An unwritten rule of thumb is that action heroes tend to be indestructible. They can be beaten, stabbed, shot, fall from great heights, get run over and much more, but the only superficial damage they’ll sport is typically a torn shirt that allows them to show off the jacked physique they’d worked so hard to acquire.
Realism is never the order of the day, but that didn’t stop Arnold Schwarzenegger from becoming the biggest star in Hollywood, perfecting the art of delivering dry one-liners while blowing away reams of disposable henchmen. In fact, the screen legend has only been killed off in one of his movies where he played a human, and it’s arguably his least realistic effort that doesn’t take place in the Terminator franchise.
By all accounts, End of Days is a wild swing for blockbuster cinema, and the sort of project a studio would never give the green light these days, especially with a budget of $100 million. Arnold plays the fantastically-named Jericho Cane, who discovers during the buildup to Y2K that the devil has returned to Earth, drawing him into an apocalyptic battle between good and evil as Stan himself seeks out the mate chosen for him by his followers two decades previously, looking to impregnate her between 11pm and midnight on New Year’s Eve so he can retake his physical form permanently.
It’s not one of Schwarzenegger’s best, and was widely panned by critics despite earning $212 million at the box office, although it does feature one of the greatest movie scenes in history, namely a fight between the hulking Austrian and diminutive British character actress Miriam Margoyles. To save the day, Arnold impales himself while possessed by the spirit of the devil, marking the one and only non-Terminator time he’s died onscreen.