12 Movie Deaths You Knew Were Coming (That Still Broke You)

Once we’re introduced to the central duo of Sergio Leone’s deconstructive Western Once Upon a Time in the West, it’s clear that the remorseless cool-eyed child killer Frank isn’t going to make it out of this celluloid adventure alive, and that Charles Bronson’s taciturn antihero will no doubt be the hero to save this small town and its requisite damsel in distress from the nefarious villain. But this is Leone, and the old West is once again acting as a metaphor for old Hollywood and its black and white view of morality.

As such, once we meet Jason Robards’ sardonic Cheyenne the picture becomes clearer and his fate seems all but sealed from his first conversation with Claudia Cardinale’s not-so-helpless heroine. What unfolds is a Western which challenges the conventions of the genre, constantly wrong-footing the audience in all areas but one—catching a stray bullet in the climactic firefight, the gentleman bandit Cheyenne dies smiling, a last breath for the old west before the new world is born.

We’re not crying, you’re crying.