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Best Mass murder Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of mass murder cinema — measured across 1,466 indexed frames from 23 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Mass murder films over-index on blood, handgun and dirt — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

    Jonathan LiebesmanDP Lukas EttlinIMDb 5.8TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    In August, 1939, a worker goes into labor while working in a slaughterhouse and dies after a complicated labor, though the deformed child survives. The possibly orphaned baby is dumped in a garbage container and found by a beggar later, who brings him home. Along the years, the mentally retarded and disturbed boy called Thomas is raised by the Hewitt family in spite of having psychological problems as well as suffering from an unnamed skin disorder, later working in a meat packing plant. In July, 1969, when the facility is closed, the inhabitants move to other places, but the deformed, mentally childlike Thomas flies into a rage after being insulted and kills the foreman. His deranged brother (considered his uncle due to their age difference) executes the sheriff that is going to arrest Thomas, and assumes his identity, wearing his clothes,driving his car though the roads in Texas and entitling himself as Sheriff Hoyt. Meanwhile, the brothers Eric and Dean are traveling in a Jeep with their girlfriends Christie and Bailey, Eric to serve in Vietnam and Dean escaping to Mexico. When the group has a car accident, Hoyt arrests Eric, Dean and Bailey and brings them to his house. Christie follows them trying to rescue the trio, trapped in the house of sadistic and insane cannibals, in a trip of horror and gore.

  2. 2

    Goodfellas (1990)

    Martin ScorseseDP Michael BallhausIMDb 8.7TMDB 8.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    Henry Hill recounts his life in the mob, from his teenage years to his eventual downfall. Immersed in organized crime, he experiences wealth, power, and violence alongside friends Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito. The film blends crime, drama, and dark humor, exploring loyalty, ambition, betrayal, and the consequences of criminal life. Themes of family, morality, and the fleeting nature of power underpin the story.

  3. 3

    Badlands (1973)

    Terrence MalickDP Brian ProbynIMDb 7.7TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    It's the late 1950s. Mid-twenty-something Kit is a restless and unfocused young man with a James Dean vibe and swagger which he has heard mentioned about him more than once. Fifteen year old Holly has a somewhat cold relationship with her sign painter father, if only because she is the primary reminder of his wife, who died of pneumonia when Holly was a child. The two meet when Holly and her father move from Texas to the small town where Kit lives, Fort Dupree, South Dakota. They slowly fall in love, something about which she cannot tell her father because of their age difference and Kit coming from the wrong side of the tracks. When he tries to take Holly away with him, Kit, on an impulse, shoots her father dead. After letting the initial emotions of the situation settle down, Holly decides voluntarily to go with Kit, they trying to make it look like they committed suicide in a house fire. But they soon learn that their plan did not work, there being a bounty on their heads. As such, Kit continues his murderous ways in order to protect the life he wants to eke out with Holly. She, on the other hand, wants to support Kit, especially as he begins to feel more and more trapped, but she may only be able to endure what looks increasingly to be a battle they cannot win as a couple. Through it all, they openly and privately muse about their philosophies on their life considering their current circumstance.

  4. 4

    Natural Born Killers (1994)

    Oliver StoneDP Robert RichardsonIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    Mickey Knox and Mallory Wilson aren't your typical lovers - after killing her abusive father, they go on a road trip where, every time they stop somewhere, they kill pretty well everyone around them. They do however leave one person alive at every shootout to tell the story and they soon become a media sensation thanks to sensationalized reporting. Told in a highly visual style.

  5. 5

    Haute Tension (2003)

    Alexandre AjaDP Maxime AlexandreIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.8See in full on FrameThrower →

    Alexia travels with her friend Marie to spend a couple of days with her family in their farm in the country. They arrive late and are welcomed by Alexia's father. Late that night, a sick, sadistic killer breaks into the farmhouse, slaughters Alexia's family--including their dog--and kidnaps Alexia. Marie hides from the criminal and tries to help terrified, hysterical Alexia, chase the maniac, and disclose his identity in the end.

  6. 6

    God Bless America (2011)

    Bobcat GoldthwaitDP Bradley StonesiferIMDb 7.1TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    Loveless, jobless, possibly terminally ill, Frank has had enough of the downward spiral of America. With nothing left to lose, Frank takes his gun and offs the stupidest, cruelest, and most repellent members of society. He finds an unusual accomplice: 16-year-old Roxy, who shares his sense of rage and disenfranchisement.

  7. 7

    First They Killed My Father (2017)

    Angelina JolieDP Anthony Dod MantleIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →

    In the 70's, a Cambodian middle-class girl sees the lives of her family and her turning upside-down when the Khmer Rouge invades the Cambodia. They leave their comfortable apartment and lifestyle to live in a primitive working camp. Her father, a former officer, is killed and the family splits to survive.

  8. 8

    Everything Is Illuminated (2005)

    Liev SchreiberDP Matthew LibatiqueIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Jewish-American writer Jonathan Safran Foer is a collector of his family's memorabilia, although most of the items, some which he takes without asking, would not be considered keepsakes by the average person. He places most of those items in individual Ziploc bags, and hangs them on his keepsake wall under the photograph of the person to who it is most associated. He has this compulsion in an effort to remember. He is able to tie a photograph that he receives from his grandmother, Sabine Foer, on her deathbed - it of his grandfather, Safran Foer, during the war in the Ukraine, and a young woman he will learn is named Augustine - back to a pendant he stole from his grandfather on his deathbed in 1989, the pendant of a glass encased grasshopper. Learning that Augustine somehow saved his grandfather's life leads to Jonathan going on a quest to find out the story at its source where the photograph was taken, in a now non-existent and probably largely forgotten town called Trachimbrod that was razed by the Nazis during the war, he armed only with his limited knowledge, the pendant, his grandfather's Star of David necklace, the photograph, tip "money", and an old and largely outdated map. Prior to arriving in the Ukraine, Jonathan prearranges the guide services of Odessa-based Heritage Tours, which specializes in helping Jewish expats discover their past. The company is owned and operated by three generations of the Alexander Perchov family, who generally think Jewish people are stupid for wanting to revisit their past, and spend large sums of money for their services in doing so. The three from Heritage assigned to Jonathan's file are: the company founder Alexander I ("Grandpa"), the retired, non-blind blind man who will be the driver; his "seeing eye" dog, Sammy Davis Jr. Jr., a deranged bitch of a dog; and Alexander III ("Alex"), a western pop cultural loving young man, whose broken English will need to suffice for translation. Jonathan will learn that his guides are a loving but dysfunctional lot who have little interest in helping him beyond taking his money. But during their time together, this quest will affect Jonathan, Grandpa and Alex in different ways, all tied to the value of remembering.

  9. 9

    We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

    Lynne RamsayDP Seamus McGarveyIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →

    Eva's a mother trying to piece together her life following an incident caused by her odd child, Kevin. Once a successful writer, she's forced to take whatever comes her way, in spite of the increasingly bizarre and dangerous things Kevin says, or does.

  10. 10

    Southland Tales (2006)

    Richard KellyDP Steven PosterIMDb 5.3TMDB 5.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    Southland Tales is an ensemble piece set in the futuristic landscape of Los Angeles on July 4, 2008, as it stands on the brink of social, economic and environmental disaster. Boxer Santaros is an action star who's stricken with amnesia. His life intertwines with Krysta Now, an adult film star developing her own reality television project, and Ronald Taverner, a Hermosa Beach police officer who holds the key to a vast conspiracy.

What mass murder films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a mass murder frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — blood is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • blood2.7×
  • handgun2.5×
  • dirt2.0×
  • grass1.9×
  • steering wheel1.8×
  • skin1.7×
  • car1.7×
  • door1.6×

How mass murder films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate mass murder from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 25%widevs 20% baseline
  • 38%mediumvs 48% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Moonraker (1979) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,466 frames from 23 films carrying the mass murder label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/mass-murder

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These are real movie frames, shown at reduced resolution. All rights remain with their respective owners; they appear here for study, commentary and education under fair-use principles. How these are meant to be used