If there’s one thing Michael Bay is known for, it’s the wanton violence and gratuitous explosions he slaps up on the big screen. In addition to excessive violence, extreme Dutch angles, and a thumping soundtrack, a key component in “Bayhem” is mass death. Every Michael Bay movie has at least one death, but some are far more kill-happy than others.
His newest film, Ambulance, debuts on April 8, and from the trailer alone, Bay seems to be continuing his trademark of depicting graphic deaths on a massive scale. But just how much death has Bay wrought in his three-decade career? Here’s a definitive ranking of his entire filmography, from the lowest body count to the highest. Please note that some of these are approximate numbers, as Bay’s movies have so much murder and mayhem going on, it’s hard to keep track.
14. Pain & Gain - 2 bodies (2013)
45%
6.4/10
130m
Genre
Crime, Action, Comedy
Stars
Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Paramount+
If you needed proof that movies could be incredibly violent even without that many kills, you need look no further than Pain & Gain, which features plenty of fights, blood, and gore, but keeps its body count pretty low. Following the lives of a small gang of bodybuilders who decide to kidnap a rich man to make some quick cash, the movie does feature a couple of deaths, but it’s mostly just a joyride through Los Angeles featuring a few insanely ripped men.
13. The Island - 12 bodies (2005)
50%
6.9/10
136m
Genre
Action, Thriller, Science Fiction, Adventure
Stars
Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Djimon Hounsou
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Amazon
Perhaps Michael Bay’s most forgotten film, The Island tells the story of a futuristic society where citizens vie to be sent to the island, a utopian paradise untainted by the world’s problems. There are some twists along the way, but this is another Bay movie that keeps the kill count relatively low. There are some prominent deaths, to be sure, but none of the gratuitous violence that defined the later stages of his career.
12. The Rock - 17 bodies (1996)
58%
7.4/10
137m
Genre
Action, Adventure, Thriller
Stars
Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, Ed Harris
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Amazon
Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery both make it out of The Rock, but there are more than a dozen poor souls who do not. Most of those people are minor characters who are either wiped out by Ed Harris’s rogue squadron or are a part of that squadron. In spite of the massive threats on display in The Rock, though, the body count stays fairly low, at least by the standards of Michael Bay.
11. Bad Boys - 30 bodies (1995)
41%
6.8/10
119m
Genre
Action, Comedy, Crime, Thriller
Stars
Martin Lawrence, Will Smith, Téa Leoni
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Amazon
The movie that helped put both Bay and star Will Smith on the map, Bad Boys has its fair share of kills, although the movie doesn’t feature the wall-to-wall action that would come to define later films in Bay’s filmography. Here, the deaths are largely confined to a few key sequences featuring the movie’s villain, and the climactic action sequence in which a number of nameless henchmen are dealt with in short order.
10. Bad Boys II - 63 bodies (2003)
38%
6.6/10
147m
Genre
Adventure, Action, Comedy, Thriller, Crime
Stars
Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Gabrielle Union
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Amazon
A movie that’s way more problematic than its predecessor, Bad Boys II is also a movie with a much higher body count. The film follows our central detectives as their tasked with stopping the flow of ecstasy into Miami. Nothing is seismically different in Bad Boys II in terms of the action, but the budgets are definitely higher, which means more extras can die, and Bay can go on being Bay.
9. Transformers: Dark of the Moon - 78 bodies (2011)
42%
6.2/10
154m
Genre
Action, Science Fiction, Adventure
Stars
Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Josh Duhamel
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Netflix
The Transformers movie with the lowest body count, Dark of the Moon isn’t necessarily less violent as a result of its relative lack of onscreen death. Like every movie in this franchise, it features its fair share of human collateral damage, as well as the deaths of a few key transformers on both the Autobot and Decepticon sides. Of course, this being a Michael Bay movie, those deaths don’t feel particularly weighty.
8. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi - 80 bodies (2016)
48%
7.3/10
144m
Genre
War, Action, History, Thriller, Drama
Stars
John Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Dominic Fumusa
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Paramount+
In addition to the truly bizarre politics of 13 Hours, it also has a higher body count than you might imagine considering its relatively modest scale. The movie tells the story of the attack on the diplomatic consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and of the men who attempted to defend it. 13 Hours certainly takes some liberty with the facts, and it also kills its fair share of nameless Brown people, which is less than great.
7. Transformers - 103 bodies (2007)
61%
7.1/10
143m
Genre
Adventure, Science Fiction, Action
Stars
Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on HBO Max
The first Transformers was tamer than most of its sequels, but it’s the first Bay movie with more than 100 onscreen fatalities. Unfortunately for those of us who don’t like violence, Bay made plenty of movies where the body count far exceeds the demure 103 that came with his first Transformers film.
6. Transformers: Age of Extinction - 175 bodies (2014)
32%
5.6/10
165m
Genre
Science Fiction, Action, Adventure
Stars
Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Nicola Peltz
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Paramount+
As is typically the case in the Transformers universe, the most meaningful deaths in Age of Extinction are the deaths of Autobots. Human death occurs in these films, but it rarely involves the film’s central characters, and therefore means less to the audience. The body count rose for Age of Extinction, but it’s only the third highest body count of the movies in this particular franchise.
5. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - 250 bodies (2009)
35%
6/10
150m
Genre
Science Fiction, Action, Adventure
Stars
Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Netflix
Another Transformers movie, another case of death and destruction. It is worth noting that, while these movies certainly feature plenty of death, they are not the high watermarks of Bay’s career. That’s largely because humanity is secondary to the Transformers, which do most of the fighting and take up most of the space.
4. Transformers: The Last Knight - 327 bodies (2017)
27%
5.2/10
155m
Genre
Action, Adventure, Science Fiction, Fantasy
Stars
Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Stanley Tucci
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Paramount+
In addition to being a strange movie, The Last Knight is also more evidence for the argument that Bay has gotten more kill-happy as his career has gone on. The Last Knight is the high watermark for the Transformers saga in terms of death, and the low mark in terms of critical appreciation. The movie is incredibly long and filled to the brim with action, and that combination leads to a whole lot of wanton death.
3. Pearl Harbor - 2,390 bodies (2001)
44%
6.2/10
183m
Genre
Action, War, History, Romance, Drama
Stars
Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale, Josh Hartnett
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Amazon
Pearl Harbor is pretty widely known as a riff on Titanic, although it’s not nearly that movie’s equal in quality…or pretty much anything else. Still, what that means is that the first half of the movie is pretty consumed with romance and very little death, and the second half features the attack on Pearl Harbor that killed thousands. It’s one of Bay’s higher body count movies, but that’s because of the real-life tragedy that it is based on.
2. 6 Underground - 5,560 bodies (2019)
41%
6.1/10
128m
Genre
Action, Thriller, Comedy
Stars
Ryan Reynolds, Mélanie Laurent, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Netflix
Perhaps surprisingly, 6 Underground is one of the most kill-happy movies on this list. The vast majority of these kills (5,400), comes from a sarin gas attack that takes place in the opening of the film, and provides the underpinning for much of the movie’s plot. There’s plenty of other kills throughout, though. After all, one of the members of the squad is a hitman.
1. Armageddon - >20 million bodies (1998)
42%
6.7/10
151m
Genre
Action, Thriller, Science Fiction, Adventure
Stars
Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Ben Affleck
Directed by
Michael Bay
Watch on Amazon
Bay’s most kill-tastic movie isn’t a Transformers movie, but when you think about, that makes perfect sense. After all, entire cities are wiped off the map in Armageddon, and while everything works out in the end, there’s plenty of devastation before then. Armageddon is one of Bay’s most beloved movies, and while it’s not quite as violent as some of his other films, death comes on a massive scale.
Editors' Recommendations
- Like Fast X? Here are 5 more action movies just like it
- April 2022 movie guide: Sonic returns and Morbius debuts
