10 Gory Scenes You Can Skip & When They Happen

Summary

• Society of the Snow is a highly acclaimed film that accurately portrays the 1972 Andes plane crash and the survival of 16 people. It is referred to as the Miracle of the Andes.
• The film has been nominated for Best Motion Picture at the Golden Globes and is expected to be a strong contender at the Academy Awards. It has already made the Oscars shortlist in several categories.
• While the story is remarkable and the film is well-done, there are intense and graphic scenes that may be difficult to watch, including the plane crash, deaths, cannibalism, and injuries.

Society of the Snow is an excellent story of survival and endurance but it also has moments of intense and graphic scenes. The new J.A. Bayona (The Impossible, A Monster Calls) film has been widely celebrated as one of the most accurate portrayals of the 1972 Andes plane crash and the story of the 16 survivors in the aftermath. As depicted in Society of the Snow, their road to survival was incredibly challenging and highly unlikely, which is why many referred to it as the Miracle of the Andes. The key cast of Society of the Snow is made entirely of Argentine and Uruguayan actors.

Society of the Snow is nominated for Best Motion Picture – Non-English Language at the 2024 Golden Globes, representing Spain. The film is also expected to be a strong contender at the 2024 Academy Awards in March, having made the Oscars shortlist in several categories including international Feature, Makeup and Hairstyling, Original Score, and Visual Effects. After premiering at the Venice Film Festival in September 2023, Society of the Snow premiered on Netflix on January 4, 2024. While the story is truly remarkable, and the film is exceptionally done, there are several moments that are difficult to sit through.

10 Plane Crash

14:30

One of the most graphic scenes in Society of the Snow occurs early on during the plane crash. Compared to the lighthearted opening in the first ten minutes of the movie, Society of the Snow takes a sharp turn during the initial plane crash scene, brutally depicting multiple sudden deaths of several passengers. During the intense scene, several passengers die and many bones are broken, including shots of a leg getting crunched, a man getting stabbed, and another man being tossed out of the plane.

9 The Pilot

17:00

Following the graphic plane crash scene, the pilot of the plane is shown once the plane lands in the mountain range. The passengers rush up to the cockpit, thinking that the pilot will be able to help them or provide them with information on how to use the radio. The pilot is gravely injured, has blood pouring out of his mouth, and is very clearly dying. It is one of the most gory parts of Society of the Snow, but the pilot does tell the passengers that they are near Chile and says a prayer for their souls.

8 Nando Offers Numa Food

57:00

After the group has their initial discussion of whether or not to partake in cannibalism, most of the survivors begin to feed on the bodies of the deceased except for Numa. Numa is the person most against partaking in cannibalism despite several characters begging him to eat throughout Society of the Snow. In one moment at the 57-minute mark, Nando holds a piece of “food” out to Numa, which can be seen on the camera, as he tells Numa that he must eat so they can go to Chile.

7 First Avalanche

1:01:45

The first of several devastating avalanches hit the group of survivors around the 1 hour, 2-minute mark in Society of the Snow. The powerful moment comes immediately after a brief moment of normalcy and happiness between the passengers inside the fuselage. They appear to be relatively jovial just before monstrous rumbling approaches at intense speeds, crushing many of the passengers and trapping them inside in a tragic impact. It is certainly one of the most sad and terrifying moments of the film.

6 Multiple Deaths

1:03:00

Following the first avalanche, there are several deaths that are shown onscreen. One man is pulled up from the packed snow appearing to have suffocated, which is a deeply disturbing sight. The whole scene is full of chaos as the survivors try to survive and save each other, as the fuselage is packed full of ice and snow. One character, Methol, loses his wife during the scene as she is trampled and suffocates under the snow.

5 Second Avalanche

1:05:00

Just moments after the first avalanche and the multiple death scenes, a second wave of the avalanche rapidly approaches the passengers, trapping them inside the fuselage. Numa and several of the characters face the pressure of the avalanche head-on, from which several more people die upon impact. Several dead bodies are shown on camera in the aftermath. To be safe, Society of the Snow can be skipped between the 1 hour, 1-minute mark and the 1 hour, 7-minute mark to avoid watching these devastating scenes.

4 Numa Cuts His Ankle

1:12:00

Numa heroically tries to save the remaining survivors who are trapped in the fuselage and will eventually suffocate to death if they don’t get out. Numa successfully kicks out a glass window of the airplane but gets a nasty cut on his ankle in the process. The ankle wound is shown on screen and the sound of the cutting flesh can also be heard. It is an important scene, however, and is not too graphic, so it doesn’t necessarily need to be skipped because of the gore.

3 Body Lesions

1:33:35

Some types of nasty body lesions are shown on screen exactly at the 1 hour, 33 minutes, 35-second mark, which is either an effect of frostbite or lingering wounds from the initial plane crash. ​​​​​The lesions are graphic but not necessarily gory as they don’t display any depictions of blood or anything too unsettling.

2 Cannibalism

1:34:00

The most graphic scene of cannibalism in Society of the Snow arrives at the 1 hour, 34-minute mark. Numa is incredibly sick and his health is quickly failing, although he still continues to narrate the movie throughout. One of the more healthy survivors holds a piece of the “food” up to Numa’s mouth, which some viewers may find too unpleasant to look at. The man bites a piece of the “food” onscreen to encourage Numa to follow suit. The scene can be picked back up at the 1 hour, 34-minute, 45-second mark to avoid seeing the “food” being eaten.

1 Food Close Up

1:45:30

One final shot of the “food” arrives at the 1 hour, 45-minute, 30-second mark in Society of the Snow. It is also the biggest piece of “food” that is shown in the movie as Roberto Canessa packs it in a bag for him and Nando to take on their long hike to Chile. It’s a brief glimpse of the “food” that can be easily skipped over without missing any of the key parts of Society of the Snow.