10 Heartbreaking Deaths of Movie Characters We Never Even Knew
9. The 2nd Devons - 1917
Designed to appear as two long, continuous shots spanning the entire two-hour run time, 1917 is an incredibly immersive film that forces audiences to invest in its characters immediately.
Lance Corporals Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Will Schofield (George MacKay) were given the task of travelling across German-occupied territory in order to stop the British forces falling into a trap and losing 1,600 men of the 2nd Devons regimen, including Blake's older brother Joseph (Richard Madden). It was a race against time to stop such a massacre, and it was successful to a degree.
Though Schofield made it to Colonel Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch) in time to call the attack off and save hundreds of lives, he wasn't able to save everyone. As he reached the 2nd Devons, the first wave of men were just going over the top to be slaughtered.
From this moment comes the iconic scene of Schofield running across the battlefield against the waves of British soldiers emerging from the trenches to be blown and shot to pieces. Watching Blake die from his wound was hard enough, but countless soldiers being sent to their deaths was even worse.