10 Brutal Movies With The Biggest Body Counts

2. 300

Gerard Butler 300
Warner Bros.

Estimated Body Count: 585

Zack Snyder's 300 has few aspirations towards historical accuracy, but it sure is entertaining as an intentionally over-the-top, hyper-stylised comic book adaptation brought to vivid live-action form.

Snyder's gorgeous rendition of the Battle of Thermopylae is largely focused on the 300 Spartans annihilating a seemingly never-ending fleet of Persian soldiers, typically by stabbing them or, in one especially glorious sequence, hurling them off a cliff.

The highly CGI-assisted nature of the film's production - largely shot against green screen as it was - means that all of the blood is digital, lending another heightened, comic book-y layer of grisly exaggeration to 300's aesthetic.

Of the film's 585 kills, only around 20 are of Spartan soldiers, with the overwhelming majority being faceless Persian goons - and the occasional animal, too.

And yet, despite culling a small village's worth of people, 300 still doesn't hold the claim for the movie with the biggest, most brutal body count.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.