25 Greatest Film Deaths This Century

The movie that turned Charlize Theron from a Hollywood starlet into the kind of unequivocal dramatic force we know her as today, Monster catches up with real-life prostitute and serial killer Aileen Wuornos (Theron) when she first encounters her young love, Selby Wall (Christina Ricci). A romance springs from the desert dust, and soon the pair are attempting to carve out a new life in all the wrong places.

It's an affecting effort from everyone involved, especially Theron and director Patty Jenkins (long before Wonder Woman), but it's undeniably a miserable watch that can't help but leave a sour taste long after it's over. And one of the reasons for this is the kills.

Aileen initially makes a habit of picking up and slaying sleazy johns after being r*ped by one, and taking their cash and cars. But as she becomes desperate to make money and escape justice, she preys on the wrong guy.

Horton (Scott Wilson) is merely a kind man offering shelter and assistance, whom Aileen carjacks and leads out to the middle of nowhere. He surrenders his car, begs for his life, and tells Aileen about his family. She is divorced from her humanity enough to go through with it, but not so much that she doesn’t feel every moment of it, gasping and bawling as she kills him with a shot to the back of the head, execution style. It’s a deeply sad end to an already sad story.