In onscreen depictions of violence or combat, when it comes to delivering a coup de grace, nothing is quite so effective or final as a decapitation. It’s the death stroke that can illicit applause, gasps, cheers, screams, or make you feel a bit queasy, but no matter what the effect, it seems that you never have to wait too long for another one to come along in the crazy, wacky, world of on-screen carnage.

However, as this list shows, there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and movie beheadings have proved endlessly inventive, a fact that explains why something as mundane and straightforward as a guillotine has no place in this top 10. This list is an attempt to celebrate the most shocking, amusing, horrific or just plain silly decapitations in film and in doing so, address an aspect of cinematic history that has been criminally overlooked until now.

Here, then, are 10 of the best. And if you disagree, don’t lose your head over it. Simply head over to the comments section below, and post your own favorites.

10. Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)

A nice gentle one to start with. At the conclusion to the third and final Indiana Jones film (no, there wasn’t a fourth film… no, there wasn’t … not listening … la la la la la) we find villain Walter Donovan (Julian Glover) and his Nazi chums forcing their underlings to brave a series of mechanized traps that must be overcome if they are to lay their hands on the Holy Grail. However, one of their poor stooges soon comes a cropper when his head is taken clean off by a huge cylindrical blade, triggered no doubt by his frankly pathetic ‘walk forwards looking scared and hope for the best’ approach to the task in hand.