25 Greatest Film Deaths This Century

Despite being tastelessly parodied in other media (looking at you, Scary Movie), Million Dollar Baby, which sees a tragic boxing ring accident disable athlete Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) at the top of her game, is a deeply affecting watch, and one of director Clint Eastwood's masterpieces. But while Gran Torino and Unforgiven have a sense of pace, excitement and fun that carry them along without letting their more miserable elements settle too heavily on us, Million Dollar Baby flips the script and makes us sit through every moment of its protagonist's pain, anguish, paralysis and attempts to die.

And all this leads to Maggie’s inevitable, hard-won death scene. Quadriplegic and bed-bound, suffering from bed sores and with her leg amputated, Maggie can’t get her country to kill her, and so she turns to her trainer Frankie Dunn (also Eastwood). After initially refusing, he comes to understand only death can liberate her.

Shot in lowkey lighting, this scene is the darkest night of the soul, as Frankie is forced to leave his own morality at the door, and set himself up for potential damnation in this life and the next. He unplugs Maggie’s support machines and injects a life-ending shot of adrenaline into one of her tubes. It’s made all the more painful by Maggie’s smile - her acknowledgement of what her mentor is doing - and a haunting voiceover from Morgan Freeman, who plays Eddie Dupris, Frankie’s gym assistant and the only other witness to Maggie’s death.