Crucified Hero Shot

"Carefully, he's a hero."

"And you stare at me in your Jesus Christ pose
Arms held out like you've been carrying a load"

— Soundgarden, "Jesus Christ Pose"

It's very common for a character who just performed a Heroic Sacrifice to be lying with their arms outstretched like the crucified Jesus. The "person with outstretched arms symbolically representing Christ" pose is so deeply ingrained into modern culture that anytime we see a character in that pose, we tend to assume the director was going for this trope, even when it's obvious from the context of the scene that they weren't.

Tends to provoke the jokes "[character] died for your sins!" or, after 2016, "T-posing!".

Note that characters who stand with outstretched arms aren't necessarily meant to represent this pose; they can also symbolize bird wings, in the sense of freedom. Or angel wings, as a mix of both.

A Sub-Trope of Rule of Symbolism (unless an example is Faux Symbolism) and Crucial Cross.

Compare:

• Passion Play, where the character is actually crucified and is in most cases actually Christ.
• Pietà Plagiarism, "Last Supper" Steal, and Background Halo, all of which (alongside Crucified Hero Shot) can show up in respectable literature classes under the name of "Christ Imagery."
• Creepy Crosses, where crosses are used as a sign of the occult.
• Messianic Archetype, a character type modelled after the Christian Messiah. Messianic Archetypes will often end up in a Crucified Hero Shot to get the point across.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Akagi gets subjected to one of these. It's symbolic for a game of mahjong.
• Attack on Titan: Eren in his Titan body gets framed like this sometimes, with his arms held perpendicular to his torso and above the rest of this body by the connecting nerves.
• In Bleach, when Rukia is about to be executed by the Sogyoku, she's held up in a position similar to crucifixion. And this is just before she was to be stabbed by what used to be a spear.
• In the anime adaptation of Blue Exorcist, Rin gets chained to a cross while people chant about the wood of Jesus' cross in the background. And then they almost kill him and open a portal to Gehenna.
• The fourth opening of Boruto shows the title character like this in ice while a monster surrounds him, though this never happens in the series.
• In Casshern Sins, Casshern usually gets one when he allows someone to try to kill him.
• At one point in the Chrono Crusade anime, Chrono charges at the Big Bad but an explosion sends him flying backwards, in slow motion, with his arms outspread. When he lands on the ground, he's buried under rubble from the building he was in—including a steel, cross-shaped beam marking the spot where he's buried.
  • There's also a promo art piece for the anime that shows Joshua bound to a cross, and a scene in the manga where Chrono is kept in a cross-like restraining device when the Order imprisons him.
• The final episode of Code Geass R2. Not strictly a Crucifixion, but Lelouch's blood forms a sort-of bloody carpet as he falls down a platform with his arms open after being stabbed by Suzaku (as Zero) to finish their Thanatos Gambit. There's a red band of paint too, so double the cross imagery.
• Crazy Food Truck: When Arisa is captured by Towata, they display her in a cross-shaped cage filled with some kind of fluid keeping her unconscious, or at least unable to move.
• Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School:
  • Sonosuke Izayoi is seen in this position◊ in the OP. For bonus, the cross is on fire. But he doesn't die that way.
  • Seiko Kimura's lifeless body is found like this◊, and as a bonus her corpse is Pinned to the Wall.
• In the manga of Deadman Wonderland this trope is referred to by name when the leader of The Forgeries refers to this trope by name while crucifying Ganta on a nearby wall... bonus points: the spikes used for the crucifixion are drops of blood, while the pain is really only inside Ganta's mind, as the Forgery's special power is, apparently, Mind Rape.
  • Later in the manga, a flashback shows Shiro shackled to a cross while undergoing human experimentation.
• A common splash image of Death Note shows Light Yagami in a messianic pose of this sort. However, he's a Dark Messiah at best.
• In Devil May Cry: The Animated Series, Dante is briefly crucified by the Big Bad in the demon world. However, he is too badass to stay there for long.
• In the opening sequence of ef: A Tale of Melodies, Yuu is seen in this pose, pierced by what appears to be many spears, struggling to pull out the nails that bind his hands to the wall. Only in the final version of the opening in the series finale does he manage to do this.
• No fewer than three characters in D.Gray-Man have been crucified by the villains, although one might have just been tied up in that position, and one was nailed to a clock. General Yeeger was crucified as a message to the heroes. Considering the nature of the group they belong to, it's probably intended as mockery.
• After being detained by the D-Reaper, Beelzebumon is positioned this way in Digimon Tamers.
  • Not only him, but Juri, the person Beelzebumon was trying to save, after being Mind Raped repeatedly for several days by the D-Reaper because she saw him kill her partner, powered (probably as a converter, not a generator) the Eldritch Abomination, gets the pleasure of being trapped, crushed and crucified twice with big power cables while getting (judging by her screaming) mind raped further for another week and at the same time desperately trying to save a friend, who also gets crushed in front of her. Did I mention that the D-Reaper tries to both burn and drown her? And that she comes out of it better that when she entered? Miss badass Asuka from Eva is thrown into a coma after five minutes of similar, if not lighter treatment, even if her problems have a different source.
    • Starting with episode 34 (violent), skipping to ep's 47 (section of the mind rape), ep 49 is when both of them are crushed with glowing cables and she screams (and is possibly mind raped further), and in ep's 50 and 51 unless it was edited by the dub (like fox kids) is where the previously mentioned happens.
• A scene in the D.N.Angel anime had Satoshi in a feathery transformation scene, hanging from nothing in this postion.
• Eureka Seven: Nirvash gets one in the last episode.
• In the finale of EX-ARM when Ogre gets connected to the cyberspace, he is attached to a bunch of cables in such manner.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Greed is tied to a stone crucifix before he's killed. In the American translation, Viz alters the stone wreckage into a circular shape to avoid religious complications.
  • In Ch. 101 Bradley pins Roy on his back with his arms outstretched, and swords driven through his hands to pin him to the ground. And they're trying to make him into a "sacrifice" for their giant transmutation circle. Yup, no symbolism here...
  • When Al trades his soul back for Ed's arm so Ed can fight, effectively sacrificing himself. He's lying on his back when he transmutes, so when the armor body's arms fall limp, they are conveniently splayed out to the sides in keeping with the symbolism. When this occurs, Ed is also pinned to a rock by Father in this pose. He breaks out of it when his arm returns. Best not to hurt Edward Elric's little brother.
  • A rare villainous example: just after Heinkel has bitten him, Kimblee is shown flat on his back on the ground with outstretched arms.
• Genesis of Aquarion: the Shadow Angels have a thing for actual crucifixion. Apollonius was nailed up twelve millennia back, and in the same episode but 12000 years on Aquarion itself gets pinned to the ground with arms outstretched. In both cases, bits were torn off while getting out of said pose - Apollonius deliberately tore off his wings so he could protect Celiane, and his reincarnation ripped off Solar Aquarion's arms and used the arm components of Vector Luna as a substitute.
• Parodied in GTO: 14 Days in Shonan, where Shinomi ties Onizuka to a cross◊ and puts clothespins all over his skin to punish him for spying on her in the bath (and for calling her hairy).
• Sora in .hack//SIGN when he once again switches sides, to the good guys this time, and gets trapped by the big bad. Which he was not expecting. Things didn't go so well for him for awhile after that.
• One of the rare cases where it's explicitly used as Cold-Blooded Torture, the Meakashi-hen chapter of Higurashi: When They Cry sees Shion put Satoko up on a cross and then repeatedly stab her in the arms. Remind you of anything?
• In the Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories manga, Marluxia has thorny vines hold Namine this way.
• Last Exile, the last episode, Alex Rowe. Tortured to death (sort of), he ends up looking more-or-less crucified. Held in place by thorns.
• And in the sequel, Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing, Princess Liliana is shown crucified in the OP, but whether it's symbolic or representative of a later scene isn't clear yet.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (2004), Vio is crucified and almost burned by Shadow Link after being captured.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Vita in Episode 9 of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's is suspended in mid-air in this position when she's captured by the Mysterious Protectors and executed in front of Hayate.
  • Iris is shown this way during a flashback in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Detonation, held in place by one of Yuri's tree constructs. For extra levels of symbolism, she ended up in that position because she was "betrayed" by her best friend and the next place she's chronologically seen is in a church.
• Mazinger Z: It happened several times to several characters: Kouji, his little brother, his friend Boss and Boss's gang... Baron Ashura seemed loving the trope. It also happened in Great Mazinger. Occasionally both series featured the Humongous Mecha themselves being crucified. And in the Mazinger Z vs Devilman movie, Devilman himself.
• In the manga version of Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, upon storming Michel's mountain lair, the mermaids are suddenly trapped upon crosses. Kaito and Rihito run in to free them after the latter convinces the former to stop sulking about not having been able to save Michal. Like most of the manga's objectionable scenes, this is nowhere in the anime.
• In an early episode of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Trowa takes on this pose for a knife-throwing stunt. In a later episode, when he attempts to self-detonate his gundam, Catherine flashes back to this scene; as it fades out, there's a brief moment where it looks as if Trowa really is crucified.
• Nao does this to Natsuki in My-HiME, tying her up in an arms-outstretched pose within her CHILD to use as bait for Shizuru.
• The Mystical Laws: After Shou voluntarily turns himself over to the Godom Empire soldiers, Emperor Tathagata Killer has him crucified into a huge cross in a crowded stadium with people shouting for his death in an execution by firing squad televised to all citizens of Earth to make him serve as an example of what they do to defectors. One soldier even gloats to Shou's coworkers they will be next after the Emperor is done with him.
• Naruto:
  • In the manga, Kakashi is pinned to a cross while Itachi tortures him with the Mangekyo Sharingan. In the anime, it's just a square of wall.
  • There also a bit of a gruesome image in a flashback of the the manga near Haku arc when the reader sees Kaiza tied to a cross with his arms cut off. In the edited version it's just a pole and his arm have just been severely beaten.
  • Shikamaru is also forced into this position by another Genjutsu fighter, and has to watch his arms melt down to the bone. He gets better.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: Lilith, that Angel NERV was holding captive in their Elaborate Underground Base, as well as EVA Unit 01, in the End of Evangelion feature film.
• In Nurse Angel Ririka SOS Kanou gets tied to a cross in episode 14 by a villain. He ends up dying after Ririka defeats the villain, though he had been Secretly Dying for several episodes anyway.
• Oz Vessalius is crucified during the first few pages of PandoraHearts, with somebody (his father, Xai Vessalius) telling him that "his sin is his very existence." It's later revealed to be symbolic, as when this scene actually happens in the manga, Oz is not crucified. Many readers were confused about this, as Oz seemed to have no reason to be symbolically crucified. There's a reason...
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • Pokémon Best Wishes Season 2 brought us Meloetta in nearly the exact same position in order to activate the Undersea Temple, this time offering herself to keep Ash from being crushed by a cube of energy Team Rocket took him prisoner in.
  • And again near the end of the XY series where Ash, and his Pokémon, are being held captive by Team Flare atop Lumiose Tower, and are held in this position. Ash and Greninja break free using their Bond Phenomenon..
• Team Plasma displays the captured gym leaders like this in the Unova arc of Pokémon Adventures, as a way to lower the trainer’s morales. It gets altered in the English version so they’re on poles, though.
• Princess Connect! Re:Dive: Karyl spends a bit over an episode in season 2 being held up in this pose by magical "marionette" strings after turning on Shadow Mana.
• Episode 11 of Puella Magi Madoka Magica gives both Madoka and Homura one as Kyubey explains why Madoka holds such a huge potential as a magical girl or Messianic Archetype — Homura is causing Madoka to bear more misfortune as Homura keeps on trying to save Madoka in different timelines, which causes Madoka's potential as a magical girl to increase. This is director Akiyuki Shinbo's favorite visual motif, and can be found in everything he's directed. Most prominently in The SoulTaker and Le Portrait de Petite Cossette.
• Parodied in Puni Puni☆Poemi, Poemi finds her parents crucified and manages to actually knock down the crosses, leading her to repeat the shot, with über-dramatic sound effects to boot. Extra points for the scene taking place Against the Setting Sun.
  • Nabeshin is the Messiah. He died for the sins of your transparent self-insertion fanfic.
• Ranma ½: The Cloud Cuckoolander Principal Kuno captured Akane and placed her in this predicament offscreen just to blackmail Ranma. He didn't count on Akane breaking free almost immediately and kicking him in the face.
• Tsukune is subjected to this in the Rosario + Vampire anime as punishment after being discovered to be a human.
• Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei likes to put characters in this pose in its openings and endings, probably just to confuse us.
• Sailor Moon:
  • In the second season, when Rubeus captures the Inner Seishi, he keeps them partially tucked inside crystal crosses.
  • A rather unconventional example occurs in the R movie, in which Fiore kind of crucifies Sailor Moon (who has sacrificed herself to save her friends and the Earth), except he himself acts like the cross and holds her in place with long, tentacle-like tree roots while subjecting her to a mix of Electric Torture, Life Drain and a "The Reason You Suck" Speech
  • In an episode of Sailor Moon S, Hotaru is also bound to a cross and attacked by legions of demonic hands in a nightmare sequence.
• In Saint Beast, Shin is actually crucified by Zeus as punishment for stealing Pandora's Box (in attempt to save the human world from chaos). Being an angel, he survives, which might make it even worse.
• Shakugan no Shana: Happened to Shana at one point, but that was probably a matter of convenience for the villain in question.
• Suicide Club plays this for creepy horror. Saya and Kyoko's teacher shows Kyoko an artwork on a BBS showing Saya nearly naked and crucified, tying to the growing influence of "Mitsuko".
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has Nia, during her captivity time at the hands of the anti-spirals.
  • Briefly happens to Simon, when the Gurren Lagann is pinned to the wall by Lazengann's tendrils.
• Optimus Prime in Transformers: Armada takes this pose when he intercepts the Hydra Cannon's blast, giving his own life to save Earth.
• Trigun:
  • Trigun takes its inspiration from a different part of the Crucifixion account: as Wolfwood dies, he walks into a church carrying his large, cross-shaped gun and eventually falls to one knee under its weight, and a profile silhouette cements his pose quite clearly. This was a direct allusion, since he was a priest.
  • The standard pose is also used, though in an unusual fashion. Rem does this in flashback when she tries to talk down Law after he snaps. We see it again in similar circumstances with Meryl holding the pose.
• Syaoran is very temporarily crucified by some cute bunny rabbits in this panel of Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- in preparation for being eaten/burned at the stake/sacrificed to a demon god. Not surprisingly, they don't go through with it after they learn he can speak.
• In the final TV episode of Uta∽Kata, Ichika is crucified to a mirror (although the crystals which are used in place of nails don't actually pierce her hands until she tries to free herself).
• The title character of Video Girl Ai ends up strapped in this position by cable and other video equipment after being forced back into the Video world, as punishment for having fallen in love with Youta. The scene is so powerful and dramatic, the publisher reportedly pleaded with Masakazu Katsura to draw some underwear on Ai to lessen the Fanservice (as she was naked in the original print.) In the animated version, this is the final, climactic scene.
• In X/1999, several characters are subjected to the crucified hero shot in different circumstances, in some cases building up to a Heroic Sacrifice. The most infamous example is Kotori, who is 'crucified' before being horribly murdered by her brother in two of the three continuities (manga and TV series) plus the X Japan promotional video (which follows the manga.)
• The manga adaptation of Your Turn to Die opens with a depiction of the first Main Game's Sacrifice, Joe Tazuna, after his death via being slowly exsanguinated. His corpse is left dangling in the air in a grotesque mockery of the Crucifixion.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! was liberally sprinkled with shots of characters bound to crosses, from Seto Kaiba to Yami's Dark Magician. In the climax of the Waking the Dragons arc, Yami/Pharaoh pulls this pose while absorbing a monster created out of the evil thoughts and emotions of every person on the planet into his own heart in order to stop it from hurting anyone else ever again and to purify his enemy's soul.

Art

• The positioning of two of the Apostles in The Last Supper have been considered references to the Crucifixion.
  • James the Greater has his arms stretched out to his sides while flanked by the two Apostles who doubted and demanded proof upon Jesus's return, Thomas and Philip, who stand in well for the two thieves crucified next to Jesus. This is all lined up in Leonardo's Last Supper and the Three Layers.
  • Bartholomew, the leftmost Apostle, has his feet crossed in an unnatural way. While some assumed this was a mistake by Leonardo, the book Leonardo's Incessant Last Supper argued the crossing referenced Bartholomew's own martyrdom on the Cross as held in Christian tradition, further evidenced by the fact that Bartholomew is directly in line with the deadliest thing at the table, Peter's knife.
• Ophelia (Millais): Ophelia is depicted floating on her back with her arms slightly outstretched, accepting of her fate. The pose is also one traditionally used in depictions of saints and/or martyrs; Ophelia herself is something of a Love Martyr for Hamlet, whose mistreatment of her is a major cause of her despair.
• The painting La Mort de Bara by Jean-Joseph Weerts, depicting the (exaggerated) death of fourteen-year-old Republican volunteer Joseph Bara during The French Revolution.
• The [[painting The Thirdof May 1808 by Francisco de Goya has a revolutionary with his arms outstreched waiting to be shot at point blank.
• A well-known sculpture of Matija Gubec, leader of the Croatian-Slovenian peasant revolt of 1573, by Croatian sculptor Antun Augustinčić. Gubec was executed in a particularly cruel manner, including being crowned by a crown of red-hot iron, which makes the resemblance to Jesus Christ's execution even more pronounced (Jesus was crowned with a crown of thorns).

Comic Books

• Brian Bolland's cover for Animal Man #5 (written by Grant Morrison). The story inside? The Coyote Gospel.
• The cover to the Sinestro Corps War special has a semi-crucifixion for all the Earth Lanterns and Kilowog.
• In the Marvel: The End Crisis Crossover, Akhenaten energy-blasts an assembly of superheroes and proceeds to put them on floating crosses around New York City.
• New Gods: Mister Miracle usually incorporates this into his escape artist's act, being strapped to a cross-shaped platform before being shot at, blow up, etc.
• X-Men:
  • Chuck Austen's "Holy Wars" arc opened with young mutants crucified on the Xavier Institute lawn.
  • Angel on the cover of X-men #169. The Morlocks had him crucified for most of the book.
  • Earlier than that, Angel got crucified by the Marauders in the Morlock tunnels.
  • Plus, Wolverine got crucified by the Reavers at one point.
  • The graphic novel X-Men: Season One, which modernizes some of the team's earliest adventures, features Magneto pinning Professor X to the wall of his study in this pose, held in place by the metal of his wheelchair, and with Magneto's helmet on Xavier's head to prevent him from using his powers.
• Superman's first appearance in Kingdom Come is obviously an homage to the cover of Superman #1, but it's also a bit of a Crucified Hero Shot, especially if you note the nails in his pocket. Word of God from Alex Ross is that this was intentional.
• In Supergirl story Demon Spawn, Kara assumes this position when her enemy Nightflame places her in an unholy light pentagram. In another 1970's story, the titular heroine is captured by a tribe of birdmen and bound to a cross.
• The classic Green Lantern/Green Arrow #89 features an environmental activist named Joshua who is trying to stop an evil corporation. And just in case that's too subtle, this◊ is the cover.
  • They do the same to Hal and Ollie. Turns out when you make a hobby out of drawing a longbow on a regular basis for years and years, you develop really, really strong muscles in your arms. Ollie breaks free and releases Hal, but by the time he does so the asthmatic Joshua has died..
• The Invisibles has plenty of these, but a particularly significant one occurs when Dane McGowan (aka "Jack Frost") is floating in space during his "alien abduction" (contact w/Barbelith). A disembodied voice comments that this imagery was chosen for Dane because of his lapsed-Catholic background.
• Jon Osterman has this pose as he is being disintegrated in Watchmen, then pulls a similar pose when reborn as Dr. Manhattan.
• In Doctor Strange's first confrontation with Shuma-Gorath, the Eldritch Abomination was attempting to enter the world through the mind of the Ancient One, Strange's teacher in magic. Shuma showed Strange that his master was picturing him hanging with his arms outstretched, as a sign that he thought Strange would be killed.
• BIONICLE: In the infamous Matoro Death scene, the hero assumes this pose temporarily.

Fan Works

• Played for laughs in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World. The four are camping atop the mesa, and Paul is happily sleeping for the first time in days. The next thing he knows, he's on the ground below, arms outstretched in the Jesus pose, in a Paul-shaped hole in the dirt. George comes down to make sure he's okay (he's Nigh-Invulnerable; he's fine). (George: “Dreaming you were Jesus, then? Sorry, you're just Superman. John's Jesus.” For his part, Paul can't identify what he might have been dreaming about that would cause him to end up like this, though he knows he was having bad dreams (which is why he thrashed himself off the side of the mesa).
• The picture of Empath in crucified form for the "sins" of his fellow Smurfs, whose names are written upon his body in red, in the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf mini-story "The Only Begotten Son".

Films — Animated

• Belladonna of Sadness ends with Jeanne being burned on a cross-shaped stake.
• In the second Rebuild of Evangelion movie, Shinji's EVA is literally pierced through its hands holding off the Eighth Angel.
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame:
  • Esmeralda shortly after Quasimodo unties her from an execution pyre and carries her to the top of the cathedral nearby. The camera offers an overhead shot of her unconscious form with arms splayed as Quasimodo hoists her above his head.
    Quasimodo: Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary!
  • A villainous example occurs at the end of "Hellfire", when Frollo falls unconscious with his arms spread apart in the shape of a crucifix, which is lampshaded in the DVD commentary.
• In The Incredibles, Bob Parr is being held in Syndrome's secret lab. The thing is, he is held suspended in a holding unit that floats in midair, with his feet in one iron ball and his hands held out on either side in their own iron balls. When he's Forced to Watch as Syndrome tries (and thankfully fails) to have his entire family killed, he hangs his head in defeat (neither himself nor Syndrome realizing that his murder plot failed). Add that to the fact that he's supposed to be a savior of the world, being a superhero and all...
• In Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Pinocchio comments on the village's love of their wooden crucifix, asking why people don't like him because he is made of wood although they love the wooden Jesus on the crucifix. Later in the film when Count Volpe catches Pinocchio after Pinocchio and Candlewick escape the Fascist Youth camp, Volpe ties Pinocchio to an impromptu wooden cross before attempting to burn him.
• In Justice League vs. Teen Titans, Raven agrees to leave with a group of demons to protect her friends, the shrine set to drain power from her first forces her arms out, then destroys the floor, causing her legs to hang down, leaving her levitating in the classic T-pose in agony as her power is drained.
• Pokémon:
  • Ash himself does this after Mew and Mewtwo accidently Zap him with energy in The First Movie before collapsing and dying. Ironically in the second movie, he finds out he is the The Chosen One.
  • In Pokémon: Mewtwo Returns, Mewtwo offers himself up to Giovanni in order to save the other pokemon from being captured and brainwashed. Giovanni's machine then lifts him up and paralyzes him in what is blatantly a crucifixion position.
• Madoka and Homura both get crucified again in Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion, in a somewhat different way. In a dream sequence of some sort, Madoka spreads her arms, falls off a chair, and explodes into pink goo. In The Stinger, Homura does the same pose as she falls off a cliff. The former represents Homura's failure to save Madoka from being forced to sacrifice herself, while the latter represents... something.
• Played for laughs in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, where the Spider-Society has a training room for the Spider-People to practice their crucifixions. Must be a Canon Event.

Films — Live-Action

• In Gran Torino, Walt lands on the ground in this position after he is shot to death by the Hmong gang.
  • Not surprisingly, this has caused some Christian observers to see in Walt's death echoes of the Christus Victor theory of the atonement. According to that theory, the devil and his demons had Christ killed on the Cross, but that death on the Cross was the means by which Christ defeated them and set captive humanity free. In a similar way, Walt tricked the Hmong gang into shooting him up, and as a result of their doing so, the gang members were arrested and the neighborhood was set free from their reign of terror.
• Saw:
  • In Saw III:
    • When Lynn is shot by Amanda, her arms stretch out as she falls into Jeff's arms.
    • Timothy is restrained on the Rack in a crucified position.
  • In Saw 3D, while chained up in the Pain Train, Jill appears to be doing one of these.
• In Alien³, Ripley makes this position during her Heroic Sacrifice.
• Cool Hand Luke has the title character assume one of these at the conclusion of the egg-eating contest.
• The Matrix, curiously, as more of the movie series' religious allusions trended to Buddhism than Christianity.
• GoldenEye: Curiously, Xenia Onatopp, the evil Combat Sadomasochist, ends up dying stuck in a tree in this manner. Though the heroes' reaction quickly destroys any thought of comparison.
• The main character from the film 300. Crucifixion was popular back then. According to Herodotus, Xerxes was so angry that he had old Leo's corpse beheaded and nailed to a piece of wood.
• Gladiator has Commodus subjecting the protagonist's wife and little boy to this horrible fate (and after having the wife gangraped, no less).
• Every survivor of the slave revolt in Spartacus was also crucified. And yes, their real-life counterparts were too.
  • More a case of Shown Their Work in the above three examples, since crucifixion was just the go-to execution method for common criminals in the ancient Roman Empire; the significant symbolism of being nailed to a cross didn't come about until after Christianity had started to become a cohesive religion.
• Spidey, in the train scene of Spider-Man 2. He doesn't die, or even come close, but the feeling is the same.
• Superman Returns: The falling-from-orbit scene. Further driving the Christ metaphor is his also getting stabbed in his side with a piece of Kryptonite in a prior scene. While one of Lex Luthor's Mooks holds him up with his arms outstretched, even. The movie doesn't specify that he convalesces for three days in the hospital afterwards before reviving, but it can easily be inferred.
  • Richard Donner started it in the first movie, way back in '78:
  Jor-El: They can be a great people, Kal-El, they wish to be. They only lack the light to show the way. For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you... my only son.
• Man of Steel continues the Superman tradition twice with a shirtless Clark floating underwater after the oil rig he saves some trapped men from collapses as his arms are extended outwards and on leaving the Black Zero ship by jumping from a hole in the wall.
  • In Zack Snyder's Justice League, Superman does this after his rebirth, donning a new Kryptonian suit and then flying up to space to take in the sun's rays to power himself up, arms spread out.
• In Bloodlust (featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000), the evil man-hunting Big Bad gets impaled (through the hands) on a spiked rack (with arms outstretched) by one of his dying henchmen. Which inspires this comment from Tom Servo:
  Servo: So, why this symbolism? Did Christ hunt people on deserted islands?
• Sgt. Elias in Platoon. This has since become the most iconic image of the film, and so it rather builds up audience expectations (The closing narration doesn't help). The shot is an homage to the famous 1968 photograph by Art Greenspon◊.
• Tropic Thunder takes the pee out of the the famous Platoon scene. The hero of the fictitious Vietnam War movie gets shot while maintaining the pose for an absurdly long time. The scene is later echoed when the actor playing the hero has to run from an angry mob.
• This is actually done early on in It's a Wonderful Life. If you're looking for it, it's so obvious: when the angels 'pause' George's life, he's standing with his arms held up and out in the pose.
• Charlton Heston in The Ωmega Man pulls a crucifixion death pose in the final scene of the film, and Vincent Price is speared to death at the foot of a cross in The Last Man on Earth. Despite both being adaptations of I Am Legend, which does not employ this trope, the two films share little else in common.
• Uncle Tom's Cabin, the movie version, uses this trope to show Tom's heroic sacrifice.
• For some reason, the villain Bullseye gets this in Daredevil (2003). It comes complete with wounds on the hands that resemble stigmata, and the entire fight scene takes place in a church. This might be a reference to both Daredevil and, implicitly, Bullseye (who is Irish in this adaptation) being Catholic.
• In Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, this is the Silver Surfer's pose during the sacrifice made to defeat (or possibly repel) Galactus.
• El Topo uses this motif, which in its case is a Justified Trope because the movie is, among other things, a Deconstruction of the Messianic Archetype.
• Conan the Barbarian (1982): Conan was crucified on the Tree of Woe. The scene was inspired by the opening scene of the Robert E. Howard story, "A Witch Shall Be Born," which had him crucified on an actual cross.
• Eric Draven from The Crow was held up in a Crucified Hero Shot by his murderers before being blown out the window. One year later, upon returning from the dead to avenge himself and his girlfriend, he goes into one of these as he takes every bullet Top Dollar's gang has to offer in the boardroom. His powers have made him bulletproof, and so this doesn't stop him for long.
• Another literal version in Cyborg (1989) when Jean-Claude Van Damme's character is tied to a mast of a beached derelict ship and Left for Dead. After spending the night there he's eventually able to break the mast by kicking it repeatedly with his feet, though he still has to be untied by another character who turns up to rescue him.
• In the Sylvester Stallone gangster (not gangsta) comedy Oscar, Stallone's character ends up feeling very fatigued with everything that's gone wrong up to that point. He sighs, leans back, and drapes his arms across the mantlepiece behind him, horizontally. There's a little bit of Christian imagery in prior scenes, too...
• The Shawshank Redemption:
  • When Andy is held over a building, he throws his arms out in a pretty obvious cross pose.
  • The famous Redemption in the Rain scene at the end. It even made it onto the poster/cover art.
• The hero of Braveheart is captured and tied to a cross-like wooden block, that makes him adopt this pose.
• A non-sacrificial example appears in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, when the "four captains / bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage."
• A villainous version happens with Carrie (1976)'s mother who, in her final scene, is impaled against a doorframe in a picture-perfect imitation of the Christ-on-the-Cross that she locked Carrie in with at her first period. Kind of a subversion, as the statue in the closet was actually Saint Sebastian (note the arrows), not Jesus Christ.
• The Wuxia film, Golden Swallow ends with The Hero standing upright in this manner, after succumbing to his injuries from fighting off a legion of mooks, combined with Died Standing Up.
• In To End All Wars, one of the leading Christian POWs is killed by crucifixion. The movie is based on an autobiography and the man really was martyred.
• The Killer (1989) features one of these after the title character is shot in the back during the big church shootout.
• In The Day of the Locust, Homer Simpson (briefly adopts this pose during the scene where the mob is attacking him.
• The Mission opens with one of these combined with an Inevitable Waterfall. Justified in that the missionary being martyred was intentionally given a death resembling Christ's by the group rejecting him and his message.
• In The Lawnmower Man, when Dr. Angelo shows up in cyberspace, Job first says "I am God here", and then handwaves Angelo into a crucifixion pose.
• In Terminator Salvation, Sam Worthington's character is suspended on cross-shaped devices twice.
• The Merchant of Venice: In the Al Pacino film version, during the court scene, Antonio repeatedly consigns himself to death, and then is stripped of his clothes, strapped down with his arms outstretched, and then waits helplessly while Shylock, a Jew, is about to kill him. For bonus points, Antonio is wearing a large crucifix around his neck. Real subtle, director. So much for modern interpretations of the play making Shylock less of a Card-Carrying Villain.
• The 2000 Jesus Christ Superstar has Judas, of all people, strike this pose shortly before hanging himself.
• 2009's Solomon Kane movie has Solomon crucified... and then he forces himself dramatically off it in the most ridiculous fashion.
• Towards the end of Whistle Down the Wind, the fugitive who has spent most of the film being mistaken for Jesus by a number of English schoolchildren is captured and searched by the police for weapons - he stands backlit on a hilltop with his arms held out at shoulder height while this takes place.
• Avatar: In the extended cut of the James Cameron's film, Jake, before leaving earth, gets into a bar fight trying to protect a woman from her abusive boyfriend, and is subsequently kicked out the back door. He lies on the ground in the Jesus pose for a few minutes.
• Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome: Max is seen by the children as the Second Coming of Captain Walker, complete with a Max-as-Walker picture of him spread out in crucified form carrying the children away upon himself. This is before Max almost kills himself helping the children get to their Promised Land with the help of an antagonistic airplane pilot.
• John Lennon, in the film The Killing of John Lennon, is shown, after being shot, in a slow-mo, freeze-frame shot, in a pose that makes you think of crucifixion almost immediately. Could be deliberate or not.
• Max California dies this way in 8mm, after being shot to death with a crossbow while strapped to a torture rack.
• As in the comic, John Osterman stretches his arms out as he is being disintegrated in Watchmen, then slowly raises his arms into this pose when reborn.
• X-Men Film Series:
  • X-Men: First Class: Inverted. This happens twice, once to Emma Frost and again with Sebastian Shaw, and neither of them are heroes.
  • The Wolverine: After Wolverine becomes a Human Pincushion, he strikes this pose, mostly because all the tethers attached to the arrows are forcing him into it.
  • X-Men: Days of Future Past: There is a brief moment where the younger Charles Xavier, who is bleeding and Looks Like Jesus, is trapped under beams which form the distinctive shape of an X, almost like a cross.
• Officer Murphy, a.k.a. RoboCop, gets actually quite a few shots.
• In The Seventh Seal, the girl accused of being a witch is tied up with her arms spread out.
• Celia's corpse floating in a flooded subway station at the end of Atonement.
• A shot of Will on the train in Good Will Hunting. Kind of a headscratcher.
• Tom Cruise does this during the climbing scene — i.e., the first sequence — of Mission: Impossible II. Afterwards the main character Ethan Hunt becomes an unstoppable demigod rather than the secret agent he was in the first movie. It's not surprising the second movie is also the less valued in the series.
• At the end of The Avengers (2012), Tony gets one of these as he falls helplessly with his arms outstretched, unconscious and with his suit out of power, after sacrificing himself to save New York by flying a nuke into space.
  • For bonus unsubtlety points, the repulsor ports are still glowing in the palms of his hands.
• In Scream 2, Derek is tied up, and later killed, in this position.
• Inverted in The Mist, as a villainous character (Mrs. Carmody) ends up shot in the head and falls to the floor, arms outstretched. Bonus points for the "halo" of blood.^note In all fairness, she was trying to be some kind of hero, or at least save herself and her flock. Not quite her fault that she was out of her mind.
• In Daybreakers, the last shot of Frankie is of him lying on the floor, his legs straight and arms outstretched after sacrificing himself holding back his former comrades so that Audrey and Edward could get away.
• Gandalf adopts this pose in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring when pulled off the bridge by the falling Balrog.
• Even Hannibal Lecter gets in on the action — in Hannibal, when captured by Mason Verger and about to be Fed to Pigs, he's strapped to a gurney in this pose.
• Pacific Rim: Gipsy Danger does this just before it blows up the Breach.
• In Machete, the title character's brother, a priest, is nailed to the cross in the church he works at by the villains while they interrogate him.
• The Hunger Games:
  • The Hunger Games: Catching Fire uses Katniss being lifted out of the arena to do one.
  • Inverted in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, as it happens to a villain. President Coin's arms are positioned this way after giving a theatrical speech when Katniss shot her.
• In Into the Wild, after the protagonist gets his first taste of Nature Is Not Nice when he botches the meat of his first big kill, he is seen floating in the river in the Jesus pose completely naked.
• In Hick after Luli is raped^note symbolically speared? offscreen by Eddie the next scene cuts to her tied to a bed in a crucifixion pose, waiting to be raped again: metaphorically crucified for the sin of man. She is tied to the bed quite differently in the book, so the change must be a deliberate visual metaphor.
• R.O.T.O.R. does this with the villainous robot, for no particular reason.
• Heathers: At the end of the movie, J.D. assumes this pose before blowing himself up in front of the school after failing to take everyone else with him.
• Female Agents: Gaëlle deliberately places herself in this position on the floor, nude, before taking cyanide.
• Wonder Woman (2017): Female version; Just before Diana hits Ares with the lightening bolt(s), she hovers above the airfield wreckage. (It is unclear whether she is actually flying or just at the apogee of her leap.)
• Life (2017) has a shot from behind of Rory's floating corpse, with his arms extended.
• Played for Laughs in Thor: Ragnarok, in which the tacky giant gold statue of the decidedly villainous Loki is in this pose after his faked Heroic Sacrifice. (Later, during the climactic battle scene, he descends from the Grandmaster's stolen spaceship reprising this pose, shouting "Your savior is here!", with much ham.
• Suicide Squad (2016): Harleen adopts this pose while falling backwards into the chemical vats.
• Even King Kong (1933), of all things, has a few shots that feature this pose at symbolic moments. When Ann is offered up as a sacrifice, she's tied up with her arms outstretched. Later, the captured Kong displayed with his hands manacled to a crossbeam when he is exhibited on Broadway.
• Cloud Atlas: In the film, the way the mechanisms of the fabricant recycling plant drag bodies along ends up with a different Sonmi (designated 351 in the credits, just to make it seem even more like our Sonmi) speared through the ankles with her arms spread-eagle.
• In Dead Birds, a man is strung up on a cross in the field outside the Hollister place. Turns out it's Mr. Hollister himself, who was left there as punishment for the murder of his slaves.
• In Valdez is Coming, El Segundo and his men tie Valdez to a heavy wooden cross and drive him into the desert.
• Ghost Town (1988): After capturing the sheriff, Devlin and his gang nailed him to the vanes on the windmill on the outskirts of town.
• The Trip (1967) has a number of these shots. In one of them, an actual cross stands behind Paul.
• At the end of The Demoniacs, the pirates have tied the two women naked to the ribs of a wrecked boat. Although one of them escapes, but the other dies and is still tied there as the wreck vanishes under the incoming tide. With her arms tied to the ribs and the angle of the wreck, she looks like Christ hanging on the cross.
• Kaamelott: Premier Volet: Near the end of the movie, after defeating The Usurper Lancelot, Arthur Pendragon lies unmoving on a table with his arms stretched out, waiting for the castle to collapse on him.
• A variation on this at the conclusion of No Time to Die, as Bond stands on the roof of the facility, bracing himself for the impending missile strike.
• ‘’’Tarzan’s Fight for Life 1958’’’ Subverted the traditional tribal Cary tropes by outstretching and tying the titular ape man’s arms to a wooden yoke while leaving him able to walk. This shots and art of this was used in virtually all of the film’s promotional material as well.

Literature

• In Neverwhere, the Marquis de Carabas is crucified. He gets better. The page in the illustrated version shows his hanging head and shoulders as the corner art, fulfilling this trope.
• The Robert E. Howard story, "A Witch Shall Be Born", had Conan the Barbarian crucified on an actual cross by Constantius, the villain's Dragon. He gets better, and at the story, he returns the favor to Constantius, whom he states is far better at inflicting pain than enduring it like Conan can.
• In Guy Gavriel Kay's series, The Fionavar Tapestry, Paul voluntarily gets tied to the World Tree for three days and three nights. He comes back as Pwyll 'twice born'
• Les Misérables: " Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained backed up against the wall as if the bullets had nailed him there. Except that his head was tilted." For bonus points, Grantaire falls to the ground following the former's death, similar to depictions of Mary, who wept at Jesus's feet during the crucifixion. Subtle, Hugo.
• In The Six Sacred Stones, Jack is crucified by his own father. He gets better, obviously.
• Inverted in the Warhammer 40,000: Night Lords novel Blood Reaver. There is indeed a hero being crucified, flayed and partially eaten alive, but the torturers are the Villain Protagonists.
• Dream of the Rood has this, what with it being about how awesome the Crucifixion was.
• In the novel Native Son by Richard Wright, the main character, Bigger, has a dream of being crucified.
• In "The Old Man and the Sea", Santiago gets home from the epic battle with the enormous fish, and trudges up the hill carrying the mast of his sailboat. He then collapses on his bed on his back with his arms outstretched, and his hands mangled by the fishing line. Anvilicious much, Papa Hemingway?
• The Power of Five: Matt, when the Old Ones torture him. He even gets a barbed wire necklace in imitation of the Crown of Thorns.
• Merkabah Rider: In "The Dust Devils", the Rider is captured by the Bandito gang the Evil Sorcerer they are partnered with. When he awakes, he finds he has been tied to the vanes of the windmill in the middle of town to be Flayed Alive by the eponymous dust devils.

Live-Action TV

• American Gods (2017): Mexican Jesus dies this way protecting undocumented immigrants, naturally enough.
• Babylon 5: Just to really ram it home, G'kar is paraded through the streets of Narn by the Centauri with his outstretched arms chained to a wooden beam. He even gets to offer words of comfort to his followers when he stumbles.
• This is inverted in Battlestar Galactica, where it's Gaius Baltar, the villain, who's seen at least once a season in a Christlike pose. In the third season, it's even somewhat of an inside joke, as actor James Callis was playing Pilate in a movie and had grown a full beard and long hair (explained in the show by throwing Baltar in prison). And in the very next season, his side is pierced by a lance piece of shrapnel.
• The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon does this in paintball, invoking this trope as well as the iconic scene from Platoon (see above). "Geology is not a real science!"
• Spike does this in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Restless" during a photo-shoot. It's just one of many 'badass' poses he does, but it's significant in terms of Whedon's crazy long foreshadowing. He makes his Heroic Sacrifice three seasons later!
  • He does this again in "Beneath You", having completely lost it due to the weight of his new soul, he drapes himself over a church cross.
  • Buffy herself does this both times she dies. In "Prophecy Girl", she's found facedown in water, her arms floating out from her sides. The white dress also seemed to paint the scene as a Virgin Sacrifice. In "The Gift", her dive into the deadly portal has a definite cross shape to it. Both times, she comes back to life to save the world from evil.
  • Jonathan sprawled across the Seal of Danzalthar after being murdered by Andrew in "Conversations with Dead People". However, this was an unintentional sacrifice on Jonathan's part, as he surely didn't expect Andrew to kill him so that his blood could be used to open the seal.
• Ben at the end of Carnivàle is lying like this as the carnies carry him through the cornfield.
• Charlie Stubbs falls like this after he is clubbed to death in Coronation Street.
• Doctor Who: Turns up a fair bit, as well as on the spinoff Torchwood.
  • In the Made-for-TV Movie, the Master straps the Doctor into a regeneration-syphoning machine in the Jesus pose. Then he drives a nasty looking circle of electrodes into his head, which may or may not have been intended to resemble the Crown of Thorns. Ironically, this all occurred after he'd woken up in the morgue and cast off his burial shroud...
  • "Dalek": The Doctor is chained in this position when he's tortured by Henry van Statten.
  • "The Parting of the Ways": Captain Jack Harkness strikes a Jesus Christ Pose when it's time for him to die. Later, after being resurrected, he gets shot again (he's Immune to Bullets, so he survives) and strikes another Jesus Christ Pose. He has no real need to the second time, perhaps he just enjoys it.
  • Most regenerations in the new series follow this trope:
    • For the Doctor, we have Nine to Ten, Ten to Eleven, Twelve to Thirteen. Eleven to Twelve is partial, as he strikes the pose in the first regeneration-explosion, but doesn't do it when the actual change happens.
    • The Master does it when regenerating in "Utopia".
    • "Let's Kill Hitler": Mels does it when she regenerates into River Song.
  • "Evolution of the Daleks": First, Solomon is standing in this position when he is exterminated while attempting to negotiate with the Daleks. The Doctor then does it while shouting at the Daleks to just shoot him, if it means leaving the residents of Hooverville alone.
  • Jack casts his arms wide and screams in agony as Abaddon (yep, "Hell", or "Death" or "The Devil") drains the life force out of him, leaving him apparently dead for days before he gets up and says "I forgive you" to the man who betrayed him. He also pulled this pose the first time he died and on several times since, and may just be fond of using it. Similarly, Martha Jones gets strapped to a cross-shaped bed while being medically tortured... it goes on and on and on and on, and unbelievably on.
  • Clara Oswald in "Face the Raven", after the raven enters her body and she begins to die. The fact she strikes a similar pose as that of (occasionally) the Doctor on his regeneration may not be coincidental, given her character arc.
• Game of Thrones: Daenerys Targaryen is chained with her arms outstretched when she is imprisoned by Pyat Pree in the House of the Undying.
• In Heroes, Sylar gets to play the part of sadomasochistic electrocution Jesus in one episode. Earlier, he used Isaac's own paintbrushes to impale him to the ground in a crucifix pose before cutting open his head.
  • Sylar also gets crucified with a nail gun by Peter in The Fifth Stage. The episode features also a subversion of this trope: Nathan plummets to his death in the standard pose, but then he starts grinning and morphs into Sylar while he is falling.
    • And then later Matt buries Sylar in the basement, after which he busts out of his "tomb" before he and his buddy Peter go to save the day.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): Inverted Trope because Lestat de Lioncourt was a villain in Season 1. In the first 30-second TV spot for Season 2, Louis de Pointe du Lac (a lapsed Catholic) sees a deceased Lestat lying on the ground with his arms outstretched and his legs extended while close together, which imitates the crucifixion pose. Lestat abruptly comes back to life (which alludes to Christ's Resurrection) and then stands in front of Louis.◊
• In Jekyll, Hyde does this in the last episode, posing on the edge of a roof right before he throws himself off. He survives, though. Somehow. Later in the episode he does make a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Captain Marvelous in Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger ends up chained to a cross when captured and set to be executed by the Zangyack. He's rescued before he gets speared.
• In Season 6 of Lost, Sayid "dies" by being drowned and his body is carried out of the water with his arms oustrecthed in the Jesus pose. He is later resurrected ala Jesus himself.
  • How about Jack Shepherd in the End. He gets mortally wounded by the Monster with a stab wound in his side.
• In Neverwhere Croup and Vandemar crucify the Marquis. He's hardly the hero, though.
• In The Prisoner (1967) Number Six takes a pretty vicious beating near the end of the episode "Free For All;" the guys who beat him up then hold him up with his arms outstretched and present him, defeated, to Number Two.
  • He also strikes a heroic version of the pose in the opening sequence.
• Raised by Wolves (2020): Battle androids called Necromancers will adopt a cross shape with their arms outstretched to either side when they weaponize. Oddly enough, in spite of being a Church Militant, the Mithraic society who built them devoutly worship a sun god, and cross shapes are not found in their religion.
• In Sherlock, Sherlock holds his arms up in this position just before jumping.
• Smallville: Happens multiple times, including in the pilot episode, when Clark Kent's been made powerless by Kryptonite and tied to a cross with an "S" painted across his chest in a bizarre bit of hazing from the football team. Other occurrences include when he has been depowered and shot, and in the episode "Salvation" after being stabbed by Blue Kryptonite whilst falling from a great height.
• It's more like Crucified Anti-Villain Protagonist Shot, but Jax's death in the finale of Sons of Anarchy qualifies, as he rides into the path of a truck with his arms outstretched and a serene expression on his face.
• Supernatural: For someone who's supposedly the Antichrist, Sam Winchester sure does get crucified a lot. There were a couple bonuses to some of these, like when he's getting his legs beaten with a baseball bat (a common way to speed up the process in Ancient Rome) and when he gets stabbed in the side by a torturer.
  • The pose is resurrected in Swan Song when he's about to throw himself into hell.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles had Chromartie's final shootout take place in a church, firing at people on both sides of him. At one point it was also shot to show the cross silhouette clearly. Probably not a coincidence, as the show has been talking a lot about religion in second season.
• Used many times in the Ultra Series, which makes sense considering that Eiji Tsuburaya was a devout Catholic.
  • When Ultraseven is defeated by Alien Guts, he is imprisoned inside a crystal cross with his hands outstretched for execution.
  • In Return of Ultraman, Ultraman Jack is chained in a similar fashion to Ultraseven by Alien Nackle to be taken away from Earth for execution.
  • Ultraman Ace saw Zoffy, Ultraman, Ultraseven, and Ultraman Jack crucified by the wicked Yapool on the planet Golgotha so he can steal their powers to give to his monster Ace Killer. Ace's co-host Yuko Minami would later be crucified by Alien Orion to intimidate TAC.
  • Ultraman Gaia sees Gaia's human host Gamu Takayama imprisoned inside a cross built into the body of the robot monster Sigma-Zuigul.
  • Ultraman Max DASH team member Mizuki Koishikawa crucified by Alien Tarla to be killed by the giant robot Gilfas.
  • In the Ultraman Mebius and the Ultra Brothers movie, Ultraman, Ultraseven, Ultraman Jack, and Ultraman Ace are imprisoned in crystal crucfixes by Alien Guts and Nackle to drain their energy to revive an insanely powerful monster. Seven's original crucifixion would later be homaged in the series itself when the icy alien Grozam froze Mebius in a cross form for future execution.
  • The Ultraman Ginga special Ultra Fight Victory sees Ultraman Ginga crucified by Yapool to lure Ultraman Victory into fighting a new version of Ace Killer called Victory Killer.
• In Vikings, Athelstan is actually crucified. And whipped, and crowned with thorns, and a soldier is interrupted seconds from stabbing him with a spear, in a full recreation of the Biblical account.
• The White Princess: The adult Perkin Warbeck is first introduced with his arms outstretched in front of stained glass. In context, he's being measured by a tailor, but symbolically, it emphasizes that he is the new champion of the Yorkist cause. He does the same pose as his head is about to get lopped off, proclaiming himself the true king of England until the last moment.
• Xena: Warrior Princess has this done to her during one of the later seasons when the Romans come to Greece. Since the Romans used this punishment against those that resisted them, this is justified.

Music

• The Soundgarden song quoted atop this page is Chris Cornell calling out the excessive exploitation of this pose.
• Deliberately invoked in-universe by the vagrant from Toto's "Stranger In Town" video, when he's arrested after his encounter with some children who'd mistaken him for Jesus because of his long hair. Rather than disillusion them, he assumes this pose before being handcuffed.
• Creed abused the hell out of this trope, the "Higher" video being the worst offender.
• In the DVD performance of !HERO: The Rock Opera, the main character's body draped over a street sign.
• Michael Jackson loved posing with Christ-style outstretched arms as far back as the Bad tour and his live performances of "Man in the Mirror", as seen in Moonwalker. Presumably this was for Faux Symbolism purposes, but then there's his performance of "Earth Song" at the 1996 BRIT Awards, which has a drawn-out ending in which he strips off his costume to reveal he's wearing all-white underneath and strikes this pose, while most of the once-suffering chorus of kids and adults around him lose their rags in favor of pretty duds, and embraces and kisses him in turn. He even kisses a rabbi's forehead. When Jarvis Cocker decided to crash the stage (albeit earlier in the number) during the live broadcast, he got arrested for it.
• Madonna had herself "crucified" on a glittery disco ball-like cross with a crown of thorns on her head during a live performance of "Live To Tell" from the Confessions Tour.
• The artwork for Eminem's single "Rap God" shows the rapper from behind striking this pose. In his live performance of the song for the 2013 YouTube Music Awards, he recreated the shot by performing, facing away from the crowd, against a white backdrop. When performing the song live in his late-2010s mini-tours, he likes to turn from the audience and strike the pose at the end of the song - "why be a king, when you could be a God?"

Theatre

• Invoked quite often (and deliberately) with Liù in productions of Puccini's opera Turandot, as the crowd carries her body aloft with her arms outstretched behind her after she sacrifices herself for her beloved Calaf.
• Billy Budd the opera likes this trope too.
• Yuri Grigorovich's production of Khachaturian's ballet Spartacus has Spartacus crucified on the soldiers' spears in the end. Not a case of simply following history but invoked deliberately, as Spartacus is seen as a Messianic Archetype through the whole story.
• The Les Misérables musical faithfully adheres to this from the book, albeit in a different way. During the final battle, Enjolras is shot from the top of the barricade and falls out of sight. After the battle, the barricade turns around, and you see him hanging upside-down with his arms outstretched in a cross-like shape.
• In the musical Wicked, Fiyero's Heroic Sacrifice results in him being tied up with his arms outstretched in this pose. The stage lighting casts a shadow on him as he's carried away to be tortured to death, making his silhouette briefly appear very Christ-like. Not to mention scarecrow-like.

Professional Wrestling

• ECW wrestler The Sandman was crucified by Raven. Raven led an attack on Sandman, which ended with him being tied to an actual cross and given a crown of barbed wire. This all took place after Sandman reconciled with his brainwashed son minutes before. It also ended up being one of the most controversial moments in ECW's history.
  • Among those who were offended was a pre-WWE Kurt Angle, who was invited by ECW to work a program with Taz.
    • Which meant Angle went to work for WWF/WWE, which ... um, had the Undertaker treat a few of his opponents (and at least once being treated himself) to something very similar. Calling it a 'symbol' doesn't really remove the crucifixion imagery, guys.
    • As bad as that was, Angle came in after Taker left to recoup, and when he returned he played himself as a biker badass. Later, when trying to be as offensive as he could be, Angle said he would want to make Jesus tap out.
    • Most of Taker's crucified victims were conscious and it was more of an elaborate way of humiliating and scaring them. Raven and his gang beat the crap out of the Sandman and carried his unconscious body from the ring.
• Shawn Michaels did this as part of his entrance.
• Bray Wyatt often does this after beating an opponent.

Video Games

• Dillion's corpse is framed this way in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice.
• KOS-MOS in Xenosaga, although physically fine, evidently has her soul bound to a slab by cables, as seen by the party when diving into her memories.
• Used a few times in the Sakura Wars franchise. In the first game Maria is captured and crucified, in the second game every member of the team except the girl you're leading with (who at this point is almost assuredly the one you'll end up with), is captured and put into crystaline crucifixes. It shows up a few other times aside with the next game, with Reni and Orihime hanging from a double sided giant floating cross, Erica the novitiate nun, and more. But then Christian symbolism is really embedded into the Sakura Wars franchise... And used in a way where it seems the creator knows what he's doing.
• Crono in Chrono Trigger — although it was because the pose used was his magic-use pose, which already looked like the "Jesus pose". This was made more blatant in the remake's anime version of the cutscene.
  • The fact that his energy source in the original Japanese was "Holy" rather than lightning just adds to the Faux Symbolism value.
• Right before the final boss in The World Ends with You, Joshua assumes a crucifixion pose after being struck by Kitaniji's attack and is absorbed into his Noise form. Not surprising since the rest of the game depicts him as a parallel to Jesus. He also uses a crucifixion pose when performing his Jesus Beam attack.
• Devil May Cry:
  • Dante seems to have a habit of dropping into a crucified pose when impaled by a sword, Usually his own.
  • Trish also has this pose when she is held captive by Mundus in the first game.
  • In Devil May Cry 2, this happens to Lucia when she is captured by Arius, but before she's saved by Dante.
  • Nero gets on this pose when he awakened his Devil Trigger in Devil May Cry 4.
• In Xenogears, there is an infamous scene where the heroes' Humongous Mecha are crucified at the top of a mountain with the sun setting behind them - creating an unintentionally hilarious moment if your party contains the Team Pet, Chuchu. This led to the Memetic Mutation "Chu-chu died for your sins."
  • And that's without the Fridge Logic of the characters in the cockpits of their Humongous Mecha acting as if they are in physical pain, and the obvious question "Why not just get out?".
• The intro of Persona 3 includes a brief shot of Shinjiro Aragaki in this pose. It's repeated when he's shot to death midway through the game.
  • Takaya also does this when he's finally defeated. Although he's a villain, it's still oddly appropriate, considering how Jesus-esque he looks. The fact that he's also the leader of an apocalyptic cult is just a coincidence.
  • Finally, the SEES members, barring Koromaru and Aigis are actually crucified at one point. They get better.
  • And once more, when the Main Character sacrifices himself to save the world, his soul becomes a statue and gets plastered onto an enormous seal, with his arms outstretched and with bindings of barbed wire. As if his ultimate persona being called Messiah wasn't a big enough hint.
  • In Persona 2, after Jun's mother becomes a Masquerade executive and his father commits suicide starting the whole chain of events, they are seen crucified during the ending.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In Final Fantasy VII, when Don Corneo kidnaps Yuffie and Elena, he suspends then from a cliff face in this pose.
  • In Final Fantasy VIII, Squall gets chained to a wall in this pose and subjected to Electric Torture during the disc 2 prison sequence.
  • Played with in Final Fantasy X, where Seymour, resident Dark Messiah, ends up in one of these after his first death.
  • In the climax of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, Bhunivelze puts Hope's body, which he's possessing, in this pose right before destroying it.
  • Final Fantasy XV have Prompto in this pose when he is held captive by Ardyn at Zegnautus Keep.
• In Project Justice, either Hinata Wakaba (in the Taiyo students route with Kyosuke) or Kyoko Minazuki (in the Taiyou/Justice teachers route) end tied up like this right before Kurow, Yurika and Momo face the teams in the Hopeless Boss Fight. In the case of Hinata, she's rescued by Roy and Tiffany; in Kyoko's, Hayato fights "Vatsu" alone to give Hideo time to get her down from there.
• This is the kind of pose that Rumia from Touhou Project is trying to imitate with her signature pose. However, fitting her nature as a complete doofus, it usually ends up looking more like a goofy Bird Run or, as Marisa puts it "like someone who just discovered the decimal system".
• The final boss of Skies of Arcadia has a special attack that makes a member of the party use their strongest special on their teammates. The crucified pose briefly shows up combined with People Puppet strings.
• There's a crucified villain shot in Silent Hill 4.
• Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee has the hero receive painful scars on the backs of his hands which convey mystical powers and allow him to become the savior of his people. Everything is narrated in verse, and the line "With hand-scars complete" has Abe standing with his arms held out for no real reason other than Rule of Faux Symbolism. Oh yeah, and he already died and came back to life. In a cutscene, not all those other times.
• On the 7/8 Moon day in Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse Krishna displays Flynn cruicifed and at his mercy after Shesha reveals he's been posing as Flynn since Konganji.
• Tassadar, in the final cutscene of StarCraft (not Brood War), adopts a modified Crucified Hero Pose as he unleashes his last blast of psionic energy against the Overmind and channels it through the Gantrithor. He would have gone all the way, one imagines, but he had to keep his footing stable, and Protoss legs really aren't designed for it. Appropriate for the Messianic Archetype of the Protoss race.
• Solid Snake throwing himself off the George Washington Bridge, outlined in rain, invisible, long-haired, nude-looking and backed by an ecstatic chorale, at the start of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. He wasn't dying, but considering he'd abandoned his dream of having a normal life and family in the name of his 'duty to the world', it's a sacrifice.
• One of Yoriko's super moves in Arcana Heart has her evil staff, Mike, strapping her into this position while he force-feeds her the life force of her opponent whom he had so generously placed in the center of a ceremonial pentacle he had prepared.
• Baten Kaitos:
  • In the first game, during the arc where you play as Xelha, you are separated from the rest of your party and must go off to save them. Each individual character you rescue is found hanging not on a cross, per se, but a giant "Y". One may wonder if the creators were attempting to subvert this trope.
  • In the Japanese version of Origins, after turning into an afterling and being captured by the Machina Vanguard Sagi is attached to a cross. In the American version, it was changed to a rectangle, but he's still hanging in a crucified position.
• In one of the later levels of Second Sight, Pieter, one of the Zener Children, takes this pose when fighting off the Russian mercenaries with his telekinetic powers. He's also levitating.
• Wild ARMs 2: Ashley's friends are bound to crosses and would have been executed as terrorists had Deus ex Machina not happened and Ashley's Superpowered Evil Side decided to come out to play.
• In .hack//Infection, Skeith pins his victims up to his staff before Data Draining them. This is better seen when Skeith Data Drains Orca in the very beginning of the game. Played straight in the Japanese version, and some of the anime where Skeith's staff is in the shape of a Celtic cross instead of the "Q" shape.
• Subverted in Dragon Age: Origins. King Cailan deluded himself into thinking he was the Messianic Archetype who'd end the Blight once and for all... he was wrong. When the Warden returns to Ostagar, you come across his body, stripped of all his armour and mockingly posed in a crucified shot. The Archdemon seems to have purposely directed the horde to do this for nothing more than its own amusement at the sheer irony.
  • Fridge Logic kicks in when you realize that there's no reason for that pose to have any special meaning in Dragon Age.
    • They never show us any depictions of Andraste being burned, though, it's hypothetically possible she was tied to a cross and then burned...
• The Overlord DLC in Mass Effect 2 has an enormous (extremely spoiler-ridden) example. When Shepard finally discovers David Archer, he is hung up in some kind of diagnostic equipment in a distinctly crucifix-like pose; arms out to either side, feet together, and head lifted toward heaven. But the analogy goes even further than the pose itself. He also has some sort of metal ring bolted into his head which strongly resembles a crown of thorns, and he has a number of probes that pierce his wrist and arms, much like the nails in Christ's hands and feet. He is also either naked or nearly naked, as Jesus is said to have been when he was crucified.
  • This happens to Legion in the third game; when you find him/it, the Reapers tied him up in the crucifix position and have been using him as a source of energy/communications array. He cries out for you to help him, implying if not outright stating that this was done against his will, despite the Geth allying with the Reapers.
• One cutscene in Valis IV shows Valna tied to a cross.
• The not-yet Arbiter in Halo 2 is held in this position when he is branded with the Mark of Shame.
• This is how Chihiro Fujisaki's lifeless body is found in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. In a cruel subversion, the kid's corpse was NOT arranged like that by the killer, but by someone else.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), when Shadow comes to the future and sees his future counterpart having been captured and held in stasis, the counterpart is being held in this position. It only adds to the general 'First Coming of Christ' vibe Shadow gives off (while Silver gives off the vibe of 'Second Coming of Christ').
• The murder that sparks off the entire plot of Deadly Premonition has the victim, Anna, strung up on a tree in this pose, complete with a serpent slithering up her almost-nude body. Christian symbolism has exactly nothing to do with the killer's motivations; it's the tree symbolism which is more critical.
• Kachi does this during the final boss battle with Deko in Sin and Punishment: Star Successor.
• In BlazBlue, some of the people who get caught in Relius Clover's Astral Heat are shown in this position. Examples include Rachel (who ironically is a vampire), Ragna, Azrael (who's crucified upside down), Hibiki (strapped to a mix between a clock mechanism and a breaking wheel, in a pose that reminds of crucifixion) and Noel (plus Mu-12 and Lambda); for worse, these three are nude).
• At the end of the GDI campaign in the first Command and Conquer, Kane does this right before he supposedly dies at the hands of the Ion Cannon in his Temple at Sarajevo.
• If you play Anvil of Dawn with any character other than Brice, halfway through the game you'll meet Brice crucified like St.Andrew◊ — on an X cross. He tells you he failed the mission and dies.
• Galaxy Angel II: Kazuya is submitted to this by the Will in the climax of the final game, Eigou Kaiki no Toki, with his chosen Angel being Forced to Watch. There's no actual cross holding him, instead his arms are held up by the floating light spikes piercing through his hands.

Webcomics

• In M9 Girls!, Any is restrained in a medical table that pretty much resembles a cross, when she receives the radiation treatment that will save her life and give her Cosmic Powers.
• Averted by the captured SEMME agents strung up by Head Alien in It's Walky!, because at the time Willis was still worried enough by the possibility it might be blasphemy to intentionally avoid a cruciform position as much as possible. He lampshades this in the rerun commentary. Played straight however at the very end where Walky sacrifices himself and becomes The Cheese
• In Megan Kearney's Beauty and the Beast, while his arms aren't outstretched, the image of the Beast's limp body tied by briars to the spire of the enchanted fountain does evoke this trope. Fitting, since he sacrificed himself to the magic in exchange for Beauty's freedom.
• Kill Six Billion Demons: Following the Discordance of the Demiurges in Breaker of Infinities, Solomon is left in a pose that us half cruciform, half Pietà Plagiarism upon a block of granite.

Web Original

• The Angry Video Game Nerd is found lying on the floor in this position near the end of the "R.O.B. the Robot" episode after R.O.B. gains telepathic control of his game consoles and ties him down with the wires.
• This a recurring visual motif on Broken Saints: For example, at the end of the second act from chapter 19, Shandala is found by the other main characters, naked and in this postion. In the Grand Finale of the series, she also appears in this way.
• One picture in the Mata Nui Saga shows the titular robot floating through space in such a pose, while gathering information from the nearby planets' cultures. We have to assume he uses his outstretched arms for "sucking up" the info.
• In Mega64, in the Version 2 finale when Marcus confronts Jon and is thrown to the floor, he lands in the crucified pose before Jon cruelly rips him to shreds.
• The Nostalgia Critic when he dies and takes on the Plot Hole in To Boldly Flee, complete with peaceful smile and letting go of everything that made him hurt in the first place.
  • He also parodied it in his review of Pearl Harbor, where Michael Bay trips going up the stairs and falls down with his arms like this. His friend nearby says "Truly this man was the son of schlock."
  • Taken to it's logical extreme in his Man of Steel review. "I-AM-JESUS. I-AM-JESUS. I-AM-JESUS."
• The Sniper is seen posing like a crucifix at the end of the Team Service Announcement Cooperative Engineering. This has no relevance to the rest of the video whatsoever.

Western Animation

• South Park makes fun of this trope in the episode "Spontaneous Combustion", where Eric Cartman (who's more of a Villain Protagonist than an actual hero) is crucified. He volunteered to play Jesus in a "Stations of the Cross" play to be held at the local church, thinking that dying from crucifixion will lead to an erection for Kyle to give to his mom.
• In Thunder Cats 2011, one of the Church Militant Clerics is chained to a pillar this way, with a stripe on the pillar extending from the feet, in case the viewer missed the symbolism.
• Abe does this completely out of nowhere, with the sun beyond his head like a halo and everything, at the end of the first song in The Musical episode of Clone High. The episode is a parody of rock operas in general, including Jesus Christ Superstar, and this foreshadows his later meeting with his celestial clone father.
• In Wakfu Sadlygrove gets one of these saving Amalia and Eva from Razortime.
• In the Superfriends episode "The Fear" (the first animated depiction of Batman's Dark and Troubled Past), Scarecrow captures Robin and Wonder Woman and stages an Hostage Situation. When Batman arrives to rescue them, Robin is tied up to a cross with his arms bound behind the shorter post (but Wondy averts it since her hands are tied up together, probably since it'd be easier for her to get free if "crucified").
• Superman: The Animated Series continues the tradition of doing this to the Man of Steel. In "Apokolips Now", Darkseid parades a captured and beaten up Superman to the people of Metropolis, with the evident intent of breaking their hope. Of course, this is right before Dan Turpin throws a spear he stole from a Parademon to break one of the shackles holding Superman's hand to help him break free and counterattack.
• Winx Club: in the first season, Bloom gets one when Icy traps her in ice so she and her sisters can steal the divine in nature magic of the Dragon's Flame from her.
• Inverted in an incredibly creepy manner in the Grand Finale of The Owl House. Emperor Belos uses his parasitic powers to crucify himself to the Titan's heart in order to take control of its power, symbolizing his Holier Than Thou egotism, blasphemous hypocrisy, and obsession with convincing himself he's the hero. The episode in question also happened to premier the day before Easter.

Other

• This happens to Keanu Reeves's characters, so often one suspects it's somehow written into his contract.

Real Life

• Benjamin West's 18th-century portrait of the death of General Wolfe (who was killed at the moment of his triumph in the capture of Quebec) makes use of strong "Christ taken down from the cross" imagery, with the Union Flag as the cross. The Union Flag had two different crosses on it, so...
  • Also an example of Pietà Plagiarism, as a doctor and two other officers hold Wolfe in their arms.
• According to Christian tradition, St. Peter and several other Roman martyrs condemned to crucifixion defied this; they didn't consider themselves worthy to be compared to Jesus and thus requested crucifixion in unusual poses (St. Peter upside-down for example).
  • In the case of Saint Paul Miki and the 26 Martyrs of Japan, this is combined with Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.
• During the US occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934 there was a rebel leader named Charlemagne Péralte who was eventually killed by the US marines. They then took this picture◊ of him to spread the word that he was dead.
• A photograph taken by a war correspondent in Central America during The '80s of a wounded man carried by his compatriots had this look, especially as the wounded man Looks Like Jesus.
• During the Cristero War in Mexico, Bl. Fr. Miguel Pro was sentenced to execution by firing squad by the anti-religious regime in place at the time. They had brought in a photographer to depict what they believed would be a priest dying like any condemned criminal for propaganda purposes. However, just as the order to fire was given, Pro thrust out his arms to deliberately mirror Christ on the cross and shouted out "Viva Cristo Rey!" ("Long live Christ the King!") It is that moment that the photographer committed to film.
• Boris Yaro's photograph of Robert Kennedy, after the latter was shot◊
• A photo of the execution of Yugoslav (Croatian) partisan Stjepan Filipovic became one of the iconic photos of World War II in Yugoslavia. It is particularly interesting because it combines a Christ-like pose with the communist "clenched fist" salute.

---