Neck Snap



""You best protect ya neck!""

- Wu-Tang Clan

Next to "Off with His Head", snapping a person's neck is one of the surest ways to kill someone in media.

Typical procedure: Alice stalks Bob. Catching him unawares, Alice grabs Bob's chin with one hand and his opposite temple with the other. Bob just has time enough for his eyes to go wide with the realization of how screwed he is when Alice wrenches his head to the side with a hideous cracking of bone (a walnut cracking was used for this in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, which may be one of the earliest examples). Bob is always killed instantly and almost always with his eyes open. Sometimes Alice at least appears to put in an effort (or has superpowers or something) but often is remarkably blase about it.

Note that in Real Life, it takes a considerable amount of strength and/or training to snap a person's neck, especially if the character getting it snapped is considerably big and strong. But then again, a lot of characters in media seem to be Made of Plasticine anyway. It is, however, possible, especially if you know where to grab and twist, and can pin your opponent to get leverage.

Also note that in Real Life nothing dies instantly from a fractured neck unless it sends vertebrae fragments into, or contorts, the brain-stem in such a way as to shut down all lower brain functions. A broken neck is no guarantee of a "silent kill" either as, if the aforementioned brain-stem damage is not inflicted, all you are left with is a quadriplegic victim, dying, but not yet dead, and still able to speak and scream.

Anime & Manga

 * Kirika snaps a man's neck using his own tie and a fall down an elevator shaft in the first episode of Noir.
 * Balalaika, in a truly ruthless and Badass moment from Black Lagoon, snaps the neck of in one of the final episodes of the anime.
 * In Mahou Sensei Negima, we see Nagi doing this during a Pensieve Flashback. To a demon. With one hand. In a Neck Lift. He's just that strong.
 * How do you go from Non-Action Guy to Badass in Shakugan no Shana? In your first fight, you kill four jerks and then kill the fifth by snapping his neck effortlessly.
 * The Dummy-Plug controlled Unit 01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion breaks Unit 03's neck before brutally tearing it apart. Done somewhat realistically in showing the Eva struggling to do so.
 * Byakuran from Katekyo Hitman Reborn does this to at the final battle of the future arc. Turns out that his victim survives, fortunately. Nearly scared the heck out of Uni and everyone else, though. This is toned down in the anime. Instead of the neck, Byakuran was either trying to snap his spine or crush all the bones in his body. Sounds less scary, until you count how many bones AND organs he probably broke this time.
 * Cowboy Bebop episode "Boogie Woogie Feng Shui". Jet snaps the neck of a syndicate goon after interrogating him. The offhand, blase manner discussed in the trope description is justified here -- Jet uses his cybernetic arm.
 * Dragonball Z
 * Dodoria snaps the neck of one of the Namekian Elders after Freeza kills one of the escaping children with a smile on his face.
 * This is subverted in the Tournament Saga: Videl apparently snaps Spopovich's neck in self defense when it was becoming apparent that he is trying to kill her, and nearly gets herself disqualified as a result, but then he not only revives himself, but even spins his neck back into place in the most disturbing way possible.
 * In Naruto, does this quite nonchalantly (though seeming somewhat pissed off because he was annoyed by something else) to one of two men he captured when told a techniques demonstration required a live subject and a dead subject.
 * In To Aru Kagaku no Railgun has the dorm supervisor who does this to her tenants for breaking the rules. They get better though.
 * Subverted with 's death in Cyborg 009, since he gets this done to him
 * Kasumi Gyoubu from Basilisk kills two out of three of his enemies this way.
 * Subverted in Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force:

Card Games

 * There's a Magic the Gathering card called Neck Snap. Thanks to Gameplay and Story Segregation, it can be used on things that don't even have necks.

Comic Books

 * Marv does this to a guard or two in Sin City. Hartigan isn't as super-strong and must make do with slicing throats.
 * Batman
 * The Joker snaps towards the end of The Dark Knight Returns.
 * Similarly, gets his neck snapped in The Nail.
 * Happens at least three times in Tank Girl: Tank Girl to a Water and Power trooper after offering him an "oil change"; a Ripper to a W&P trooper during the attack that freed Tank Girl, and a Ripper to a W&P trooper during the attack on the W&P fortress.
 * Vandal Savage does this to a secretary fairly prominently in Kingdom Come.
 * Legion of Super-Heroes v.3, in a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Princess Projectra. After Nemesis Kid stole her planet, enslaved her people, and murdered her husband, he didn't think he had anything to fear from her. She begged to differ. *KRRAK!*
 * The Punisher does this in pretty much any media he appears in. Though just a human, still in great shape.
 * Happens quite a few times in Fall of Cthulhu, a graphic novel based on H.P. Lovecraft's mythos. Justified as the ones doing the snapping are usually not quite what you would call human.
 * The Incredible Hulk gets his neck snapped from The Maestro. He survives but is free to be taken advantage of by a slave girl while he's healing.
 * Wonder Woman does this to Maxwell Lord in Infinite Crisis, and to the monstrous Grendel in Secret Six.
 * In "The Warrior Princess", an arc of the X Wing Series comics, there is a resistance movement fighting an Imperial presence, one of the members is captured, strapped into a chair, and tortured. Then the beloved leader of the resistance walks in, tells him that he'd done well and will be sent home and set free, and then gets behind him and breaks his neck. Then he makes out with the head of the local Imperial forces in front of the dead man's staring eyes. ...As it turns out, the leader of the resistance is secretly evil!
 * In Ultimate X-Men, in the "Ultimatum" storyline,.
 * Dudley Soames, a.k.a. Torque, a Nightwing villain, is a survivor of this.
 * This is how Barry Allen killed his Arch Enemy Reverse Flash. He was put on trial for manslaughter and acquitted. Reverse Flash recovered. Reverse Flash also likes to break multiple people's necks at super speed, then slow down and watch them drop all at once.
 * Green Lantern: Hal Jordan kills Sinestro by breaking his neck. Sinestro recovered.
 * The Kingpin made his final ascent to power when he snapped the neck of his boss, Don Rigoletto.
 * The Authority: Killer cycborg Seth does this to Midnighter. It has no effect.
 * Spider-Man: This is how Gwen Stacy died. The shock of being stopped so abruptly by the web line attached to her foot broke her neck.
 * Darth Vader is ambushed by a group of Jedi in an EU comic. One of them is properly prepared for the fight (she was only one who knew that it was coming, having lured the rest to the meeting area under false pretenses), and disables his lightsaber before going in for the kill. He proves in an instant with this trope that he doesn't need a lightsaber to kill.
 * Colossus from the X-Men angrily kills Riptide this way during the extremely dark Mutant Massacre storyline.
 * In What If? stories, The Mighty Thor has killed the Hulk and Sentry in this fashion.
 * In New X-Men #116: "E Is For Extinction Pt. 3", Emma Frost/The White Queen snaps the neck of Cassandra Nova.
 * The Yelena Belova version of Black Widow does this to a female opponent in Black Widow #3 (Greg Rucka-written mini-series).

Fan Works

 * Occurs in a Darker and Edgier Fan Fiction of The Land Before Time. The fan fiction's name: Land Before Time: Twilight Valley. Justified in that only smaller bipeds (under 400 lbs) get their necks snapped in this manner and it's usually a 1000 lbs+ dinosaur doing the snapping... and the dinosaurs have essentially taken a CQC course.
 * In The Dark Knight Saga fanfic Knightfall: The Movie, Bane does this to a guard at Arkham, by wrapping his arms around the guy's head and neck, and twisting, similar to Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th (film).
 * In Metal Gear Solid: Fight of Metal Gears 2, Jake Snake breaks one bad guy's neck and arm and throws them at another before snapping off his head.
 * In Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series, Tristan can break necks with his mind.

Films -- Animation

 * In Titan A.E.,  kills  this way after the latter's second Face Heel Turn. The former is a fit, trained soldier and it still takes him considerable effort to do it, so it is quite well-done (perhaps shockingly so for an animated movie with only a PG rating.)
 * The Darker and Edgier animated Wonder Woman made-for-DVD movie of 2009 has both Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor doing this to a pair of guards.
 * Happens to  at the end of Tarzan, which he caused himself by carelessly chopping through vines he got himself tangled in.

Films -- Live-Action

 * The Lord of the Rings
 * Gimli does this to an Orc in the movie version of The Two Towers. Gimli's version is exceptionally badass in that he does it with one hand while facing the Orc and while trapped under a huge corpse.
 * Aragorn does too during the Battle of Pelennor Fields in Return of the King.
 * The ur-example might be Varla snapping a man's neck during a fight in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! At least that was during a knock-down, drag-out fight though.
 * During John McClane's first brawl in Die Hard, he does this to a guy by putting him in a choke-hold and falling down the stairs with him. Missing the usual "walnut-snapping" sound effect.
 * Darth Vader appears to crush a Rebel ship captain's spine while strangling him in A New Hope, but that's not a typical example, as it wasn't exactly a surprise, and he has super-robot-strength arms.
 * A Spinosaurus kills a Tyrannosaurus this way in their laughably bloodless battle in Jurassic Park III. Same sound effect even. One of the raptors also performs this trick on the last remaining mercenary.
 * In Dogma, the angel Bartleby is accosted by a security guard, and says, in what is arguably the best use of a Shout-Out in movie history: "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." The security guard doesn't heed the warning, and a few seconds later is on the receiving end of a one-handed version of this trope.
 * In the beginning of Superman II, Non breaks the neck of a guard as part of General Zod's plan to take over the planet Krypton.
 * The Golden Child: A Mook villain converted to the side of the good guys breaks the neck of another, unconverted Mook to prevent him from skewering Chandler Jarrow with a crossbow bolt and allow the rescue of the title character.
 * In The Matrix Revolutions, Morpheus uses this to kill a Mook guarding an elevator.
 * Hayabusa does this to a random Mook while sneaking into the bad guys lab in Dead or Alive The Movie.
 * This is how Sonya Blade in the Mortal Kombat movie finished her nemesis Kano. She used her legs to do it. Hey, he did ask her to give him a break...
 * Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon loves doing this.
 * In Lethal Weapon 4, Wah Sing Ku does this to a man simply by grabbing him by the throat (one handed) and twisting it around purely by the strength of his wrist, complete with Sickening Crunch. The film gets away with this totally ridiculous example by virtue of Ku being played by Jet Li.
 * The president in Air Force One does a pretty realistic one, with considerable effort and a quiet little snap.
 * In Death Becomes Her, Madeline is pushed down a long flight of marble stairs and winds up in a heap with her head twisted around backwards. We do hear several bones break during the tumble.
 * In Commando, John Matrix snaps the neck of one of Arius's henchmen while aboard a plane (differing slightly as the said henchman is knocked out first). This leads to the immortal line, "Do not disturb my friend, he is dead tired."
 * Arnie again: Douglas Quaid pulls off a sickening neck snap in Total Recall when he is first ambushed by the Big Bad's goons after he leaves Rekall.
 * In Clear and Present Danger, the drug lord's right hand man Felix kills his lover/informant Moira by breaking her neck while they're making out.
 * In The Long Kiss Goodnight, amnesiac Samantha hits a stag and crashes her car. In the aftermath, she finds the deer bleeding to death and snaps its neck to put it out of its misery. Then she wonders How did I do that?
 * Borderline example in the Elektra film, where a ninja mook snaps his own neck, just by turning the head very fast.
 * The Avengers 1998. Mrs. Peel's clone does it to a Prospero Project Lab staff member while breaking into the facility.
 * In The Grudge, this is how Kayako is murdered by her husband, thus starting the curse. In the sequel, this is also how and  meet their ends.
 * In Kung Fu Hustle, the uber-martial-artist known as the Beast becomes annoyed at the prattling of the mob boss who's hired him and gives him an irritated backhand that causes his head to twist around at least 720 degrees. The Beast runs the mob from that point onward.
 * In The Descent, Juno does this to a Crawler.
 * Subverted in Friday the 13th (film). Jason-fucking-Voorhees snaps someone's neck, not quickly, but slowly, and having to use all of both arms. Kane Hodder (Jason's actor) clarifies that script called for him to go for the quick snap, but decided that such a kill was So Last Season and instead convinced the director and writer to go with the slow kill instead.
 * In the first Resident Evil, Rain Ocampo does it to a zombie attacking her and Alice does it repeatedly to zombies with kicks (including multiple dogs) and one Murderous Thighs attack.
 * Silk Spectre in Watchmen does this to a mugger.
 * Mystique in X Men the Last Stand neck-snaps a guard with her feet since her hands are chained to the ceiling.
 * In Penitentiary II, Mr. T kills Ernie Hudson this way, albeit with a crush rather than a snap. As he says, "I'ma kill ya! I'ma kill ya slow!"
 * Happens twice in Buckaroo Banzai:
 * Lord John Whorfin performs a Neck Lift on an attendant, pins him against a wall and snaps his neck.
 * During the battle in Yoyodyne John Parker snaps the neck of a Red Lectroid.
 * Original Gangstas has one neck snap scene involving a teen.
 * The TV movie Chameleon has Kam (played by Bobbie Philips) snapping a neck on a person.
 * The infamous Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer has several neck snap scenes including the disturbing videotape scene of a mother and son getting their necks snapped.
 * Hard to Kill: Mason Storm (played by Steven Seagal) snapping a neck on one of his assassins who tried to kill him years ago.
 * James Bond
 * In From Russia with Love Bond tries this on Red Grant during their fight scene, and fails.
 * In You Only Live Twice Bond tries it on the assassin who killed Henderson, and succeeds.
 * In Thunderball Bond does this to Col. Bouvar in the teaser, with the assistance of a fireplace poker.
 * In Goldfinger Oddjob breaks Tilly Masterson's neck by throwing his hat at her. At long range. In a forest. At night.
 * Enter the Dragon has a few neck snap scenes including one character (Jackie Chan in his cameo appearance) getting his neck snapped by Bruce Lee himself during a battle.
 * The Devils Rejects: Tiny does this to Sheriff Wydell, who's trying to kill his sister Baby, and the Sheriff ends up with his head on backwards. Somewhat justified in that Tiny is seven feet tall.
 * Chuck Norris dispatches three or four Vietnamese soldiers this way in the third Missing in Action film. Somewhat unusually, it's used for stealth kills.
 * In Kiss of the Dragon Jet Li's character disposes of a pair of sadistic martial artists with a pair of neck snaps but with unorthodox methods. The first he catches in the middle of a flip and forces him head-first into the floor, and the second he finishes with a brutal roundhouse kick to the head while the guy is on his knees.
 * Jet snaps another villain's neck using an axe kick in The Expendables.
 * In Iron Man 2, Black Widow appears to break a guard's neck with her legs.
 * Vampire Eli snaps the neck of a jogger in Let the Right One In after feeding to prevent him from turning.
 * Additionally, it is also performed by Abby in the remake Let Me In.
 * In Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Smith assassinates a target in this way.
 * Hanna has the title character (a child assassin played by Saoirse Ronan) snapping the neck of another character.
 * During The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Valentina breaks the neck of a chicken.
 * The Hunt for Red October. Captain Ramius takes the easy route and just crushes Putin's windpipe.
 * In the 1980 WWII film The Sea Wolves, Roger Moore's character dispatches a Nazi mook this way.
 * In Star Trek: First Contact, Data (being an android with incredible strength) dispatches one of the Borg this way.
 * Scary Movie 4 played this for laughs in Cindy's boxing scene with multiple broken necks from trips and falls.
 * Michael Myers from the Halloween series is quite a fan of this trope. There's Grady's death in The Return of Michael Myers, the hermit in The Revenge of Michael Myers, and Mrs. Strode's death in the remake.
 * In Bodyguards and Assassins the final assassin does this to a Mauve Shirt. Unusually enough he has to use a scarf for leverage and wastes a fair bit of time pulling it off.
 * This is how "The Frenchman" kills his first victim, a sniper, in The Tournament. He sneaks up on her using his Le Parkour skills, then grabs her head and twists it.
 * The Bourne Ultimatum averts this, with Nikki jumping on an assassin's back and trying to snap his neck, only to be flung back into the wall behind them.
 * The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. During the fight in Dorian Gray's mansion, Captain Nemo does this to one of the Fantom's mooks.
 * The Annihilators from 1984 has a rather bad example, with the character simply grabbing an enemy soldier in a headlock and lightly squeezing and pushing his head to the side with his palm, with the soldier's head falling limp with a popping sound effect.
 * Kable kills Hackman this way in Gamer. He has to do it twice before Hackman finally dies.
 * Cato does this to one of the other tributes in The Hunger Games after Katniss succeeds in blowing up all the food the career tributes had hoarded.
 * In The Raid this is how

Literature
"A single jerk in the proper direction and the Cos went limp. Kana eased the body to the ground with shaking hands. The trick had worked--just as the instructors had assured them that it would. But between trying it on a dummy and on a living, breathing creature there was a vast gulf of sensation."
 * In the David Palmer novel Emergence, Candy Smith-Foster (an eleven-year old girl) kills an enemy agent by pretending to cry, then snapping his neck when he hugs her. (She is a black belt with the ability to access greater-than-normal strength, and they're in free-fall in an orbiting spacecraft at the time.)
 * In Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Professor Bernardo de la Paz mentions that during a brawl he snapped the neck of one of the Warden's guards using a maneuver called the Istanbul Twist.
 * The eponymous Villain Protagonist of The Day of the Jackal does this several times in several different ways, usually in order to protect his Secret Identity.
 * Played straight near the end of Book 11 of The Saga of Darren Shan when Justified in that
 * Happens by accident in the Honorverse novel The Shadow of Saganami, when an arms dealer supplying anti-Manticoran terrorists makes a desperate, ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prevent one of his fellow crewmembers from firing on a RMN shuttle coming to board the dealer's ship, after sensor readings by the Hexapuma showed that the dealer was running under false transponder codes. Done deliberately in Flag in Exile by an assassin sent to kill Honor on a guard.
 * Prince Xizor does this to a would-be assassin in Shadows of the Empire.
 * Near the end of The Last Argument of Kings, does this to a maimed and tearful
 * Discussed rather horrifyingly at the end of Unseen Academicals.
 * In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "Shadows in Zamboula" Baal-pteor offers Human Sacrifice like this, to save blood for the god; he has killed hundreds.
 * George R. R. Martin's Haviland Tuf short story "A Beast for Norn". During a fight between a strangling ape and an ironfang, the ape kills the ironfang by breaking its neck.
 * In Sharpe's Trafalgar, the eponymous hero proves his Badass nature by deliberately snapping the neck of a man trying to blackmail him. He does note it took a lot of effort.
 * Walter and Phyllis kill her husband Herbert this way in Double Indemnity. Since the Hays Code was in place at the time, it is not shown on-screen in the film.
 * In the final duel between Corwin and Strygldwyr in The Guns of Avalon the combatants end up grappling, and each tries to do this to the other. Corwin succeeds, if only barely.
 * In The War of the Ancients novel trilogy, Archimonde kills this way, who was trying to protect his son . Subverted in that it still took considerable effort, despite Archimonde being a giant demon.  was no pushover either.
 * Suggested in the Gaunts Ghosts novel Traitor General: When Brostin is a bit too careless in his stealth, MkVenner oh-so-gently places his palm on the other guy's neck. We're not told how Ven's going to do it, but considering that this is one of the most badass guys in an already badass regiment, Brostin wisely decides not to press his luck.
 * Appears and is discussed in Term Limits. After a Senator gets his neck broken by an assassin, a soldier comments that the one time he tried to do that in the field, he failed miserably and had to cut the man's throat instead. The fact that people with the strength and skill needed to break a man's neck with one's bare hands is so rare helps point to the discovery that the killers were.
 * In the Noughts and Crosses series,  does this to a subordinate who has betrayed them. He does this one handed, by jerking her upwards while he was standing behind her chair and she was turning to look up at him. He is a fit, strong man, the attack came totally by surprise, and one might suspect that her neck might be less muscled and more fragile than the normal victims of this trope, so it's difficult to tell how realistic this example is.
 * The main character of Andre Norton's Star Guard, conscripted into a "mercenary" unit, at one point has to quietly kill an enemy sentry. He uses the sling strap of his rifle as he was taught in basic training.

""You hear that kind of weird crackin' sound, Al? Sounds like it's right under your skull? ... You ain't heard nothin' yet!""
 * In Crusade, this is how "Super Chief" Bosun Gray executes the man who raped a Lemurian girl. Three men hold the rapist, and Gray grabs his head and twists.

Live-Action TV
"Xander: He's dead, right? I mean, I heard something snap.
 * Angel uses this trope SOOO much. There are so many times that this is how Angel and co. dispose of pretty much every one of their enemies. In order of most common cause of death: Neck snapping is number one, with shot to death (by bullet or arrows) in a close second, followed by decapitation. No, but really. It's so common, it could be used as a drinking game. Angel especially has used this on demonic entities more than anyone else. He also used it to kill Marcus Hamilton (albeit just by punching him in the face really hard) and Drogyn in the series finale. Angelus mentioned when he killed Jenny Calendar with one that he never gets tired of doing it. Maybe Angel just got into the habit.
 * Buffy the Vampire Slayer loves this trope too.
 * This is how vamps kill humans who they don't drain.
 * Angelus kills Jenny Calendar this way in his crossing of the Moral Event Horizon.
 * Alt-Master kills alt-Buffy this way.
 * Buffy kills Der Kindestod this way.

Buffy: That would be his neck."


 * And it's pretty much Caleb's signature move, to almost Narm levels.
 * Moloch, in his robot body, does this to his subordinate, Fritz, in the episode "I Robot, You Jane".
 * A Demon Biker does this to a Vamp, which then crumbles to dust.
 * In the comics,  kills   in this manner, mirroring Jenny Calendar's death.
 * Sayid from Lost does this to another... With his feet.
 * Farscape
 * In an especially jarring example, Captain Crais does this to a subordinate ONE-HANDED. C'mon, the guy has some training but he's not exactly a ninja.
 * Scorpius also managed a one-handed Neck Snap in the fourth season, but then again, Scorpius is much stronger than the average Sebacean.
 * Aeryn snaps several necks too throughout the series. Clearly it is the Peacekeepers' favored close-up method of killing.
 * In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Journey to Babel", an Orion spy breaks the neck of the Tellarite Ambassador using the Vulcan execution technique tal-shaya in order to frame Ambassador Sarek for the crime.
 * Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
 * In an episode, Quark asks Garak to kill him, and Garak demonstrates various methods he could use on the holosuite. One of these is sneaking up on holo-Quark and performing this maneuver, leading the real Quark to lampshade this trope by exclaiming, "Did you hear that sound? Of bones snapping? I don't want that to be the last thing I hear!"
 * In one of the more memorable Deep Space Nine scenes, Weyoun taunts Ezri Dax with some personal information he got during her Mind Probe interrogation, forgetting that he's standing next to Worf who promptly breaks his neck.
 * Worf develops a real fondness for the Neck Snap, as he can be seen using it to dispatch no fewer than four Jem'Hadar on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
 * In "Hard Time", killed his cellmate this way.
 * In "To the Death", a Jem'Hadar "First" snaps the neck of his "Second" for insubordination. The main point the producers wanted to get across with that was that the Jem'Hadar are far less sympathetic than prior Trek antagonists....
 * The Jem'Hadar First is visibly angry that Sisko doesn't discipline Worf in this manner.
 * Firefly:
 * After his attempt to turn in Simon and River for the reward money goes wrong in "Ariel" and he gets arrested right along with them, Jayne decides to get the two out of there and kills one of the two Feds holding them in their cell by snapping his neck while handcuffed (though it takes some doing), giving Simon the opportunity to disable the other one.
 * In "Bushwhacked," Mal also snaps the neck of the settler-turned-Reaver who is trying to kill the Alliance officer at the end of the episode.
 * In Heroes:
 * pulls this on during the volume 3 finale. Justified, of course.
 * Arthur Petrelli pulls this off with a wave of his hands on.
 * Earlier in the same volume, Peter does this to Sylar. With one hand. (He gets better though.)
 * Duncan uses this in a Highlander the Series ep to mercy kill a suffering friend at the Andersonville prison camp.
 * Battlestar Galactica Reimagined:
 * Number Six does this to a Caprican baby in the opening few minutes of the pilot by reaching into the stroller and twisting when the mother isn't looking. Justified in that babies' necks are ridiculously easy to break.
 * Appears to be the preferred unarmed killing technique of Cylons. Of course they are stronger than humans. Examples include Caprica killing Boomer when the latter threatened Hera, Gina killing the guard outside her cell, and Boomer killing a Simon in the Grand Finale.
 * If Steven Seagal appears in Mad TV, someone is about to get a neck broken. Likewise in a lot of his movies.
 * While it's not done by another person, on Big Love,
 * Doctor Who
 * The fourth Doctor does this to a minor villain apparently non-fatally in "The Seeds of Doom".
 * The Master does to in the TV Movie, killing him (He got better, though).
 * The Weeping Angels turn out to be very fond of this in Series 5. It quickly replaced the "trapping victims in the past" method from Blink, likely to avoid villain decay (since that's easy to undo with a TARDIS). The Doctor tried to explain this as an exception since they needed the body or soul to talk, but they go on doing it after creating "Angel Bob". Of course, sending people to the past is a way to feed, and they already get enough power from draining the ship's engines.
 * Kings does something very similar to The Long Kiss Goodnight when Silas, driving alone and angry in the country at night, hits a deer, then gets out of the car and snaps its neck with his bare hands. Of course, since this is Kings, this is all very symbolic and there is an awesome monologue first.
 * A favored method of killing by the Terminators in The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and frequently done one-handed, and usually in the middle of a Neck Lift.
 * Most bad guys in Supernatural prefer this method of killing someone, with demons usually doing it with Telekinesis. Since it's mostly supernatural beings, the ease with which the neck breaks is justified. Most notably, this is how
 * One of JD's fantasies on Scrubs involved his faking his own death and setting up an elaborate funeral solely so that Dr. Cox would hug him. When fantasy-Cox learns this, he snaps JD's neck.
 * Dexter uses this method.
 * 24: Jack Bauer loves this move. As with Sayid, Jack uses his legs for half of the kills. One was even with the back of his leg while he was tied up!
 * In Kamen Rider Faiz, 's neck gets snapped by Kaixa,.
 * In Dark Angel, Max (Jessica Alba) snaps Terrance's neck in the episode Prodigy (Season 1, Episode 7).
 * Stargate SG-1
 * Teal'c does this to a Jaffa leader (who has been torturing him, as well as his son and mentor -- thus making it very satisfying) in the episode "Orpheus", though it takes some squeezing.
 * Adria may be a subversion, she uses her Psychic Powers to kill a Jaffa this way in SG-1 episode 10.07 "Counterstrike".
 * Similarly, Niirti is killed this way by one of her telekenetic "experiments".
 * One episode of Criminal Minds has a particularly poor example when a CIA agent has neck broken. Her chin was moved gently to rest on her collar bone while a cracking sound played on the soundtrack.
 * This is how Lucas kills Merlyn in American Gothic.
 * Torchwood: Miracle Day episode 2 ("Rendition") has a suitably bizarre example where Rex . Further neck-snapping goodness occurs during the Miracle Day finale, too.
 * The 2000s TV version of Sheena often featured the heroine dispatching bad guys this way, usually after morphing into a monster.
 * The remake of ''Hawaii Five-O has an episode in which Kono does this to a mook.
 * In the Season 1 Andromeda episode "A Rose in the Ashes", the prison warden does a one-handed neck-snap to a revolting inmate. Justified, in that the warden is an android.
 * This is discussed and demonstrated in an episode of NCIS.
 * In the miniseries Masada, one of the Zealots breaks a Roman soldier's neck by placing the palms of his hands on each of the victim's cheeks and twisting?!

Music Videos

 * In Ivy's (banned) "Temptation of Sonata" music video, as a reenactment of Tifa and Loz's fight in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Tifa's victory involved a necksnap on Loz. It ended up banned due to her essentially infringing on copyrights.

New Media

 * There are youtube videos demonstrating the proper technique, many of them overemphasizing the danger of the neck snap, since it's already both extremely dangerous and relatively simple to perform. The videos often come under fire for potentially inciting violent behavior that could either be justified by or hidden under the label of "self-defence". The matter is hotly debated.

Tabletop Games

 * You can do this in GURPS as part of grappling, but you usually fail at the required rolls, unless you have high ST and/or points in the Neck Snap technique.
 * Call of Cthulhu supplement Fearful Passages, adventure "Sleigh Ride". One of the giganteus sneaks up behind Professor Chance and wrenches his neck with a sickening crack.

Theater

 * In Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the Beadle, Judge Turpin's dragon, does this to the poor little bird that was Anthony's gift to Johanna in a quite cruel Kick the Dog moment before threatening Anthony with the same if he ever steps foot on their street again. In the non-musical version of the play by Christopher Bond that the musical was based on, Sweeney kills the Beadle by dropping him right down the chute with the chair in such a way as to break his neck upon landing, a nod to the way the original Sweeney murdered his customers in The String of Pearls.

Video Games

 * The second part of the new Prince of Persia series lets you do this in combat if you only have one weapon, usually vaulting over the enemy, stunning it in the process and strangling it. If it's already critically wounded, you then disarm it and execute it Anakin-style with both your and its own weapon -- otherwise you just take a long, long time twisting its neck which potentially makes you vulnerable to its friends.
 * At the end of The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, Zant apparently snaps his own neck to kill Ganon? It's not really clear. It obviously has something to do with the stated connection between Ganon and Zant, but what exactly it means isn't stated (though seeing as Zant does seem to consciously do it to himself, it could be thought that he is disillusioned with Ganon, knowing that he's not a god after all, and is taking him with him in death out of spite.)
 * In one early cutscene in Jade Empire, Master Li snaps a Lotus Assassin's neck by karate chopping it. It should be noted that his strength was sufficient to shatter a ship with a punch, so breaking someone's neck is really to be expected.
 * 7 Days a Skeptic, game two of the Chzo Mythos. Particularly noteworthy for being the absolute sickest breaking sound (and therefore most effective breaking sequence in recent memory) despite the King's Quest-like graphics. Also shows up in 6 Days a Sacrifice when
 * Danette from Soul Nomad and The World Eaters constantly threatens to snap people's necks.
 * Mortal Kombat
 * This is how Shao Kahn kills Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat Annihilation and in Mortal Kombat 9.
 * Speaking of Mortal Kombat, snapping your opponent's neck is just one of the ways to finish off a "Kreate-A-Fatality" in Mortal Kombat Armageddon.
 * Havik can snap his own neck. To regenerate health. He is a freakish undead contortionist thing, so it makes sense. Kinda...
 * In the opening sequence of the Deadly Alliance, this is how Shang Tsung kills.
 * This is actually a rather popular way of finishing an opponent in the series; Hotaru and Tanya both twist an opponent's neck past the point where their head should even be attached (Hotaru with his bare hands, Tanya with her Murderous Thighs) while Quan Chi has a rather lame neck-stretching move in Deadly Alliance, and Scorpion himself has this as his Hara-Kiri and as the final blow for one of his fatalities in Deception. It's also starting to become customary to break a person's neck before ripping it off Sub-Zero style (or breaking the appropriate bones before dismembering them, if not specifically going for the head)
 * Mortal Kombat 4 also has several non-lethal neck snappers. Tanya, Sonya and Reptile all have a "bone breaker" move that makes them twist the opponent's neck 180 degrees before it snaps back into place.
 * In the Fight Club activity inside Saints Row 2, you must finish off your opponents in this way. It is portrayed as being rather difficult though, as it will later involve a lot of Button Mashing to kill, and it is done in a full rear chokehold like in Metal Gear Solid. This is also how human shields are disposed of when unarmed or equipped with a rocket launcher.
 * In the sequel Killbane, leader of rival gang The Luchadores, does a one-handed version to  after she provokes him by calling him by his real name.
 * Oni:
 * Konoko does this in one of her more elaborate attacks. It involves running up to your opponent frontally, simultaneously grabbing them by the neck, jumping in the air and using your momentum to do a 360 spin kick, with the guy's neck as a pivot axis. Since his body only goes about 180, you get rewarded with a satisfying crack. Did I mention you can use it to knock down multiple opponents, if they are clustered together?
 * Muro (who can be controlled in certain levels with a cheat code) plays this one straight if you sneak up behind an opponent and use the default grapple.
 * In the original Metal Gear Solid, the quietest way to kill guards after you have snuck up on them is to snap their necks (although for some strange reason, the guards still seem to bleed after the move is successfully performed as if shot or hit with a killer punch/kick even though that shouldn't happen).
 * This is given a nod in Super Mario Bros Brawl, where it's one of Snake's throws.
 * Resident Evil
 * In one of the first cutscenes in Resident Evil 4, Leon demonstrates his new badass upgrade by breaking a villager's neck, using only his foot and the mook's own weight (at least if you hit the buttons on time). But don't take our word for it.
 * In the mercenaries minigame, HUNK's special move is the neck breaker...But its quite noisy this time. Although it kills the target instantly, the mook will still shout out or sigh; on top of that, they'll bleed out of their mouths. Not sure whether that makes it more or less realistic.
 * When Chris or Jill performs a neckbreak in Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil Mercenaries 3D, they simply fall down silently. In Chris's case, they don't even try to resist and will simply stand straight up with their arms to their sides when grabbed.
 * Several enemies will do this to Leon if he misses a cutscene button prompt, specifically Mendez and U3. Mendez does it with one hand, although right before that he bends heavy steel rods together and throws you twenty feet, so it's not too surprising.
 * Sophitia from Soul Calibur does it with her thighs. To be more specific, she jumps on the opponent's face crotch-first, and gives a sharp hip-twist, with the trademark crunchy noise.
 * Later games of the Syphon Filter franchise gave Gabe the ability to do this if he attacks a Mook from behind with nothing equipped.
 * This, along with several other special unarmed attacks, can be used to execute prison guards in The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. What's more is that you can grab them from the front and do it.
 * Street Fighter
 * Cammy caps off her Limit Break in the latest game with one of these.
 * Makoto from ''Street Fighter III' also uses this as a command throw.
 * As does Ibuki, which becomes a triple Neck Break when powered up.
 * Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Hurricane Polimar's level 3 Hyper Combo caps off with him breaking the prone opponent's neck with a slight twist of his foot. It does quite a bit of damage, too.
 * A chokehold and neck snap are elements of one of Heihachi's basic throws in the Tekken series. However, as disgusting as it looks, opponents do not immediately die from it. Other characters in the Tekken series whose moves include neck snaps are: Feng, Christie, Lili and Zafina.
 * This is one of the more popular ways to kill someone in Shinobido with a stealth kill attack. Usually performed in midair (Goh will use his arms, Kinu her legs) or while hanging from a cliff (drag the victim down and break his/her neck). The other ways are usually bloodier (slicing throats and impaling with extreme prejudice).
 * Geralt gets one of these on a Salamandra mook in a cutscene from The Witcher. Bonus points for breaking his neck while he's pissing in an alley.
 * In Vampire Bloodlines a vampire with Obfuscate powers or simply some skill in stealth can do this to score an instant kill on an unsuspecting victim. And the trope is justified by the fact vampires are wicked strong.
 * In Gears of War 2, characters dispose of their human shields by doing this.
 * In The King of Fighters '98 Rugal (non-Omega) has the "Dead End Screamer" which in its SDM/MAX version starts with him snapping the opponent's neck with his feet.
 * Early on in Planescape: Torment, if your Dexterity score is high enough, you have the option to use this on anyone who stops you while trying to escape from the Mortuary. Things go better for you if you just bluff your way through, though.
 * The Big Bad of Baldur's Gate, Sarevok, shows his villain credentials in the opening when he uses his monstrous strength to crush an adult man's neck one-handed.
 * Despite putting guards in a headlock being his preferred way of dealing with them, it took until Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory for Sam Fisher to learn this trick, as the lethal variant on his new 'death from above' attacks.
 * In Heavenly Sword, King Bohan does this to.
 * Upgrading the Stealth Consume ability in Prototype makes Alex switch to snapping his target's neck from behind via Super Strength rather than ripping them open; quicker and cleaner.
 * The Godfather: The Game
 * One of the execution styles involves a neck snap from the front on a weakened opponent. Another involves a snap after choking the guy to death.
 * The sequel retains the snap-after-choking, as well as an upgrade that replaces the garotte stealth kill, and is much faster. Oddly enough, though, it is executed by grabbing the victim with your garrote wire. For some reason, your character strangles them with the wire for a second or so, complete with distressed gurgling from the victim, then snaps their necks to kill them quicker.
 * In The Warriors, some of the bigger and stronger warriors will use this as their sneak attack if you come up behind an enemy from out of the shadows. The smaller guys usually stick to the karate chop to the neck routine.
 * One of the many ways of killing your enemies in Tenchu.
 * Seen A LOT in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Whenever you sneak up on an enemy with a melee attack, expect to see some necks broken, and a very satisfying snap. Also, in the online co-op modes, there are exclusive enemies that sneak up behind you, grab your neck, and attempt to snap it. If your buddies don't take him out in time, well, hope you've gotten used to hearing that snapping sound so much.
 * Also given a slight nod to realism, as when Nate breaks an opponent's neck, he's almost always putting his full body weight into the effort, either getting them on the ground first to abuse his leverage, or otherwise maneuvering them into a position in which he can exert a lot of pressure. They still die silently, though.
 * Done several times in the God of War  series.
 * Subverted in God Hand. The Cobra Twist Action Commands looks like one of these, but not only does Gene need several tugs to do it, it's not even fatal.
 * Mass Effect
 * Thane Krios of Mass Effect 2 demonstrates this on one of his target's guards when you first encounter him. In fact, according to the Shadow Broker's dossier on him, it's his preferred assassination technique on any species including the krogan, who have necks like tree trunks. He needs a "running leaping spinning neck-snap" to get up enough momentum for that last one. However, half the time he'll just plant a bomb instead.
 * Shepard can perform one on a mouthy mercenary captain if a Renegade interrupt is taken during Miranda's loyalty mission. Shepard is fortunately both a trained combatant and a cyborg.
 * Basically the first thing you see Samara do on her recruitment mission is snap the neck of an Eclipse merc with her Combat Stilettos.
 * Dragon Age
 * In the original game, Riordan does this to a mook to escape from a dungeon cell when you first meet him.
 * In Dragon Age II, Fenris does this first to a mook whom he was questioning after pinning him to the ground. Later he crushes neck effortlessly with one hand after lifting him off the ground by it. It's justified; his tattoos grant him magical combat boosts.
 * In Fable III, one of the fancy counter animations when using a sword has you do a slo-mo forward flip over them. You snap their neck on the way over.
 * In the Team Fortress 2 Supplemental Material video "Meet the Spy", the Red Spy breaks the Blue Medic's neck with a karate chop.
 * In World of Warcraft, High King Maulgar did this to the previous High King as a show of his strength, killing him and becoming ruler of Outland's ogres under Gruul.
 * In Deus Ex Human Revolution Adam can both do a "normal" snap and a fancy version where he grabs an enemy by the face and spins his mechanical hand a full 360 around the joint. He is a cyborg after all. And then there's the version he can do from the opposite side of a concrete wall.
 * In Crysis 2 one of the Back Stab animations is this. Alcatraz is using Powered Armor that gives Super Strength.
 * In Super Paper Mario, whenever Mimi she snaps her neck. With an audible sound effect. And it rotates a full 180, turning her head upside down. What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?
 * In the opening cinematic of Assassin's Creed Revelations, the protagonist Ezio snaps a soldier's neck like a twig. Considering that he's a trained killer and pretty darn buff, it's reasonably believable.
 * Two different neck snaps are present as finishing moves in Dark Sector. One is fairly pedestrian, the other is an unusual and especially brutal variant where Hayden bends an enemy over backwards, places it in an upside down headlock and lifts up sharply, breaking the neck.
 * In Halo: Reach, there's an assassination animation that utilizes this trope for three enemies: the Grunts (in which the Spartan simply cups its head and twists), the Elites (the Spartan leaps on its back, grabs its snout and pulls), and other Spartans (the Spartan knocks his target on his/ her stomach, leans down, and casually twists the head).
 * Available as a melee attack in the reboot of Syndicate. You are an advanced cyborg, after all.
 * In Neverwinter Nights 2, you can cut the githyanki high commander's post-defeat Hannibal Lecture short by breaking her neck.

Visual Novels

 * In Yarudora series vol. 3: Sampaguita, performs this on a Mook guarding the enemy headquarters, in order to storm it with maximum surprise effect.

Web Comics

 * In Gnoph, Abbey dispatches a Mook this way early on, demonstrating her superhuman strength.
 * Pella, the bard from Looking for Group snaps a guard's neck with her thighs, promising to write a song about it when they escape.
 * Nikol, in Seventy Seas, at one point snaps, and then unsnaps a monk's neck.
 * In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, Dr. McNinja does this to a random security guard in one of his early stories.
 * Goblins
 * An imprisoned owlbear is incapacitated after going on a rampage against its cruel captors. Upon hearing that the creature will be kept alive and tortured, a fellow prisoner uses this method to give the owlbear a mercy kill.
 * And there is the one where Kin kills Tayshun.
 * In the Tempts Fate subcomic, Tempts Fate does one to a monster as an Offhand Backhand.
 * The Order of the Stick
 * Miko Miyazaki does this to Sabine . Of course, since Sabine's an Outsider, it just makes her annoyed.
 * Xykon does this to  in Start of Darkness.
 * The technique is described in loving detail in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer webcomic, Pillars of Faith. Given Faith has Slayer strength, this is performed as a decapitation technique involving a double torque.

Web Original

 * In episode 7 of the Xiao Xiao series, the main character snaps a couple of Mooks' necks, but it sounds less like a snap, and more like someone tapping a brick against a cookie jar.
 * Hilariously parodied in the Escapist webseries Doomsday Arcade. When Shanks and Lund have to break out of a prison, the guards' necks snap with the slightest twist. They even manage to snap their necks by touching them on the shoulder and staring at them.
 * Done with a one-handed Neck Lift in Magical Girl Hunters. Then again, the person being killed is a 5-year-old girl...

Western Animation
"Hank: And that'll knock him out... even more?
 * Robot Chicken parodies this all the time, including the "Happy Ending" and "Jared Gets Fat" sketches from Season 1
 * The Venture Brothers
 * Brock Sampson walks Hank Venture through this in "Ghosts of the Sargasso". Apparently he thinks Hank Venture is strong enough to do this.

Brock: That'll kill him."

"Hank: How would you do it?
 * In "Ice Station Impossible!" Hank, facing possible doom as a human bomb, asks Brock to kill him if the need comes.

Brock: You're asleep, quick jerk of the neck. Never feel a thing.

Hank: You've thought about this!

Brock: Yes, I have."


 * Patrick Smith's short Delivery features two brothers fighting over a package. One of them eventually defeats the other by snapping his neck. According to Smith, it was a meant to be a rebuttal to all those Anvil on Head cartoons, saying that his character will die if one falls on them.
 * In Star Wars the Clone Wars, Asajj Ventress and her allied Nightsisters decide to test the loyalty of their newly-empowered minion, Savage Opress, by commanding him to kill his brother. Savage does so with a Neck Snap. (Not with a Force Choke Neck Lift, mind you, as is traditional in this universe—Opress has only an instinctual knowledge of the Force in this episode, and no formal training. He does it with his bare hands.)
 * Stan Smith does this several times in American Dad Stan, while being high on crack, kills a monkey this way (which wouldn't really be that hard). He also kills Jay Leno this way in a fit of anger.
 * The Simpsons: McBain does this to the trope namer of Commie Nazis.
 * My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: Fluttershy does this to a bear. Yes, this is a little girl's show.