With 40 deaths to choose from, here are nine of the most gruesome and best character deaths in the Final Destination horror franchise.

Warning: This article contains graphic images.

TheFinal Destination franchise comprises five movies jampacked with gruesome deaths. If you aren’t familiar with the franchise, the film's main plot is to try and stay alive after having already cheated death. Its first film, titled Final Destination, was released in 2000 and quickly triggered a successful horror franchise. While it is not one of the highest-grossing horror franchises, it’s definitely one of the most referenced, specifically that death-by-logs scene in Final Destination 2. This scene famously left everyone switching lanes in real-life if they ended up behind a truck carrying logs.

It has been recently announced that the Final Destination franchise is getting a sixth film produced by HBO Max and directed by Jon Watts (Spider-Man: No Way Home). According to an article from Comicbook.com, the reboot is expected to take a turn with the popular franchise. Not much has been released regarding the plot, yet fans have already begun speculating which gruesome deaths will be featured in the new film. Until the new movie drops, let’s revisit nine of the best character deaths in the horror franchise, ranked.

Final Destination, the first film, may have the best storyline out of the bunch, but what it has in the plot, it lacks in unique character deaths. One of the more gruesome deaths comes when Billy Hitchcock is beheaded by a piece of flying shrapnel. In the minutes leading up to his death, Billy and a few others from the original plane crash were in a car when it stalled out on the train tracks. They are able to escape in time, but the wind from the train picks up a piece of shrapnel and slices clear through Billy's head.

Related: Best Horror Movie Character Deaths of All Time, Ranked

Final Destination 3 started the trend of taking seemingly possible deaths and turning them into bizarre one-in-a-million deaths. Ian's death in Final Destination 3 is one of those such deaths. After being able to dodge fireworks shot off in his direction, he is severed in half completely by a cherry picker. Thinking he is safe after missing the fireworks, Ian exclaims his happiness only to be killed by the McKinley sign atop the cherry picker moments later. True to Ian's personality, his final pose is him flipping off those around him.

Part of what made Olivia's death in Final Destination 5 so chilling is that it is a fear most people have when getting Laser Eye Surgery or LASIK. Throughout the beginning part of the procedure, Olivia is nervous and fearful of the surgery. The doctor places the clamps in to hold her eye open and switches the machine on only to leave the room to get a complete file. Meanwhile, her drink from earlier leaks and causes a plug to spark that sets her machine to a high level, which in turn starts to burn her eye and hand. She manages to escape only to then trip on the Teddy Bear's eye that she ripped off earlier and fall out the window and to her death.

After the tanning bed death scene in Final Destination 3, many who frequented tanning beds were worried the same death could happen to them. For Ashley and Ashlyn, their slowly being burned alive in the tanning bed made its mark as one of the best character deaths in the franchise. Their deaths happened over the span of a few minutes and could have been prevented if only the tanning salon manager wasn't locked out or if Ashley had tossed her drink when asked. Instead, the tanning salon worker is unable to hear the girls' screams after the water from Ashley's drink short circuits the tanning bed and a fallen shelf pins the two tanning beds' doors shut.

Final Destination 4, known as The Final Destination, is definitely the least popular within the franchise. From the cheesy deaths to a mediocre storyline, the fourth installment is not one of the franchise's best. Arguably the best, most gruesome death that actually happens is when Hunt's intestines are sucked out thanks to a pool drain. Hunt is at the pool when a kid splashes him with water, ruining his phone and rendering him unable to listen to the warning message. Hunt grabs the gun and throws it in the dumpster, only it misses and activates the pool drain. He jumps into the pool to retrieve his lucky coin only to be suctioned to the pool drain.

Final Destination 2 is often times regarded as one of the best in the franchise in terms of plot and character deaths. If we could, most of the deaths in the second film would be included on this list as they were all gruesome! One of the more iconic scenes was when the lottery winner and death-survivor Evan gets impaled by the ladder as he flees his burning apartment. It seems as if Evan's luck is still with him as he is able to evade fire, his hand stuck in a garbage disposal, and a stuck ladder. Thanks to the spaghetti he threw out the window, he slips after having made it to safety only for the ladder to fall the rest of the way down, through his eye.

Related: 8 Best 'Final Girls' in Horror Movies, Ranked

Kat's death in Final Destination 2 is imminent from the moment she gets in the car. As she was originally supposed to die in the car, having her actual death take place in the same car seems fitting. While her actual death doesn't happen as the car is moving, it happens thanks to the part of the car that is supposed to save your life — the airbag. After running off the road due to a popped tire, Kat is pinned to her seat thanks to a pipe that is across her legs. As firemen try to get her loose, they accidentally engage her airbag, which pushes Kat's head into a pole that narrowly missed skewering her earlier.

Lewis' death in Final Destination 3 is full of foreshadowing, from intense music to the mascot of the two swords. Lewis and the rest of the football team are in the middle of an intense weight lifting session when the vibrations of all the slamming weights cause the swords on the wall to come loose and slice through the cords of Lewis' weight machine. Thinking he is safe after the swords miss his head, he uses his machine one last time only to have the weights crush his head from either side.

The most gruesome death in the Final Destination franchise is argued depending on which article you read. For this writer, the most gruesome death belongs to Tim after he is literally crushed to death by a glass pane. Like the teenager he is, Tim starts chasing pigeons, which startle the construction workers, causing them to accidentally drop the glass panes on top of Tim. To make matters worse, his death was foreshadowed earlier when the dentist Tim is visiting makes a comment about pigeons breaking their windows.

Writer, movie buff, and book fanatic.