So, you've just found out that you are dying. With your days numbered, you decide to make the most of it by making a list of things you never got to do, say, or experience. Then, once the list is complete, you set out to do it. This is the bucket list, the list of things to do before you die, to ensure you have no regrets before your time is up.
Note that impending death is not strictly necessary to justify making a bucket list.
Compare Like You Were Dying and Miles to Go Before I Sleep.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Angel Beats!: A variant, since the anime takes place in the afterlife and therefore everyone is already dead; Episode 10 is dedicated to Yui doing all of the things she wanted to do when she was alive but couldn't since she got paralyzed in an accident when she was 3. Most of the goals on her list include athletic feats such as performing a German suplex, score a goal in soccer, and hit a home run in baseball. The last item on her list is to get married, which she laments wouldn't have been possible due to her disability having left her secluded in her room. But then Hinata, who she had been constantly feuding with up to that point, offers up a scenario about how they could have gotten married in life, assuring her that he would do so no matter what condition she was in. With that, Yui happily moves on to the next stage of her existence.
- Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead: The main plot of the series is that the main protagonist Akira Tendo wakes up one morning and learns that a Zombie Apocalypse has occurred. Akira is elated as it means he no longer has to go to his boring job as a salaryman, and he can instead use his newfound freedom to do everything he wanted in life but never had the time to. So he sets out to complete his bucket list, which he has titled "100 Things I Want to Do Before I Become a Zombie".
Comedy
- Inverted by the late John Pinette, who instead kept a list of things he swore to never do in his life, adding that his may not have been a true "bucket list", but it did indeed rhyme with "bucket".
Film — Live-Action
- The Bucket List is the Trope Namer and follows Carter and Edward, two older men with terminal illnesses who each, naturally, put together a bucket list. Some of the things they end up doing are climbing a mountain, sky-diving and, most poignantly for Edward, kissing the most beautiful girl in the world, his granddaughter.
- Sonic the Hedgehog sees the Blue Blur, at Tom's suggestion, make a bucket list of things to do before he leaves Earth to avoid being captured by Robotnik. Among the entries on his extensive list are "Eat a whole pizza", "Make a crank call", "Run along Great Wall" and "Make a real friend". By the end of the film, he's accomplished several of the entries on the list.
Live-Action TV
- Parks and Recreation: In one episode, a local cult declares that the world will end at sunrise. Andy and April decide to do a few things from Andy's bucket list, including starring in an action movie (a very short one where Andy crashes through a window and saves April from Jerry), making the most amazing grilled cheese sandwich ever (not just a "pretty awesome" grilled cheese sandwich), winning the lottery (only a few dollars, but it counts), and visiting the Grand Canyon (which Andy confused with Mount Rushmore).
Video Games
- Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: After Kiryu is revealed to have cancer, Nanba encourages him to make a bucket list so he can make the most of his time left. Date comes along not long after and adds witnessing the impact he made in the lives of those around him (albeit stealthily, to avoid running afoul of the Daidoji faction), with the first addition made to the list being to see his eldest adopted son, Taichi, and the wonderful man he grew up to be.
- The independent H-Game My Maid Dreams of Electric Sheep opens with the player character making a bucket list of his own before committing suicide: "1. Never take the grey pills. 2. Buy a robot maid. 3. FUCK IT."
- Team Fortress 2: In the Expiration Date short, the RED team discovers that they're all doomed to die in three days from a case of teleporter-induced tumors. The Spy arranges to collect all of the other mercs' written dying wishes in a bucket with the intention of reviewing and trying to fulfill them, but he makes the mistake of delegating the actual collecting to the Scout, who instead fills the bucket with a bunch of crude Spy drawings.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time: In "Billy's Bucket List", Finn and Jake meet their late friend Billy's ex-girlfriend Canyon. The three visit Billy's lair and find his bucket list, which has everything checked off except for three things, "Tell Finn that thing" (which obviously can't be accomplished at this point), "Take Canyon for one last ride", and "Lay on my back in the ocean. Just float." The last proves difficult for Finn as he has a crippling fear of the ocean, but he manages to accomplish it. Once he does, Billy appears to him in the stars and thanks him, as he can now move on to the afterlife; he also tells him "that thing": his father is alive and trapped in a cosmic prison.
- Arthur: Done in spirit, if not in fact, in "The Chips Are Down". D.W. and Binky both think they're going to die after eating a green potato chip each, so they start hanging out and trying to have as many interesting experiences as they can before then, like flying a kite higher than anyone ever has. Binky's commentary on it inspires Principal Haney to leave to fulfill his lifelong dream of climbing Mt. Everest.
Haney: I'm not going to be a life fritterer-awayerer.
- Big City Greens:
- Subverted in the episode Cricketsitter. When Tilly is left in charge of Cricket, Cricket pulls out his bucket list. However, instead of being a list of things to do before you die, it's a list of all the things you can do with a bucket.
- Remy presents a more proper bucket list in the form of a "life book" in "Time Crisis". The first few pages chronicle the steps he's taken from his birth - be born, learn to walk, grow teeth, and learn to talk — the linchpin moment being the night he auditions for the Big City Youth Metropolitan Orchestra which will determine the fate of his future. The last page shows the last step being his death.
- Another proper bucket list is shown in "Winter Greens" when Tilly's snow person Margaret will only live for that day before the snow melts overnight. Her bucket list for Margaret only has two steps, "be made out of snow" and "melt", so Nancy takes it to extremes by doing more outlandish stuffs like visiting the zoo and skate park.
- The Fairly OddParents!: In "When Losers Attack", Mr. Turner decides to start completing his bucket list after hearing that enemies are after his son. The first thing he finds is a receipt for the bucket. Then he reads it: first being "buy bucket", and the second being "join a club", which leads to a Running Gag of him in various clubs throughout the episode.
- Gus from The Owl House is shown to have a bucket list in "Hooty's Moving Hassle", which includes (among other things) owning a real human bucket.
Luz: That's a really weird thing to want, but I appreciate your enthusiasm.
- The Patrick Star Show: In "Chum Bucket List", Patrick eats a batch of chum and thinks he's going to die. He isn't; he thought Plankton was poisoning the food when he was actually pouring drain cleaner into the sink. SpongeBob wants to take Patrick to the doctor, but that's the last thing Patrick has planned for his bucket list, and he wants to complete it from top to bottom. Most of the episode follows their attempts to complete every goal, like winning a gold medal (by stealing it from a medal ceremony) and seeing one last beautiful sunset (it's on a billboard in front of a toxic waste dump).
- Regular Show: In "The End of Muscle Man", when Muscle Man learns that he'll die in one day, he enlists the help of the Park Crew to complete every last item on his bucket list before his death. Ultimately, it turns out he wasn't dying, and his bucket list was for the metaphorical death of his bachelor self before he proposed to Starla.
- The Simpsons:
- "One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish" when Homer thinks he is dying from eating poisonous blowfish. He has a man-to-man talk with Bart, listens to Lisa play the sax, and has one last "snuggle" with Marge before resigning himself to his fate while listening to Larry King read an audiobook of the Bible. Of course, it's all a false alarm, and with a newfound outlook on life, Homer vows to live every day to the fullest. He doesn't.
- In "In the Name of the Grandfather", the Simpsons offer to make it up to Grampa for missing his "special day" by helping him do something he always wanted to do. He reveals that he keeps a list of things to do before he dies (including pitching for the Negro Leagues), and they decide on taking him to O'Flanagan's Pub, which Abe visited while stationed in Ireland during World War II.
Grampa: Well, there are a few things I was hoping to do before I become dust in a jar.
Homer: Whoa, whoa, whoa! Who said anything about a jar?
