Assassinations in fiction

Assassinations have formed a major plot element in various works of fiction. This article provides a list of fictional stories in which assassination features as an important plot element. Passing mentions are omitted.

Assassination can be regarded as the murder of a prominent person for a motive which is broadly public and political rather than merely personal or financial.[1]

Assassinations in fiction have attracted scholarly attention. In Assassinations and Murder in Modern Italy: Transformations in Society and Culture, as well as analyzing Italian assassinations in their historical and cultural contexts, Stephen Gundle and Lucia Rinaldi explore the films, plays, other works of fiction, and art that the act of assassination has inspired.[2] Nick Cullather has discussed "The Movie Version" of John F. Kennedy's assassination.[3]

This list prefers to highlight less familiar cultural artifacts, while trying not to itemize every Ian Fleming or Agatha Christie title, or every Mafia film. The historical–historically based or historically inspired–takes precedence over the purely fictional and sensational.

Alexandre Dumas, père
Bolesław Prus
Anthony Hope
Jack London
John Steinbeck
Pär Lagerkvist

Novels

Short stories

Conan Doyle

Plays and operas

Shakespeare
de Vega
Corneille
Schiller
Słowacki
Ibsen
Mankell

Films

Frank Sinatra in Suddenly (1954)
Mark Wahlberg at 2007 Shooter premiere

The list is organized chronologically by year of release, rather than year of production.
Within each year, films based on genuine historical events are listed first, followed by any purely fictional entries.

1890s

1900s

Assassination of President McKinley, 1901
The Duke of Guise, assassinated nobleman

1910s

Judith of Bethulia, heroine, assassin

1920s

"Sissi", Empress of Austria 
Assassination of Elisabeth, 1898 

1930s

1940s

1950s

Marlon Brando as Emiliano Zapata, assassinated revolutionary

1960s

Jozef Gabčík, c. 1942 
Jan Kubiš, c. 1942 
Czech SOE agents who eliminated Reinhard Heydrich     
Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, 1793

1970s

1970–1974

1975–1979

Attempted assassin Robert-François Damiens on trial, 1757
Gabriel Narutowicz, assassinated 1922

1980s

1980–1984

1985–1989

Funeral of Jerzy Popiełuszko, assassinated 1984

1990s

1990–1994

1995–1999

2000s

2000–2002

2003–2005

Aldo Moro before his murder, 1978

2006–2007

Procession for D'Arcy McGee, assassinated 1868

2008–2009

Adham Khan, executed 1562
Assassination of Henry IV, 1610

2010s

Mary Surratt, executed 1865

In development

Assassinated filmmakers

One direct and one indirect victim of terrorism.

Television

Assassination of Spencer Perceval, 1812

Animation

Board games

Video games

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Murders within families are often termed assassinations if the family members are very prominent. This would be true of Roman Empire poisonings, or the 2001 slaughter of the royal family in Nepal. The murder of the well-known actor Phil Hartman by his wife in 1998 does not qualify.
    Is the 1978 murder of actor Bob Crane assassination? No. Is the 1987 murder of singer Peter Tosh by robbers assassination? If the motive is extortion, no. If an author writes a novel proposing a broad conspiracy, then yes. Is the 1948 death of actor Solomon Mikhoels assassination? Yes. It was orchestrated by Stalin.
    King Charles I? No. Executed publicly, after a trial. Tsar Nicholas II? Yes. Executed secretly, with his children, without a trial.
    There will always be a problem with a precise definition and applying that definition to specific cases.
  2. ↑ Assassinations and Murder in Modern Italy: Transformations in Society and Culture, edited by Stephen Gundle and Lucia Rinaldi (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
  3. ↑ Nicholas Cullather, "History, Conspiracy, and the Kennedy Assassination", Retrieving the American Past, ed. Marc Horger (New York: Pearson Custom Publishing, 2005), pp. 301–30
  4. ↑ Quo Vadis. Chapter LXX.
  5. ↑ Quo Vadis. Chapter LXXI.
  6. ↑ Quo Vadis. Epilogue. Mercy killing by Epaphroditus.
  7. ↑ London authored pp. 1-121. Fish wrote p. 122-179 based on London's notes (pp. 181-184).
  8. ↑ Recipient of the Edgar Award in 1972.
  9. ↑ ISBN 0-690-01790-1
  10. ↑ The story's manuscript reads Camorra. Conan Doyle changed the story as published to read Carbonari, a group no longer active at the time.
  11. ↑ Recipient of the Evening Standard Award for Best Play in 1961.
  12. ↑ Recipient of the Tony Award in 1961.
  13. ↑ Recipient of the Tony Award in 1966.
  14. ↑ Publication details for this title have been confirmed by the catalogue of the German National Library.
    Source: Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  15. ↑ Source: IMDb review by "Cineanalyst", 2009.
  16. ↑ Source: Cousins (q.v.), p. 40.
  17. ↑ Director Dudley Murphy was a friend of failed Trotsky assassin and artist David Alfaro Siqueiros. Siqueiros painted a mural inside Murphy's L.A. house which was relocated in 2002 to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
  18. ↑ The first Dutch sound film.
  19. ↑ Source: 1965 BBC documentary The Epic That Never Was on the making of I, Claudius.
  20. ↑ At present (March 2009), the amount of information on this film at the IMDb is modest. A fuller plot summary was available in the distributor's catalogue, reprinted in Hartley (q.v.), page 68. This is an early example of Lincoln conspiracy theory.
  21. ↑ Clips of battle scenes of the Great Northern War were excerpted from this film and used in the Oscar-nominated The Battle of Russia, a 1943 documentary in Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda series, to illustrate the history of the Soviet people resisting foreign aggression.
  22. ↑ Source: IMDb reviews by "Theo Winthrop", 2005, and the late Fisher "Fish" Forrest, 2000. This is the original IMDb review of Sirk's film.
  23. ↑ Notable as the first postwar German film, it was made before the formal split of Germany into West Germany and East Germany.
  24. ↑ The detective who prevents the assassination of President-elect Lincoln is named "John Kennedy".
  25. ↑ The performer portraying the "Sarkhanese" prime minister in the film was a Thai politician who later became Prime Minister.
  26. ↑ Director Lee Yong-min is otherwise known for his horror films, A Flower of Evil (1961) and A Devilish Homicide (1965).
  27. ↑ Shanghai Bombing Incident, 1932, Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury
  28. ↑ Prior to the final attack on Trotsky in August 1940, there had been an earlier one in May. This original attack had been carried out, on behalf of Stalin, by Iosif Grigulevich and Vittorio Vidali, NKVD assassins who had probably been involved in the death of POUM leader Andrés Nin in Spain in 1937. (See George Orwell's memoir Homage to Catalonia, a source for Ken Loach's 1995 film Land and Freedom.) In Mexico City, they were joined by David Siqueiros, Mexican Stalinist and renowned mural painter.
    Bullet holes from the first attempt may be seen in Trotsky's bedroom at the Trotsky House Museum in Coyoacán.
    A revolutionary image by Siqueiros, familiar outside of Mexico, appears on the cover of the Rage Against the Machine concert video, The Battle of Mexico City. The image forms part of a large mural in Chapultepec Castle.
  29. ↑ Source: IMDb review by "Fuzon", 2008.
  30. ↑ The movie was the subject of a nude pictorial in Playboy magazine.
  31. ↑ Sources: IMDb, TV Guide, Answers.com.
  32. ↑ Ruth First appears as a minor character in the 2006 film Catch a Fire, about the ANC, where she is portrayed by her daughter, producer Robyn Slovo.
  33. ↑ Recipient of the Ariel Award for Best Picture (Ariel de Mejor Película) in 1991.
  34. ↑ Several of the 638 different ways employed by the USA to kill Castro, at least according to Cuban Intelligence.
  35. ↑ The extended version of Nixon includes a conversation between Pres. Nixon and CIA Director Richard Helms (Sam Waterston). During the conversation, Salvador Allende († 1974) is shown; Ngo Dinh Diem († 1963), Rafael Trujillo († 1961), and Patrice Lumumba († 1961) are mentioned; Jacobo Árbenz (overthrown) and Mohammed Mosaddeq (overthrown) are alluded to.
  36. ↑ Nixon mentions other important incidents of the era, including the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy, and the attempt on George Wallace.
  37. ↑ Official site: O Processo dos Távoras Archived 7 September 2009 at the Wayback Machine..
  38. ↑ Lynn Compton, later the prosecutor of Kennedy's assassin, is a lieutenant in the 2001 HBO paratrooper miniseries Band of Brothers.
  39. ↑ The film mistakenly refers to the assassination of General Dyer following the Amritsar Massacre. In fact, it was Governor O'Dwyer who was murdered, in London in 1940. Dyer had died of natural causes in 1927.
  40. ↑ Director Andy Cheng is second unit director and stunt co-ordinator on Twilight, the noirish teen vampire romance.
  41. ↑ Source: Wikipedia article List of films based on actual events. The IMDb currently (as of February 2010) has no listing for this film.
  42. ↑ Henri 4 is the title of the DVD release.
  43. ↑ The Kennedys, Hour Seven.
  44. ↑ The Kennedys, Hour Eight.
  45. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Source: IMDb. Retrieved 17 March 2012.
  46. ↑ The Plot To Kill Stalin can be viewed at the Internet Archive.

Sources


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