Guardians of the Galaxy, the tongue-in-cheek superhero movie starring Chris Pratt, has comprehensively topped a study of the deadliest blockbusters, thanks to an especially bloody finale.

The film sees the killing of 80,000 Nova Corps pilots in one of its closing scenes, which takes its estimated on-screen body count to 83,871 – that’s 78,184 more than its nearest rival.

The study was conducted by financial services comparison website Go Compare, and totted up the casualties in the best-performing Hollywood films since the 1940s.

It found that the average number of deaths in movies has risen through the decades. In 1940, there was just one film with 50 or more on-screen deaths, rising to four in 1950, 33 in 1960, 44 in 1970, 84 in 1980 and 119 in 1990. Four films from 2014 made it into the top 10.

Family films such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy were also found to feature an enormous amount of bloodshed. The combined body count of the second and third films in the series feature 4,512 deaths.

The top 10 deadliest Hollywood movies

1. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) – 83,871 on-screen deaths
2. Dracula Untold (2014) – 5,687
3. The Sum of All fears (2002) – 2,922
4. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) - 2,798
5. 300: Rise of An Empire (2014) – 2,234
6. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) – 1,741
7. The Matrix Revolutions (2003) – 1,647
8. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) – 1,417
9. Braveheart (1995) – 1,297 
10. The Avengers (2012) – 1,019