SPOILER ALERT: The following article contains massive spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. If you have not yet seen the film, continue at your own risk!
There are many film franchises featuring characters who do everything in their power not to end the lives of their enemies/opponents, but John Wick is definitely not counted among them. Since launching in 2014, the assassin-centric series has demonstrated that it doesn’t really pay much attention to standard human morality, and has generated a death toll far greater than most action movies. This is a trilogy where people are being executed in crazy numbers, to the point where you’d think that it might be impossible to get a full tally.
Well, guess again. With John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum now in theaters, we’ve gone through the entire trilogy and tabulated all of the many, many kills that occur on screen – and not just those by John Wick himself. We’ve broken it all down in the feature below, so read on and discover the crazy amount of bloodshed we’ve witnessed in these movies thus far:
Guns: 73
It’s established very early in the John Wick trilogy that the hero definitely has a weapon of choice, and it’s clearly a gun. While this count also includes the confirmed kills by Marcus, Ms. Perkins, and Winston’s men, John accounts for the vast majority, as he absolutely mows down enemy assassins as he works towards completing his revenge mission.
Swords/Knives: 6
Of course, John Wick isn’t only deadly when armed with a loaded firearm, as he also proves to be quite efficient when handling knives as well. He doesn’t get too many opportunities to show off this skill in his first movie, but he does get a few good stabs and slices in among the many, many headshots. This includes his final kill, where he purposefully gets stabbed by Viggo Tarasov just so that he can take the weapon away and use it himself.
Other: 12
This is far and away the most depressing category in this feature simply because one of the 12 counted is John Wick’s puppy being kicked to death by Iosef Tarasov and his friends. That being said, the feature also has more death by explosions than any other movie in the series so far (seven), and adds in a broken neck, a strangulation, and a couple of car collisions.
Guns: 110
You’d think that 73 gun deaths would be hard to top, but director Chad Stahelski finds a way in John Wick: Chapter 2. It helps that the action flick features multiple sequences as big as the Red Circle Club rampage, including his escape through the tunnels following the “assassination” of Gianna D'Antonio (more on that in a minute).
Swords/Knives: 2
John Wick: Chapter 2 definitely has the most skewed kill ratio of all the movies so far, as only about 1.7 percent are executed via a blade. That being said, this is the method for one of the most significant deaths in the movie, as it’s with Ares’ own knife that John manages to take her out of the equation.
Other: 7
We really haven’t seen a good amount of stealth from John Wick in the trilogy to this point, as he clearly prefers to go in guns blazing, but we do get to see a couple of more quiet kills at the start of the second movie – which results in a few bodies hitting the floor because of broken necks and even some garrote action. We’ve also counted the death of Gianna D'Antonio here, as she definitely dies from her slit wrists before John puts a bullet in her head. And, if course, this is also the film where we actually get to see what the eponymous killer can do with a pencil, as he ends two lives with one writing utensil.
Before we get into John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, you can revisit all of the John Wick-specific kills by clicking play on our awesome supercut below:
Guns: 124
If you went into John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum thinking that the sequel wouldn’t be able to top the gun kill count from the previous installment, you’re clearly not paying attention. It’s worth noting that John does get a lot more help in this one than in the previous movies, as Sofia racks up a pretty high body count while under attack from Berrada's men in Casablanca, but the film most definitely affirms that the titular character knows his way around a firearm.
Swords/Knives: 32
There are far more deaths by sword/knife in the third installment of this franchise – mostly because of the stealthy attacks that are executed against John’s allies by Zero and his gang. That being said, John himself does use a blade more than a few times in the movie, most notably during the first act museum attack, and then later when he is accosted by Zero’s crew on motorcycles upon his return to New York. And, of course, there is the big final battle in The Continental as well.
Other: 11
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum stars with an nontraditional kill, as our protagonist takes out an opponent with just a book – but from there we get to see 10 others scattered throughout the film. A good number of them are actually animal kills – three by dogs, and three by horses – and motorcycle crashes and a chucked axe complete the count.
It’s kind of hard to imagine the next sequel actually managing to go even bigger than what we’ve already seen, but given the cliffhanger at the end of Chapter 3, it certainly seems like Chad Stahelski, Keanu Reeves and the rest of the company are going to try. Be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for all of the latest developments about the John Wick franchise going forward, and hit the comments section below to tell us about your favorite kill in the series thus far!
