10 Best Deaths In Western Movies

Michael Cimino's career-altering (not in a good way) revisionist western was among the most chaotic and expensive productions of all time. His first film since The Deer Hunter, Cimino brought scene stealer Christopher Walken back to portray Nathan Champion.

Inspired by the Johnson County War, the film boasts several notable death scenes. The best belongs to Walken, who goes out in a hail of gunfire with his frontier cabin up in flames behind him.

Sensing his end was near, Champion writes an emotional goodbye letter to his friends before meeting his maker. Adding injury to insult, the dastardly Frank Canton (Sam Waterston) and his associates obliterate everything Champion has (including his best friend) before they pump the poor guy full of lead.

Walken's Champion is less than pleasant when we first meet him. Working for the cattle barons, he coldly guns down a settler. Over the course of the film, we see him have a crisis of conscience, ultimately fighting the men he once served. His stab at nobility costs him dearly in the film's most dramatic scene. Champion’s last stand is as dramatic as it gets.