Comments may contain spoilers.
These are movies with a character that has lost one or two of their arms.
El Topo 1970
A man without legs is strapped to the back of a man without arms, merging them together in perfect symbiosis. This would make a great sit-com.
Santa Sangre 1989
Fenix' father cut off both of his mother's arms and she built a church to worship a raped child-saint. She uses her bewitched son Fenix's hands reaching out from behind her body in a nightclub act she performs and then later when she fights the soul mime girl who Fenix loves until Fenix rises as an eagle from his dead Puppetmaster's ashes as naked zombie brides rise from their graves. I'm not making this up.
Mother India 1957
Mother India's husband tried to move a huge boulder by putting both arms under it, but it fell and crushed both of his arms which had to be amputated.
Sholay 1975
After he is accused of being a coward for not picking up a gun, we learn that a main character who we have seen always wearing a blanket wrapped around his shoulders didn't join the fight because both of his arms were cut off by a bandit. We the bandit do it in a flashback in one easy stroke with one sword in each hand. Yet, oddly, the armless guy is still way better groomed than everybody else. At the end when they're about to fight, the bandit says something like "You can't fight me I cut your arms off" and the armless guy says something like "You use your feet to crush a snake, not your hands" then they really get into it with hands and feet.
Berlin Alexanderplatz 1980
Franz lost an arm after it was crushed under a car tire.
Foolish Wives 1922
A woman seated on a patio drops her book in front of a soldier who wears a military cape that hides his arms. He just sits there without picking it up for her. We see by the look on her face that she is insulted, and we don't blame her. Von Sternberg even reads a passage from her book about how Americans have no honor. Later she drops her purse next to the same soldier in an elevator and again he does not pick it up, to her annoyance, and ours also. Who is this bum? Finally, she exits the hotel door, not looking where she is going, and she bumps into him, knocking his cape to the ground. He stops and looks at her as if he expects her to pick it up and we are just as outraged as she is - until the camera shows us that he has no arms. She picks up the cape and puts it on him then fondles his empty sleeves, kisses the insignia on the wrist, and tearfully apologizes to him in what becomes a very uncomfortable scene because she looks like she's turned on by his lack of arms.
127 Hours 2010
Aron Ralson's arm gets caught in a rockslide, trapping him inside a slot canyon, so he slowly cuts off his entire arm with a dull pocketknife to escape.
The Unknown 1927
Lon Chaney pretends to be a circus freak with no arms who shoots guns and throws knives with his feet, but he's really a crook with both arms and three thumbs. When he falls in love with Joan Crawford and finds out she has a terrible fear of being touched by a man but trusts him because he has no arms and hands, he blackmails a surgeon and forces him to cut off his arms to win her over. But as soon as his second arm hits the floor, she loses her fear of grabby-armed guys and hooks up with the strongman, the guy with the biggest arms in the circus.
True Grit 2010
Snakebite cure in the old West was a shot of whisky and a sawed-off arm. These days it is recommended that the victim remain quiet and seek immediate medical help. 14-year-old Mattie Ross falls into a pit where she is bitten on the arm by a rattlesnake. She is rescued and taken to a doctor who cuts her arm off. We see her years later as a grown woman with one arm.
Soul Surfer 2011
A shark bites off a surfer's left arm so she breaks an arm off her Barbie Doll and learns to tie on her bikini top with only one arm. She also learns to surf again.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail 1975
King Arthur: [after he has cut off both of the Black Knight's arms] "Look, you stupid Bastard. You've got no arms left."
Black Knight: "Yes I have."
King Arthur: "Look!"
Black Knight: "It's just a flesh wound."
Freaks 1932
A traveling circus has a freak show with a girl with no arms and a guy with no arms or legs.
The Holy Mountain 1973
It seems like every Jodorowsky film must have at least one character with no arms. In this one, there is a brief scene of a very small shirtless man with no arms who angrily kicks a fallen statue on the ground with his feet.
Another small man has half of his arms missing, and we see him light and smoke cigarettes with his stumps.
The Fugitive 1993
Dr. Richard Kimble, a fugitive from the law who want him for the murder of his wife, insists that she was killed by a man with a prosthetic arm.
"When I came home, there was a man in my house. I fought with this man. He had a mechanical arm. You find this man. You find this man!"
Predator 1987
Carl Weathers' character gets his arm shot off by an alien hunter with dreadlocks.
Saving Private Ryan 1998
During the Normandy invasion in WWII a soldier's arm is shot off so he picks it up and carries it with him.
Blade 1998
A bad guy gets his arm sliced off by Blade's sword.
The Terminator 1984
The Terminator loses his arms but they can be replaced because he's just a machine.
Toy Story 2 1999
It's all in a day's work for a toy cowboy; lose an arm, sew it back on.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones 2002
Anakin's severed arm is replaced with a mechanical one.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith 2005
Anakin loses his second arm, gets covered in hard black plastic with a respirator, and turns into a really bad guy named Darth.
Evil Dead II 1987
Technically, for an arm to be severed the cut must be above the elbow. Ash's arm is cut below the elbow, but he straps a chainsaw to his stump and uses it to rip through demon heads, and that is just too cool to leave out.
Snowpiercer 2013
A man's right arm is frozen solid then smashed off with a big hammer. He does OK later using a weapon in his left hand. Another man has only one arm. We learn that he cut it off to feed some starving people and keep them from needing to kill and eat a baby. Hard times.
7th Heaven 1927
A soldier returns from the war missing an arm.
Marketa Lazarová 1967
A main character Adam was having sex with his sister in a field when a viper bit his arm. His father chopped it off with an axe because of the incest and because of the poison from the snakebite.
13 Assassins 2010
A sadistic feudal lord cut off the arms, feet, and tongue of a woman because she was related to a rebel leader. She's only in the film for a few minutes but that's enough to give you nightmares.
The Last Wagon 1956
The Union Army judge during the trial at the end was missing an arm.
Irma la Douce 1963
Jojo the pimp is a short man with only one arm. He lost the other one in an explosion when he was a safecracker.
Bad Day at Black Rock 1955
Spencer Tracy's character still has his arm, but he can't use it, so he's technically missing an arm, right?
Major Dundee 1965
James Coburn is Samuel Potts, a scout for the U.S. Cavalry who has only one arm.
The One-Armed Executioner 1981
It's right there in the title...
The Horse Soldiers 1959
A Confederate officer who was once the comrade-in-arms of a Union doctor is missing an arm.
Mad Max: Fury Road 2015
Imperator Furiosa is missing her left arm and uses a prosthetic arm and hand.
They Drive by Night 1940
Bogart loses his right arm in an accident.
Wind Across the Everglades 1958
A Seminole guide in the Everglades is named "Billy One Arm" for obvious reasons.
Virtuosity 1995
Denzel Washington plays an ex-cop convict whose left arm was blown off in the explosion of the bomb that killed his wife and daughter. It was replaced with a metal arm that is useful when he needs to stop a huge building ventilation fan - he just shoves the metal arm right into it.
Until the End of the World 1991
An Australian man has a mechanical arm and hand.
The 10th Victim 1965
A trainer in a gym for assassins has an artificial arm that has a hook with a cigarette lighter built into it.
Johnny Got His Gun 1971
A soldier wakes up in an Army hospital bed a prisoner in his own body with no legs, arms, face, or sensory organs.
Lonely Are the Brave 1962
Actor Bill Raisch, who lost his right arm in WWII and played the one-armed man in the TV series The Fugitive, appears as a man called "One Arm" who takes on Kirk Douglas in a famous fight scene in a bar where Douglas fights him with only his left arm - and loses.
Spartacus 1960
Bill Raisch, who lost an arm in WWI and played the one-armed man in the tv series The Fugitive, appears in an uncredited role as "Soldier Whose Arm is Hacked Off"
Star Trek: First Contact 1996
Alice Krige plays the Borg Queen who we first see as only a head with an upper chest and a spinal cord, swinging down a wire into a body suit with arms and legs.
Doctor X 1932
When the police see a doctor remove his artificial arm and hand, they decide that he could not have been the strangler they are looking for. Later we see that he has used synthetic flesh to make another artificial arm and hand, which could be used for strangling.
I, Robot 2004
Del Spooner is a Chicago cop who lost his left arm in an auto accident. A robot designer replaced it with an artificial arm that looks like a normal human arm but is much stronger. When the artificial skin is torn, he just sprays some artificial skin on it to hide its metallic insides.
Enter the Dragon 1973
One of Bruce Lee's adversaries is a man with an artificial metal arm with a claw on the hand.
The Machine 2013
A soldier who has lost both of his arms is given prosthetic arms that have superhuman strength.
The One-Armed Swordsman 1967
It's right there in the title...
The New One-Armed Swordsman 1971
It's right there in the title...
Zatoichi and the One-Armed Swordsman 1971
It's right there in the title...
Innerspace 1987
Mr. Igoe, a professional killer, has an artificial right arm made of metal and electronics. He can detach the hand and replace it with various attachments, including a pistol that shoots through the index finger, a corkscrew, a sex vibrator, a propane torch, and a drill.
Malena 2000
Malena's husband was thought to be killed in combat in North Africa, but he returns after the war missing his right arm.
Captain America: Civil War 2016
American soldier Bucky Barnes lost his left arm in WWII. It was replaced with an artificial weaponized metal arm in a secret HYDRA operation, before Tony Stark/Iron Man tore it off and Barnes was cryogenically preserved without it.
Logan Lucky 2017
Adam Driver's character is missing his lower left arm below the elbow from a combat injury in Iraq. At first he wears a simple strap-on prosthetic arm, but at the end he has a mechanical arm with functioning fingers.
A Bullet for the General 1967
A Mexican man named Raimundo is missing an arm he lost in battle.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 1966
The very first person we see in the movie is a bounty hunter who is then shot in the right arm by Tuco, the man he is hunting. Eight months later he finds Tuco, and we see that he is missing his right arm. He is wearing the same jacket he was shot in, which has a bullet hole in the right arm. He tells Tuco he has had plenty of time to practice shooting with his left hand.
Airplane! 1980
A man sets off the alarm when walking through the metal detector at an airport. He is asked to remove all metal from his person and put them on a table, so he removes his artificial metal arm and foot. Good thing he didn't also have a plate in his head.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier 2014
American soldier Bucky Barnes lost his left arm in WWII. It was replaced with an artificial weaponized metal arm in a secret HYDRA operation as part of his transformation into "The Winter Soldier."
The Majestic 2001
Bob is a WWII veteran who works in a diner and has a prosthetic hook device on the missing half of his right arm.
Black Panther 2018
Klaue is a villain whose missing arm was replaced by an artificial arm that opens into an Arm Cannon that was made in Wakanda. It seems the Wakandans have cornered the Arm Cannon trade since the end credits teaser preview seems to indicate that Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, will use one of their weapons, also.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle 2017
Charlie had his right arm blown off by the Kingsmen so he joined a global drug cartel who replaced his arm with a metal weapon arm that can continue to move and function even after it is torn off. Poppy, the head of the drug cartel who prefers the reliability of robots to humans, presents him with an even more powerful arm she calls "Arm-a-Geddon" which can fire its hand on a wire that can be pulled back to retrieve it. Sign that guy up at shortstop.
Deadpool 2 2018
Deadpool complains that his movie sequel has yet another character (Cable) with a "Winter Soldier" robotic arm.
Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance 1974
A spying secret police thug is captured by slum residents and tied up with one arm chained, guarded by a man with an axe. When the guard passes out, the spy unties himself, cuts off his chained arm with the axe, kills the guard, and escapes. Later we see him in a coat with one arm empty fighting Lady Snowblood with his remaining arm. She cuts off that arm with her sword in a shower of blood then someone else kills him.
Broken Arrow 1950
General Howard "the Christian General" is missing his right arm which was lost in battle (based on a real person.)
The Dance of Reality 2013
We see a man who lost both his hands in a mining explosion, then a group of other ex-miners all missing limbs, including some men who are missing both arms, which is a characteristic of this director. The men sing a song about dynamite having no heart as the police drag them away to the dump in a truck.
The Sisters Brothers 2018
Charlie Sisters injures his right arm with a chemical liquid and a doctor cuts it off with a hacksaw.
Border Incident 1949
American bandits kill a group of illegal Mexican workers and rob them of their pay after they return to Mexico, but one of them escapes with only a wounded arm, which he loses to infection. He serves as an example to other Braceros of the dangers of illegal immigration.
Fear in the Night 1972
A woman is terrorized by a mysterious one-armed man.
Prospect 2018
A teenage girl shoots a man in the arm then helps him treat the wound. When the wound becomes toxic, he asks her to cut off his arm to save his life, and she does.
Them That Follow 2019
A young man is bitten on the arm by a venomous snake in a snake-handling church. After his arm swells up and turns black, his father cuts it off with a reciprocating saw.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs 2018
An old west artist called Harrison the Wingless Thrush is billed as a thespian, an orator, and a popular entertainer. He performs his verbal art inside a traveling wagon each night, propped on a chair. He has no legs and no arms.
Tank Girl 1995
The villain Kesslee loses an arm in a battle which is replaced with a weaponized artificial arm.
Romeo Is Bleeding 1993
Lena Olin plays Mona, a beautiful ruthless Russian gangster who fakes her own death by cutting off her left arm and putting it on ice in a cooler. Then she cuts off the left arm of a woman's corpse, removes her own arm from the cooler, and leaves it where the corpse's arm should be. Then she sets fire to the corpse and takes its severed arm. Somehow only Mona's DNA is found by the police, and she is declared dead. Afterwards she walks around with a rigid artificial left arm.
Dark Journey 1937
Vivian Leigh dates a man who is missing an arm he lost in France in World War One. Later we find out he works with British Intelligence and is told to investigate her for being a German spy.
Kalifornia 1993
Brad Pitt's character Early Grayce's parole officer has an artificial right arm with a prosthetic hook. Early calls him "a peg arm piece of shit."
First Love 2019
One-armed Wang is a Chinese gangster in Tokyo who uses a shotgun that he can pump to re-load with one arm. During a gang war he meets the Yakuza who cut off his arm with a sword and they fight with swords.
Sympathy for the Underdog 1971
Okinawan Yakuza boss Mr. Yonabal is a large man missing his right arm who is called "the one-armed giant."
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 2021
Razor Fist is "a giant Romanian with a razor for an arm." His right arm is missing just below the elbow, but he can extend a long sword from the remaining arm when he needs it.
Cutter's Way 1981
Alex Cutter lost most of his left arm in the Vietnam war.
The Amazing Spider-Man 2012
Dr. Connors is missing most of his right arm. He works on a formula to re-generate limbs using lizard DNA, and when he injects it into the remainder of his arm, he grows a new one, but he also mutates into a giant lizard.
One-Armed Boxer 1972
A martial artist loses his arm and has to learn the art of one-armed boxing.
Murder Mystery 2 2023
Bodyguard Colonel Ulenga lost his left arm after he took a bullet aimed at his client. He lost his left hand previously in a similar incident.
Live and Let Die 1973
A gangster named Tee Hee lost his entire right arm when a crocodile named Albert bit it off. He replaced it with a steel arm with a a metal contraption with a scissor-like attachment at the end that is powerful enough to crush a gun barrel.
The Machine Girl 2008
Bad Guys cut off Ami's left arm when she seeks retribution for her brother's death. Two mechanics take pity on her and give her a new machine gun arm. When it is destroyed, she puts a chainsaw on it.
BJ has no left leg or left arm, but that doesn't stop him from working as a car stunt man, from female mud wrestling, or from killing more than a dozen women. He's played by actor James Stacy who lost his limbs in a motorcycle accident.
Joshua, the main protagonist of the movie, has no right leg or right arm. Both are fitted with robotic prosthetics and the arm is covered with realistic skin and a working hand.