The Greatest Fictional Deaths of All Time

Stephen King, David Simon, and More on the Death Scenes That Haunt Them

How Sesame Street Turned a Real-Life Death Into One of Its Most Important Episodes

Doonesbury’s Creator Remembers the Controversial Storyline That Brought AIDS to the Funny Pages

The Most Devastating Scene in Cartoon Dog History Has a Surprising Lesson

What the Ending of Thelma & Louise Really Means

Contagion’s Screenwriter on Why He Needed to Saw Open Gwyneth Paltrow’s Head

The Story Behind The Wire’s Most Excruciating Death Scene

The Top 5 Mob Movie Deaths of All Time

The Godfather isn’t No. 1.

The Story Behind the Sitcom Death That Shocked America

The Creator of “Scrappy Doo Found Dead in Miami” Reveals the Story Behind the Meme

Stephen King on Why He Had to Begin It by Killing a 6-Year-Old

How the Author of Wolf Hall Made One of History’s Most Famous Deaths Feel New Again

The Writer of “Brokeback Mountain” on What People Misunderstand About the Ending

Why the Author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Gave That Whale Such a Terrible Fate

Junot Díaz on Why the Life of Oscar Wao Had to Be So Brief

Richard Powers on The Overstory’s Most Shattering Death Scene

Charles Burnett on Killing Off a Bad Guy—Sort of—in To Sleep With Anger