Falling Chandelier of Doom

That's not what I meant by "When the lights go down."

For some reason Agnes's practical eye was drawn to the huge chandelier that hung over the auditorium like a fantastic sea monster. Its thick rope disappeared into the darkness near the ceiling....
"That looks like an accident waiting to happen if ever I saw one," she mumbled.

— Maskerade

When in high-class surroundings, the standard way to create chaos or kill people is inevitably to drop the enormous chandelier hanging from the ceiling. This is usually intentional on the part of the character, but occasionally it happens by accident. A frequent comedic version is for the hero to accidentally drop the chandelier on his own allies.

This is most common in film and theater since it creates a visually spectacular effect. While there are a few instances of chandeliers unexpectedly falling during performances, this happens far more often in fiction than in real life. Most chandeliers are actually very very difficult to drop. However, building a prop chandelier rigged to drop is childishly easy.

Compare Chandelier Swing. You can pretty much guarantee that any prominently featured chandelier will result in one of these tropes — or both, if someone cuts a convenient supporting rope and uses the falling chandelier as a counterweight.

Generally, it's a subtrope of Death by Looking Up. It might overlap with Impaled with Extreme Prejudice. In a few older movies, results in Out of the Inferno because chandeliers used to feature actual candles.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In the original Golden Sun commercial, a woman faced an animated chandelier DRAGON! Years later, it made it into the games themselves as a summon in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.
• In the trailers for Lilo & Stitch Stitch interrupted famous songs and scenes from previous Disney films. One was the ballroom dance from Beauty and the Beast where Stitch causes the chandelier to fall almost crushes the two dancing below.

Anime & Manga

• Subverted in episode 12 of Another: a chandelier falls, trapping Kawahori, Tsujii, Watanabe and Kakinuma. However, Kawahori is the only character to die, and this is because he freed himself, ran off without the others, and gets crushed by a falling pillar. Everybody else survives.
• Case Closed
  • In the Reunion with the Black Organization case, it turns out that the victim died by having a huge chandelier fall on him. More exactly, it was shot off and dropped on him by a high-ranked member of the aforementioned Black Organization, who hoped to Make It Look Like an Accident.
  • In a later filler case, a man named Itsuro Soejima dies when a just-as-huge chandelier in his house falls on him. Then there's a Double Subversion: first it looks like Soejima shot down said chandelier while drunk and that's why it fell on him, and later it's seen that Soejima was, in practice, killed by his sister-in-law Kyouko Takahata: she got him drunk and manipulated him to shoot the chandelier to kill him.
• Horribly, horribly subverted in Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School Side:Future, where a chandelier falls down.... with Chisa Yukizome's bloodstained corpse already draped all over it.
• Played with in Digimon V-Tamer 01, where Taichi has his partner Zeromaru make a chandelier fall, not for death and destruction, but so that the noise of it breaking breaks through a sonic attack in action.
• A minor villain in Dorohedoro used a chandelier made out of syringes full of sleeping medicine as a trap.
• In Haikara-san ga Tooru, local ill girl Larissa dies as she pulls a Diving Save to rescue Shinobu from one and gets hit instead.
• In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood, Straizo breaks a chandelier in order to tie up four zombies who were under it during the climatic clash between Jonathan and Dio.
• The Kindaichi Case Files uses this trope multiple times as a murder method. So far all of the victims are women.
  • Two of three separate murder cases involving The Phantom of the Opera as the culprit's persona involve this scenario. The very first case only has the victim died from a falling stage light. The second one^note This is available in light novel and movie premier of Kindaichi anime is a subversion since the victim had already died before the chandelier fell on the victim. The third one is a straight version of this since the victim looks up the chandelier and it instantly falls on her.
  • Kindaichi Returns case "Black Spirit Hotel Murder Case" combines this trope with Lights Off, Somebody Dies. In the middle of filming a horror movie, a chandelier falls down after a blackout occurs and kills an actress sitting below it, making people believe that the culprit is someone not present during the shoot. In reality, the killer replaced the screws holding the chandelier up with an electromagnet beforehand. This way said chandelier will surely fall when the blackout occurs.
• In Lupin III <Pilot Film>, Jigen shoots down the chandelier to knock out the policemen hiding behind a table.
• Noir does this straight, with Kirika machine-gunning a chandelier to down some mooks.
• Happens to Ash and Pikachu in the Pokémon: The Series episode "The Tower of Terror". They die... sort of. Well, since their souls were literally pulled out by a Haunter, it was probably a case of Only Mostly Dead.
• Happens to one of the Zahlen Scwhestern in the final episode of Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom.

Comic Books

• Archie vs. Predator: Archie hurls an axe at a chandelier to bring it down on the Predator. Unfortunately, the Predator dodges it.
• In Jonah Hex #68 (original series), Jonah stops a rowdy who was busting up a saloon by shooting out the chain holding up the chandelier so it falls on him. Said chandelier was made out of a wagon wheel. Ouch!
• In Robyn Hood: Vigilante #1, Robyn is escaping from her former allies in the Underground in the Peacock's banquet hall. She shoots the rope holding up the ornate chandelier, sending plunging down on top of her pursuers.
• In Tintin: The Crab with the Golden Claws, Big Bad Omar Ben Salaad is about the shoot Tintin but Snowy come from behind and bites him in the ass. Ben Salaad loses his balance and shoots in the air upon which a chandelier comes crashing down on his head.

Comic Strips

• It was a Monday◊ and the screws on the chandelier above Garfield needed tightening.

Fan Works

• Loved and Lost: Fluttershy kicks the chain of a chandelier, causing it to fall on Commander Hildread and her guards, entangling them in diamond chains and giving the heroes a chance to escape.
  Applejack: Good thinkin', Fluttershy.
  Rarity: But what a waste of a perfectly beautiful chandelier.
• No Competition: Discussed when Jasper first gets a look inside The Lich's new home in Little Whinging and counts six chandeliers, he notes to himself that each of them could crush a man if they fell.

Films — Animated

• Anastasia: Rasputin sends a chandelier crashing to the ballroom floor in the party scene at the beginning of the movie, but everyone steps out of the way.
• Cinderella: Subverted, as the "victims" in question are sitting astride the chandelier before it falls thanks to the king accidentally cutting the cable with his sword during his elation. Both survive, since the King's mattress broke their fall (sort of).
• Subverted in The Emperor's New Groove, where Punch-Clock Villain Kronk tries to drop a chandelier on his boss Yzma, but she's so skinny she slips through a hole in it and emerges unscathed.
  Kronk: Strange... that usually works.
  Yzma: And so does this! (pulls a lever and a Trap Door opens under Kronk)
  Kronk: Ah. Should've seen that comin'. (falls) WHOOOA!!!!
• In Frozen, one of the Duke of Weselton's men tries to shoot Elsa, but Hans grabs the man's arm just as he's releasing his crossbow, leading to the arrow instead flying upwards and cutting the suspension on the chandelier above. Elsa barely avoids it and gets knocked unconscious.
• In the first Futurama movie, Bender's Big Score, Hermes' time clone body is destroyed by a falling chandelier. This leads Lars (actually an aged time clone Fry) to realize that he is just as doomed as Hermes' body.
• In Minions, at Scarlet Overkill's coronation ceremony, Bob and Stewert nearly unscrew the chandelier while being chased by a bee. When Kevin and Stewert try to pull Bob out, his shoe gets stuck, which causes the chandelier to unscrew completely. It falls onto and supposedly kills Overkill. She lives and declares a massive attack on the Minions, thinking that they intentionally tried to kill her.
• In The Princess and the Pea, Laird has his pet falcon cut a chandelier to fall on Rollo, but Heath pushes him out of the way in time to take the blow instead. It doesn't kill him.
• Downplayed in Shrek, Shrek drops a chandelier on the Dragon, but it doesn't kill her, instead falling around her neck like a collar and tying her up long enough for the main characters to escape.

Films — Live-Action

• Babe: Pig in the City: The film's climax takes place in a ballroom and involves Esme using an improvised bungee from a drape tied to a chandelier to get Babe back. Although the chandelier is sturdy enough to support Esme, the combined weight of her, Babe, and Thelonius proves to be too much for it to handle and it comes crashing down, which fortunately doesn't badly hurt anybody.
• Clue has an accidentally-dropped chandelier—the maid accidentally shoots the rope holding it up while trying to shoot the lock on a door. One of the three endings drops the other chandelier in the hall in a similar, but even funnier, manner.
• Non-fatal version in Demolition Man. Phoenix is hiding behind an information terminal with a very large, cone-shaped ceiling light overhead and a glass floor beneath (it was an underground exhibit). Spartan shoots the line holding the fixture up, causing it to land near Phoenix and drop him into the exhibit.
• In Die Another Day, James Bond casually shoots down a chandelier made of ice which lands on The Dragon after a long battle through a melting ice palace in cars, armed with stinger missiles and mounted machine guns. The water turns red almost immediately.
• From Dusk Till Dawn: when the lead hooker vampire gets the upper hand on George Clooney's character, Seth, and gloats turning him into her personal lap-dog, Seth's response? "No thanks, I already had a wife.", and shoots the rope holding the wooden chandelier, which impales her.
• Ghostbusters (1984): The guys drop a chandelier in their pursuit of Slimer.
  Peter: It's okay. The table broke the fall.
• In Godzilla (1998) the heroes clear a path through a host of baby Zillas by shooting down a succession of chandeliers.
• In Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Hamlet, Hamlet (Branagh) drops a chandelier on Claudius (Derek Jacobi) during the final battle, in addition to poisoning and stabbing him. Uh... Yeah
  "Oh I have to poison him? That's boring —EAT CHANDELIER, BITCH!"
• As in the book, Dobby drops a chandelier on Bellatrix (or tries to) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Being a house-elf, he doesn't mean to kill Bellatrix, only to maim...or seriously injure.
  • Though not a chandelier, there's a similar effect in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when the Cornish pixies are wreaking havoc in Lockhart's class, dropping the dragon skeleton hanging above the desks and it comes crashing down.
• In Hot Fuzz, the Big Bad uses this to make an escape once exposed by Angel and Danny, shooting the chandelier so that, as it falls, it blocks the officers from making a move.
• In House on Haunted Hill (1959), Nora is almost killed by a falling chandelier within minutes of entering the house.
• The International. The museum shootout is brought to an end by dropping a chandelier-like construction that suspends several projection screens on a couple of mooks.
• The climatic shootout in Just Heroes is set in a huge mansion, with a chandelier in it's main hall. Half of it gets destroyed when one of the heroes knocks a mook off a balcony and crashing into the chandelier's side, and later on the whole thing falls nearly crushing the protagonist. He survived, but ends up being momentarily trapped and trying to get out while more gun-wielding mooks tries shooting at him.
• Lampshaded and subverted in the Disney film A Kid in King Arthur's Court. The title character cuts the rope attached to a chandelier, but it doesn't fall, causing him to comment that "this always works in the movies". How the chandelier isn't falling even though its support is cut is never explained.
• In Killers, Spencer shoots the rope for an antler decoration, causing it to swing and impale the hitwoman strangling him.
• The Legend Of Hell House has three instances of ghostly forces dropping chandeliers on the characters, and the second one makes its mark.
• Parodied in Mars Attacks!!, as this is how the First Lady (Glenn Close) dies:
  Marsha: The Nancy Reagan chandelier! Woooooooh! *crash*
• In Matilda, Miss Trunchbull brings down a chandelier when she jumps from the balcony while searching for Matilda and Miss Honey in her house.
• Necronomicon: In "The Drowned", Edward drops the massive chandelier with a huge spike on the base onto the Cthuloid monstrosity smashing its way up through the floor of the hotel.
• In Om Shanti Om, this is how the Big Bad gets dispatched at the end. The chandelier was let down by the ghost of the woman he killed in that same place.
• The Phantom meets his end in The Phantom of the Opera (1962) when he pushes Christine out of the way of one during the finale.
• The Phantom causes this with unpleasant results—crushing a section of the audience—in The Phantom of the Opera (1998). In a nod to Gaston Leroux's inspiration (see Literature below), he shown dislodging the counterweight as he does so.
• The Pink Panther (2006): As part of the Running Gag of Clouseau's paranoia causing him to cut wires he believes are meant to let outsiders listen in on him, Clouseau upon entering his hotel room cuts a wire in the floor. Cue a chandelier downstairs falling down and smashing onto the lobby floor.
• In Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Elizabeth is able to escape temporarily from the crew of the Pearl by taking advantage of a falling chandelier in her father's mansion.
• In Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Robin tries to drop a chandelier on the Sheriff's men, cuts the wrong rope, and drops a different chandelier on himself instead.
• The Scorpion King features a dropped chandelier which its target slips through, but then Mathayus uses the rope to dispose of a new opponent, which raises the chandelier again, catching the first guy astride. Ouch.
• In the movie of Stardust, Tristran goes through several different chandeliers before finding the one that will land on Zombie-Septimus; he then uses the momentum from the cut rope as a way to quickly get up the stairs and knock down the witch Lamia.
• During the attack on the White House in Superman II, Non throws a pillar at a bazooka-armed soldier, knocking him backwards so he fires his rocket into the ceiling, causing a chandelier to fall on top of him.
• Done in The Three Musketeers (1993), with Porthos riding the chandelier down:
  [after dropping a group of the Cardinal's guards with a chandelier]
  Porthos: Did I miss anyone?
  Aramis: Congratulations, Porthos. You brought down the house.
  Porthos: Oh, drat. I was trying to hit Rochefort.
• In Transylvania 6-5000, Gil is nearly struck by a falling chandelier in the old chapel.
• At the climax of Unconscious, León and Dr. Pardo get killed by one. Since it gets knocked down by a bullet fired from León's gun, it counts as a Karmic Death at least in part.
• Up the Chastity Belt: Sir Braggart cuts down the chandelier so it falls on Sir Coward as he charges back into the great hall during the final battle.
• Subverted in The War of the Roses: Barbara (Kathleen Turner) prepares to drop a chandelier onto her husband, Oliver, but he moves out of the way before she can drop it. It ends up killing them both when, during a later fight, they both get on top of it and the supporting cables snap. But since they're on top, this may not count.
• What a Carve Up!: The murderer attempts to drop a chandelier on Ernie's head, but abandons the attempt because Ernie won't stop moving around. This becomes a Chekhov's Gun as later Fisk throws a burning brand at the killer, which hits the release mechanism on the chandelier, dropping it on the killer's head.
• In What a Girl Wants, the chandelier at Peach and Pear's coming out party crashes down from the thumping of the rock music and dancing after Daphne livens up the party. Made a little funnier when, earlier, Henry tells Daphne not to mention the chandelier within earshot of Peach & Pear's father, as he could tell you the whole story revolving around it. It seems to be a priceless artifact.
• In The Wizard of Oz (1939), the Scarecrow drops one onto the Wicked Witch of the West's Winkie soldiers.

Literature

• The BFG: The BFG (Big Friendly Giant) knocks his head into an enormous crystal chandelier in the ballroom of the Queen's palace, the remains of which fall on him.
  BFG: Gunghummers and bogswinkles! What was that?
  The Queen: That was Louis the Fifteenth.
• A very similar variation occurs in the third Creature Court novel with the mirrored ceiling of the Vittorina Royale theatre. When Velody and Garnet use the mirror to come Back from the Dead, it shatters and rains down on the audience, bringing down most of the roof with it. Many theatregoers are crushed to death or impaled or slashed to pieces by broken glass.
• Discworld:
  • In Reaper Man, the extra life force caused by Death's downsizing results in the giant chandelier in Unseen University's Great Hall unscrewing itself. Luckily, it does so one screw at a time, giving the wizards ample warning to get away.
  • Despite the above quote (and the fact that it's parodying The Phantom of the Opera), Maskerade subverts this—everyone keeps talking about how dangerous the Opera House chandelier is, and the villain plans on dropping it, but thanks to Nanny Ogg's timely intervention it never actually falls.
  • In The Fifth Elephant, a chandelier is sent falling onto the Low-King-to-be. Detritus catches it, but since Vimes had tackled the Low King out of the way, they're accused of pulling an assassination attempt by those responsible.
• In Dragon Lance a burning chandelier falls on and kills the wife and child of Lord Soth. As she is engulfed in flames, the wife lays a Dying Curse on Soth and his loyal knights, turning them into Death Knights.
• The Fall of the House of Usher - The curse brought on the House of Usher in the form of tremors for the family's devil worship practices ends up in the death of the main character's sister by a falling chandelier.
• Much of the Dean Koontz novel Forever Odd takes place in the ruins of the Panamint Resort and Spa, which was severely damaged by an earthquake. Several people were killed in the ballroom when a massive chandelier fell on them during the quake; although this was an accident, it happened because the builders cut corners and suspended the chandelier from a wooden beam rather than a steel beam.
• Forest Kingdom: Subverted in book 4 (Beyond the Blue Moon) when Hawk and Fisher are wreaking havoc on Haven by dispatching pretty much every major criminal they can on their way out. After confronting the crime boss St. Christophe and dealing with his bodyguards, they face Christophe himself and get the upper hand by dropping a chandelier on him. The subversion is that the chandelier itself isn't what kills him — it just traps him long enough for Hawk and Fisher to take his head off.
• Harry Potter:
  • In book 5, Peeves at one point is seen trying to unscrew a chandelier that he plans to drop on Umbridge. Professor McGonagall sees him and tells him, "It unscrews the other way."
  • Book 7 has Dobby dropping the Malfoy's chandelier over them and Bellatrix.
• Hop-Frog by Edgar Allan Poe has an interesting variation. Instead of having the chandelier hanging overhead, it has been lowered to the floor at the beginning of the Masquerade Ball. The doom part comes in when the protagonist chains the antagonists to the chandelier during a seemingly Zany Scheme, and they are hoisted into the air after being set aflame.
• Took care of Mrs. Dark quite nicely in The Infernal Devices.
• One gets pulled down intentionally during the Legacy of the Force novels (Exiles by Aaron Allston, page 285). Of course, nobody dies, since there are two telekinetics in the room, but it was a good diversion.
• Nina Tanleven: In The Ghost in the Third Row, one of these is what killed Lily Larkin, turning her into the titular ghost.
• The Phantom of the Opera contains what is probably the most famous example of this trope. Gaston Leroux reportedly based the scene on an actual incident where one of the counterweights of the Palais Garnier's chandelier (not the chandelier itself) fell into the auditorium and killed a woman.
• Retired Witches Mysteries: In book 3, Brian is challenged to a magical duel by his father, with the winner claiming a vacant seat on the Grand Council of Witches. He wins by causing a chandelier to fall, knocking Schadt unconscious (though at first it seems it killed him).
• The second World of Tiers book ends with the villain accidentally cutting down a giant chandelier and being crushed with it. However, the villain is still alive and manages to struggle free and attack the protagonists again.

Live-Action TV

• In one episode of The Avengers (1960s), "Death's Door", a potentially world-changing conference is put on hold when a key delegate pulls out, having had a bizarre recurring dream in which a chandelier falls on his head. He interprets this (with good reason) as a warning not to attend the conference, lest he meet his demise in this manner. The heroes inspect it and find nothing wrong, but the villain still ends up crushed by it.
• In The Borgias's episode The Beautiful Deception, Lucrezia strategically placed a candle so as to burn the rope holding the chandelier above her brother Juan's bed while he is having sex, ultimately impaling his partner. She does this as revenge for him killing her son's father, Paolo.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • In "The Puppet Show", Buffy gets a chandelier dropped on her by Sid the living ventriloquist dummy, temporarily pinning her down as he attacks.
  • In "Surprise" Angel does the modern version by dropping a multiscreen TV on the Judge's head. It doesn't stop him.
  • Averted in "Smashed". Spike weakens a chandelier while swinging from it to kick Buffy in the face, including a closeup showing how it's been pulled out of the ceiling. By the time it falls, however, neither of them notice because they're too busy having passionate sex up against the wall.
• Chucky: In the episode "Dressed To Kill", Chucky kills seven people by causing a chandelier to crash in the middle of the White House Halloween Party. One character is graphically bisected.
• Daredevil (2015): The season 3 finale sees the chandelier in Wilson Fisk's penthouse get brought to the floor during the course of a three-way fight between Matt, Fisk, and Dex.
• An episode of The Dingo Principle featured a parody of The Phantom of the Opera where someone was killing members of the Liberal Party by dropping chandeliers on them, regardless of where they were at the time.
• Harper's Island, although it's not the chandelier per se, but a headspade concealed in it.
• In the MacGyver (1985) episode "The Coltons", Jesse Colton takes out a gunman who has taken cover behind a table by shooting out the chandelier above him so that it falls on him.
• In the Merlin episode "Lancelot and Guinevere", while he, Arthur and Lancelot are rescuing Guinevere from Hengist, Merlin drops a chandelier on one of Hengist's archers.
• Midsomer Murders: The third Victim of the Week in "Let Us Prey" is shackled to a bed and then impaled by a falling chandelier.
• The Artistic Title of The Night Manager ends with a falling chandelier that turns into an explosion on impact.
• Only Fools and Horses has a funny, non-combat-related version 2:30 here. The Trotters are posing as professional cleaners and tasked with cleaning a pair of priceless chandeliers. As Del and Rodney stand ready to catch it their grandfather goes upstairs and ends up unscrewing the wrong chandelier which crashes to the ground behind them. This was based on a real-life incident involving John Sullivan's father, who was part of a team of builders who made the same mistake. They all got the sack for it. The episode was written backwards to get there, and Sullivan senior thankfully saw the funny side of the whole thing when he watched the episode.
• This is how the Victim of the Week Gustav Hoffer is killed in the Pushing Daisies episode "Robbing Hood".
• Schmigadoon!: In the final episode of season 2, Kratt is offed when Miss Codwell cuts the rope on the chandelier hanging above him.
• Supernatural.
  • Dean is facing a ghost who naturally is Immune to Bullets. He shoots the chain holding up a chandelier instead. Being literally Made of Iron, the chandelier dissipates the ghost.
  • Sam and Dean realise they're in a room with a bunch of pagan gods. They turn to flee and a chandelier crashes to the floor in front of them, warning that trying to leave is a bad idea.
  • In the episode "Season 7, Time for a Wedding", a crossroad demon is making demon deals. Traditionally, demon deals entitle the deal seeker to one wish of their choice, no limits apply, that will last for ten years before their soul is dragged to hell in payment. However, this particular crossroad demon notes that if an accident should happen to befall the deal seeker soon after they make the deal, he can collect their soul sooner without having voided the contract as long as he doesn't kill them himself. He gets a minion demon to create "accidents". One deal seeker is nearly crushed by a falling chandelier but is luckily saved by Dean who has figured out what is happening.
• In The Two Ronnies serial The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town, the Prime Minister and the leaders of the Commonwealth are meeting to discuss the threat of the Phantom. Who drops in uninvited, and blows a raspberry at them that's powerful enough to make the Queen's portrait blush and bring the chandelier down.
• In a Saturday Night Live parody of Broadway, the Phantom loses patience with his fellow Broadway characters, and uses his light fixture collapsing power on them. However, since they are in a diner, the results are unimpressive.

Music

• A scene in the Meat Loaf video "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" has a chandelier fall on the cops searching the castle. The Literal Video version has Teen Girl Squad type commentary "CHANDELIER'D!" "Ow! My only scene!"
• In Katy Perry's song Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) where she tries to figure out What Did I Do Last Night?, one of the damages she notices is the chandelier on the floor.
  Trying to connect the dots
  Don't know what to tell my boss
  Think the city towed my car
  Chandelier is on the floor
• One of Peter Schickele's P.D.Q. Bach performances was supposedly in a (fictitious) castle in an advanced state of disrepair.
  "Unfortunately, due to the lack of funds for maintenance, there aren't as many chandeliers now as there used to be." CRASH!

Tabletop Games

• In the board game 13 Dead End Drive, one of the traps used to kill off the other heirs is a falling chandelier.
• The game Cards Against Humanity includes a white card with the text "Dropping a chandelier on your enemies and riding the rope up."

Theater

• The Phantom of the Opera makes the chandelier into a major gimmick of the show, having it hauled laboriously up into the rafters during the overture, only to have it come plummeting back down at the end of the first act. However the 25th Anniversary Celebration, filmed at the Royal Albert Hall, subverts this. Obviously the show couldn't drop the Hall's actual chandelier; instead, it just sparks and fizzles a little.
• The Play That Goes Wrong has most of the set come apart at the seams, but keeps this trick in reserve until the last five seconds, with the lights going out mid-"fall".

Video Games

• The final stage of Back Stab as you confront Edmund Kane in his office have the chandelier inevitably falling as you take on his guards, setting the lavish carpets alight in the process. Your subsequent duel against Edmund is a Battle Amongst the Flames.
• In Batman for the Sega Genesis, the chandeliers in Flugelheim Museum serve as Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom.
• Batman: Arkham Series:
  • In Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman can drop a chandelier at one point, although there it's a means to smash the glass floor of the room and save two hostages from The Joker.
  • In Batman: Arkham Knight, Batman can hack chandelier controls to drop them on unsuspecting mooks, knocking them out cold.
• One of the traps found in BeTrapped!. In rooms without a chandelier (and even in rooms with one), it can be a flowerpot, broken glass, a Mills bomb, dynamite, or even an anchor. Yes, an anchor.
• In the Arcade Game Bay Route, the chandeliers in the mansion level will fall when players walk under them unless they shoot them down first.
• Braid
  • The game requires the player to kill the game's Bosses by creatively manipulating such chandeliers. And drop a single chandelier on a boss several times.
  • The last level in the game features a broken chandelier that rises up and repairs itself due to the level working in reverse. Once you view the level in regular time, it turns out the Princess tried to drop the chandelier on you to stop you from chasing her. In the game's secret ending, you can actually use the rising chandelier to get to the Princess, only to have her explode like an Atomic Bomb.
• Castlevania:
  • Appears multiple times as an obstacle in richly-adorned environments. Tries to fall on you if you walk past them.
  • In Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth some of the chandeliers can be used to kill enemies.
• In the fine Sierra tradition of Everything Trying to Kill You, Laura Bow in The Colonel's Bequest can be killed by a falling chandelier if she steps on the wrong part of the hallway.
• In the Nintendo Switch version of Cuphead, during the first phase of Sally Stageplay's battle, you can stand on the two floating cherubs to lower them down and bring down the chandelier on her husband and squish him, shocking Sally so much that she'll cut the first round short to mourn over him and change the course of the second and third rounds.
• In The Darkside Detective, while exploring the Don's mansion, McQueen and Dooley see a chandelier and immediately note that it would do a lot of damage if it fell on someone. Sure enough, the main puzzle in the mansion involves a monster standing directly underneath the chandelier.
• In Dead Connection, the first stage has a chandelier at the top of the screen that inevitably falls.
• Some areas in Death's Gambit have a straight-up bed of spikes hanging on a rope. Perhaps it was placed there so that the Aldwynn crossbowman could shoot the rope and drop it on you. However, that doesn't explain why his allies risk standing in that same place.
• Death to Spies: Moment of Truth has a chandelier that may be dropped on a defector. The game also includes variants where you drop a torpedo or boat on some other targets.
• Doc in Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive can shoot one down near the end of the Marshal Jackson's hacienda level. However, it simply knocks the target out, which is just as well, since the level requires a Pacifist Run.
• In Diablo III's Cathedral, you can drop these on your enemies. The chandeliers project a shadow on the ground and are supported by a nearby chain. You even get an achievement if your characters kill 666 enemies with these.
• Dragon Unit have chandeliers on most indoor areas, which will automatically fall on you every time you try crossing underneath.
• En Garde!: There are many chandelier in the game's fancy villas. Adalia can drop them on enemies for one of the deadliest attacks in the game.
• Enter the Gungeon allows you to invoke this on some rooms of the Keep chamber (i.e. the very first floor). Each chandelier has a corresponding chain fastened somewhere on a nearby wall: Shooting it out will cause the chandelier to fall and explode, one-hitting most monsters standing below. The monsters can shoot it out too, but never on purpose, so unless you're very unlucky, the worst that'll happen will be a wasted chance to watch your enemies go splat.
• Fallout 3 has grenade cluster traps that drop from the ceiling when activated by a tripwire or pressure plate. In Tranquility Lane, one of the options when assassinating Mabel Henderson is to loosen the chandelier chain so it falls on her.
• Final Fight's last stage features falling chandeliers. Which contain turkeys, radios and two by fours.
• In one stage of Ghost Trick, you have to drop a chandelier on Emma, the bossy red-haired lady who lives next door to Lynne, so that she gets stuck and can't stop her daughter Amelie from calling her father. If you mistime the drop, Emma does a rather impressive dodge move. In the HD remaster, the mistiming of the chandelier drop has to be done once before you can nab her with the chandelier a second time to earn the "Captive on the Roof" achievement.
• A variation in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, where the chandelier instead turns into a dragon to attack your enemies (and is obtained from an opera house where the dragon had settled in order to hear the music). The payoff of a massive Brick Joke, since this transformation was featured in a seemingly unrelated ad for one of the previous games years prior.
• Haunting Ground: This is one of the two ways to end the boss battle with Debilitas, the other one being attacking him until he runs out of Hit Points. Using the chandelier is the non-lethal option, and is required to get both the best ending and the secret ending.
• Hitman
  • Hitman: Blood Money: Setting a bomb on the rope of a chandelier is one of the ways you can make a 'hit' look like an accident. Several missions practically invite you to drop chandeliers on people like this. In one mission, you actually got the chance to murder both a father and his son, by two separate chandeliers.
  • Hitman (2016) has a lot of opportunities for this in "The Showstopper", with the winches that control the chandeliers in easy reach, and two feats tied to it — one for each target.
• Hollow Knight: One of the bosses of the City of Tears, the Watcher Knights, are six large beetles fought together. Just before their boss chamber, there's a small, well-hidden side path that leads to a chain holding up one of the chandeliers just above their arena. Cutting the chain will send the chandelier falling down and crush one of the Knights, permanently bringing down their number to a more manageable five.
• House (2020): A variant with more plot power than normal. If you do nothing, the chandelier candles will burn through the rope holding the chandelier up — bad design there — and drop it onto your sister's piano while she's playing, crushing it and killing her instantly. This also dooms the cat to death by fire if it's still alive at this time (at least you can douse the chandelier or the cat with the filled-up bucket after the fact to save the cat, but it's too late for the sister at that point).
• House of the Dead: Overkill: You can create one on a bunch of mutants as they break into Papa's house of Pain.
• Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb: Indy sees below him Nazis discussing on a table, with an enormous chandelier above them. No need to describe what happens (Bond One-Liner included).
• In James Bond: Everything or Nothing, you must drop a whole lighting rig on some bad guys during the second half of "The Kiss Kiss Club" level. (A later level, "Faded Splendor," allows you to do this for real with the aid of a sniper rifle.)
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure, Shirley cuts the chain holding up the massive chandelier above the Arc en Ciel stage, which falls and severely injures Ilya. This was an act to lure Rixia out so Shirley could fight her.
• In the Arbiter's Grounds stage of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, you can drop a chandelier on yourself at one stage, if you're not careful. Later, you must actually drop a chandelier on yourself (standing in a gap in the middle so as not to be reduced to a 2-dimensional object) in order to progress.
• Kingpin is fought by dropping these on him during the "Feeling Fisky" side-mission of LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. The first is released by a switch that must be built, the second has its chain broken, and the last is ripped down by Spider-Man.
• Ryoshu in Limbus Company pulls this off, artfully causing a chandelier to fall by throwing a knife at it in an attempt to injure the security...only for it to land on nobody in particular. This leaves her clearly embarrassed, covering up the incident by stating it was "...a performance".
• During the first visit to Beast's Castle in Kingdom Hearts II, both the Shadow Stalker and Dark Thorn Heartless use the chandelier in the ballroom as a part of their attacks. Sora too can use it during the Dark Thorn fight in order to make him visible. Unlike most other chandeliers associated with this trope, this one has an extendable chain and returns to the ceiling once the attack is complete.
• In Magicka, the first boss, Behold the Watcher can be insta-killed by burning the rope of the chandelier above him.
• In Maniac Mansion, you do this by playing the recording of the Tentacle's high-pitched screech, to obtain the Rusty Key.
• In Mark of the Ninja
  • This is one method you can use to kill guards. Most notably, you can do this to an elite (who can't be stealth-killed) who brags that he'd love to see a ninja try to take him down.
  • One boss fight uses one as a central mechanic. You spend most of the fight disengaging safety measures specifically to enable you to drop a chandelier on him.
• In Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Nightcrawler's spectacular escape involve teleporting and cutting several chandeliers on Doombots.
• In McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure, certain chandeliers in the Pirate Ship level fall if Ronald gets too close to them.
• Medal of Honor, particularly the manor house in Frontline.
• Mickey Mousecapade has these in the Fun House. They can take out enemies as well as you.
• The third Nancy Drew game is actually won by dropping a chandelier on the villain. If you drop it at any other time than when he's directly below it, you get a Nonstandard Game Over.
• In Out of This World, you have to drop a chandelier on a guard at one point, and shoot down another chandelier to allow Buddy to proceed forward.
• In Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, the falling chandelier doesn't kill anyone, but it does lead to the rickety old mansion collapsing.
• Persona:
  • Persona 4: Yukiko's Shadow can attack with this.
  • In Persona 5 Strikers, three chandeliers decorate the boss arena for the third story boss, Mariko Hyodo/Ice Queen Hyodo. While you can use them immediately, a gimmick this boss has is that she will eat one of your party members, and the fastest way to make her spit them back out is with the chandeliers.
• In Phoenotopia and Phoenotopia: Awakening, chandeliers in the Prince's Tower can be knocked down with any ranged weapon, which is the easiest way to take out most of the Kobolds.
• In Prehistorik 2, the Final Boss can have these drop from above during his battle.
• In Quest for Glory I, the hero neutralizes three brigands who look and act like the Three Stooges with a single falling chandelier.
• In Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Wesker while escaping the Arkay mansion before it explodes is being stalked by the invincible Lisa Trevor. As he makes it to the front door she attacks him starting a boss fight which is unwinnable resulting in Wesker having to shoot down the chandelier pinning her under it, escaping seconds before the mansion explodes.
• In Rune Factory 4, one room in Obsidian Mansion has a chandelier that falls when you pass under it, damaging you.
• In Shovel Knight, Pridemoor's Keep is adorned with chandeliers that drop when Shovel Knight approaches. Some of them hang low enough to be usable as temporary platforms.
• Splatterhouse had this happen at the end of one Boss Battle, with said chandelier killing you instantly if you're under it when it drops.
• In Splinter Cell: Conviction's second level, you can shoot down a chandelier on a group of guards.
• In Streets of Rage 4, the final stage has chandeliers that can be used to One-Hit Kill any mooks that walk under them.
• Styx: Master of Shadows and its sequel Styx: Shards of Darkness: Hanging chandeliers appear commonly, often with a conveniently easy to break chain and several hapless guards standing directly below. They're especially useful for being one of the few ways to kill the games' Heavily Armored Mooks.
• In Sunset Riders, a game set in the Wild West, the fourth stage with the Smith Brothers features a huge chandelier that dangles around and can be used by mooks as shooting platforms. The heroes climb on it and either give it the same use or simply hang from it to dodge the bombs tossed by the bosses. In a subversion, it stays in its place through the whole stage and, when the bosses are killed, it's "peacefully" taken away.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Super Mario RPG inverts it with the first fight against Bowser: You fight him on the chandeliers. You win by severing the chain on his. In the following cutscene, Bowser cuts down Mario's chandelier, and they fall together long enough for Bowser to rant at you before Mario shows off his incredible jumping skills yet again.
  • In Paper Mario 64, opening a particular treasure chest in the Boo's Mansion will cause a chandelier to fall down on Mario, but stop just before crushing him. The opened chest resets itself upon leaving the room, allowing the player to revisit the near-death experience at their leisure.
  • In Luigi's Mansion, when the mansion is first entered, walking straight ahead (directly under the chandelier) results in it falling. However, the game gives you time to move, and only happens once.
• The boxing ring in Super Smash Bros. has one that falls after being hit enough times.
• These randomly appear in Sweet Home (1989) as a hazard of walking through certain halls/rooms.
• In Syphon Filter, you have to drop an exploding chandelier on a pair of guards in Rhoemer's stronghold.
• Weaponized version in Tanzer - one of the bosses is a living chandelier who drops hot wax at you from above. But subverted when you defeat it - the chandelier expectedly falls, but it can't hurt you.
• In Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!, every chandelier in the Wild West level falls as Buster passes.
• In Touhou Luna Nights, the second area of the mansion has chandeliers that drop on Sakuya if she gets too close. They're distinguishable from non-falling chandeliers in that they only hang by a hook while the safe ones hang on a chain.
• In Underhero, one kills the hero in the intro, forcing the titular underhero to step up.
• In Unworthy, these mainly appear during the Venerable Spire level. The ranged enemies there, Venerable Archers, are capable of shooting the chain to drop these chandeliers on top of you! Of course, you can try to do the same to other enemies as well. Moreover, there are several instances where you need to shoot the chain and drop the chandelier on top of Spikes of Doom so that you can cross them.
• During the course of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, the player encounters one of these in the Ocean House Hotel quest, though it can be pretty easily avoided. And when compared to the elevator...
• You Have to Burn the Rope. Doing that will mean a One-Hit Kill on the boss.

Web Animation

• DEATH BATTLE!: This is how the loser of "James Bond vs. John Wick" meets his end. John Wick has been shot three times by Bond, but he still keeps on going. So to put Wick down for good, Bond uses his laser wristwatch to drop a chandelier onto Wick, fatally impaling him.
• Fallen Kingdom: In "Rising Kingdom", when confronted with two demonic guards, the King shoots an arrow to drop a chandelier on them.
• FilmCow uses this in two of the Westington Manor videos for some Horror Comedy by showing just how scary an injury a falling chandelier can cause.

Web Video

• Viari from Acquisitions Incorporated has an apparent obsession with falling chandeliers. In season 7, he single-handedly defeats the penultimate Flunky Boss by dropping a chandelier on them and wiping out the entire group, while in season 9, he thins out Vannefer's forces considerably by dropping several (weaponized) chandeliers on their heads.

Western Animation

• Invoked in the American Dad! episode "Family Affair" by Steve, who pulls it down in anger. Stan chides him as it was his grandmother's.
• Batman: The Animated Series:
  • The Penguin chains a rich businessman who insulted him at the impact point of a big chandelier, and his wife who Prank Dated him to the chandelier itself... after cashing in the wife's ransom.
  • A chandelier falls on a mook in The New Batman Adventures in the episode "Joker's Millions". He'd emptied his submachine gun into the ceiling during a Gun Struggle, so he could only blame himself when the ceiling struck back.
  • Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero: Mr. Freeze uses his Freeze Ray on a chandelier to cover his escape.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: Batwoman tries to use one to stop the Riddler in "The Criss-Cross Conspiracy!". She misses.
• Big City Greens: In "Clubbed", Tilly and Andromeda prepare one to drop the chandelier at the club on Gloria, thinking it will cure her amnesia. Unsurprisingly, a rope under a candle takes too long to burn through, delaying the drop.
• The castle in Count Duckula come equipped with one. Too bad Igor relies on Nanny to trigger it.
• The Courage the Cowardly Dog episode "McPhearson Phantom" has a spirit haunting the Bagges, and a chandelier suddenly appears in the living room just for it to fall on Eustace.
• Elena of Avalor: In "Rise of the Sorceress", Fiero makes one fall as a distraction so he, Shuriki, Victor and Carla can escape.
• Kim Possible's brothers try to drop the chandelier on the escaping villain, only to have the wrong chandelier drop on the stolen Wave-Motion Gun. They get it right the second time.
• In The Perils of Penelope Pitstop episode "The Treacherous Movie Lot Plot", the Bully Brothers cut the chandelier rope with a saw, hoping to drop it on Penelope.
• In Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves, Abu Hassan drops a chandelier on Popeye, then raises it back up so that Popeye his now part of it, holding the candles with each hand.
  Popeye: Hey, I'm burnin' the candles at both ends here!
• Razzberry Jazzberry Jam: In “The Forever Song”, one of these narrowly misses Krupa after he tries to claim that there’s no such thing as bad luck.
  Buddy: I didn’t know we had a chandelier.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: In "Pawn of Shadows", Angel Dynamite traps the Obliteratix beneath a falling chandelier.
• The Secret Saturdays: One of these falls on Van Rook while he's trying to keep cryptids from escaping Weird World.
• The Simpsons
  • The climax of the episode "Homer of Seville" takes place in an opera house with, as they say in France, freaking huuuuuuuge chandeliers and an assassin on the loose. To lessen the possibility for danger, the police decide to "pre-crash" them. However, they miss one and the assassin does get slightly smashed ultimately.
  • "The Falcon and the D'Ohman" has a chandelier falling on a James Bond-style agent during a crossfire, but the bullets disintegrate it a piece at a time before it hits him.
• The Spectacular Spider-Man:
  • Spidey drops a chandelier on Shocker while fighting in a condemned theater. Shocker's force-field destroys it just before it hits.
  • In "Gangland", a massive crystal chandelier nearly crushes Jameson and two kids during a supervillain Mêlée à Trois. Spidey stops it from landing on them, but it gets blown up anyway, much to his annoyance.
• South Park:
  • Kenny gets killed by one in "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics". The other boys decorate a chandelier with Christmas ornaments, and it falls down on top of Kenny.
  • Not quite a chandelier, but in another episode, Butters ends up accidentally killing about 16 people by kicking down a fixture of stage lights. ^note  17; one woman was pregnant.
• Strings (1991): Played for laughs, as it's not a grand chandelier, but the ceiling light fixture in the old man's apartment, which comes crashing down on his string quartet as they're playing. (A leak from the apartment above has rotted the ceiling.)
• The Venture Bros. has a variant with a giant disco ball. Except that the ball drops too late and crushes Rusty Venture.
• Willie Whopper: In "Viva Willie", Willie corrals Pancho and his gang by dropping a wagon wheel chandelier on them: trapping them between the spokes of the wheel.
• Happens to Mr. Botsford in the WordGirl episode where Nocan the Contrarian makes his first appearance.

Real Life

• At the Theatre-Lyrique in Paris (an opera house), some portions of the glass chandelier fell on the audience, but no one was killed. (Novello, 'The Musical World'). Then in October 1888, according to 'The Times', one of the chandeliers fell and did kill a man.
• On February 2, 1795, Joseph Haydn was conducting the premiere of his newest symphony at the King's Theatre, London. At one point, several patrons left their seats to get a better view of Haydn. Not long thereafter, a chandelier crashed to the floor where they had just been sitting. Very cinematic! There were no injuries, earning the piece the nickname "The Miracle Symphony."^note Except they tagged the wrong symphony with it! It was long believed that this event occurred at the premiere of Symphony No. 96 on March 11, 1791, but the date above was actually the premiere of No. 102. Nevertheless, 96 has held onto the "Miracle" name.
• Norwegian author Jens Bjørneboe is supposed to have tried to kill his parents this way when he was 8 years old.
• In the former Soviet Union factories were assessed on how much material they used, which led to elaborate overweight chandeliers constantly on the verge of crashing on everyone's heads.
• There's an urban legend about a visitor to the Soviet Union who became paranoid that his room was being bugged. Looking under his bed he found a suspicious-looking metal box fixed to the floor so he unscrewed it, but didn't find a microphone. The next morning when he went down to the lobby he was told that a chandelier had fallen from the ballroom ceiling the previous night (just how much damage it caused depends on the version), and he realized to his horror that the box he dismantled had been the chandelier support.
• In September 2013 it wasn't the chandelier but a whole balcony that collapsed onto people below in a crowded theatre.

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Look out! *CRASH*

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