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

The clue is in the title for this one—with King Leonidas’ army of only a mere 300 Spartans facing down over 300,000 Persian enemies, it was pretty clear how all 300 of said Spartans would end up by the close of the Battle of Thermopylae.

But Leonidas himself seems like he might somehow...

Okay, maybe it was Zack Snyder’s judicious application of slo-mo during the film’s many battle sequences, or Gerard Butler’s angsty teeth-gnashing hamminess, or the overblown machismo of Frank Miller’s source material. Whatever the cause, the film manages a neat trick of both informing you immediately that these men are doomed, and nonetheless leading you to think that Butler’s Leonidas might somehow make it out alive despite this.

As corny and over-the-top as a lot of the film, it’s hard to deny that this sense of invincibility with which the titular army and their heroic leader are imbued makes it tough not to root for them to defy the odds, and their eventual sacrifice manages to make the leap from inevitable to tragic as a result.