9 Movie Deaths You Hear Off-Screen That You Probably Missed The First Time
2. Lao - The Dark Knight
There's so much going on in Christopher Nolan's masterful The Dark Knight that it's easy to space on some of the finer details. Case in point, the fate of corrupt mob accountant Lau (Chin Han).
Half-way through the film we see that The Joker (Heath Ledger) has captured him and placed him atop a pile of the mob's money, which he then burns while talking to the Chechen (Ritchie Coster).
Nolan never pans up to the top of the money pile again, which combined with the Joker's sheer theatrical monologuing can make it easy to forget that Lau's burning to death up there.
Though we don't outright hear Lau screaming in agony, the fact that we can hear the flames loudly lapping throughout the scene is really the only aural cue we should need that Lau has been burned to a crisp. And yet, there's just enough misdirection here to make you forget that fact.
An unused still from the scene showing Lau's torched body was leaked years later, confirming his fate if there was somehow any remaining doubt.