suicide
• Suicide attacks in film