2:40 Peter’s mom dies in the hospital
9:13 Quill vaporizes 2 guards
14:16 Ronan hammers a guy
29:17 Gamora kills? 2 prisoners
32:53 Ronan kills Thanos’ lackey
39:00 Groot tosses a guy who falls a couple of stories (none of the other action in the prison to this point did not seem to cause enough damage for a kill)
41:54 They run over a couple of guards in their ‘ship’
46:54 Guard stabbed by Ronan Lackey and then Ronan orders the prison cleansed which happens off screen. Considering that the capacity of the prison is never stated or its level of occupancy given, I went frame by frame to count the bodies present. Through the prison sequences I counted 23 distinct guards. At any given time there are less than 80 prisoners in any shot sequence, though it is harder to confirm distinctness here. In the first three sequences including the 360 spin sequence I counted 76, 47 and 76 again. We can assume there is overlap between them so a round 100 seems fair. I think both of these numbers are greatly underestimated, but better under than over in this. Subtotal: 123
59:06 Mariana explodes
1:02:22 Ship chasing Gamora explodes (1)
1:02:57 Two more ships go down
1:03:11 Rocket rams through a ship
1:03:39 Quill throws a pilot out of his ship
1:03:57 Quill shoots 3 ships
1:04:41 Gamora hits a ship
In the following firefight we will assume that each ship destroyed has a single occupant unless otherwise noted
1:24:25 Four ships destroyed
1:24:52 Three ships destroyed
1:24:59 Two ships
1:25:05 Two ships
1:25:18 Three ships
1:25:28 Four ships
1:25:33 One ship behind Quill 10 more destroyed through :37 as the nova corps arrives
1:25:41 Four more ships in this sequence until :47
1:25:48 Eleven more destroyed as the Novas give Quill cover into the ship
1:26:11 Quill banks the ship to shoot approximately 30 guards in the ship (due to the erratic nature of the cuts, it was difficult to get a precise count)
1:26:51 Five more ships
1:29:53 Yondu kills 15 soldiers with his arrow
1:31:11 Multiple ships dive bomb city (13 through :20)
1:31:20 The Xandar map shows a group of dive bombing ships (52 through :24)
1:31:27 Another crashes
1:31:30 One gets shot before it hits
1:31:51 Drax slices a guy
1:31:58 Drax gets 2 more as Groot gets one
1:32:03 Drax throws a knife into a guard and then another
1:32:28 Three ships shot down in this sequence
1:32:35 Five more ships shot down
1:32:40 Two more ships shot down
1:32:42 Six more ships shot down
1:32:54 Groot gets a guy then throws him into another (don’t think it was a kill though)
1:32:59 Quill shoots a guy the thrusters 2 others and shoots 4 more
1:33:08 Quill with gun fu on a guy and shoots another
1:33:22 Drax gets the head guard
1:33:37 Groot stabs 6 guys simultaneously and uses them to beat the other 9 in the hallway to death
1:33:56 Ronan starts a chain reaction that destroys all of the Nova ships trying to keep his ship from moving except for a few. They link in what appears to be a semi concave half cylinder approximately 220 ships long by 30 ships across from the center at it’s smallest or 60 around. This means 13,200 pilots. It looks like about 85% of them are destroyed in explosion, so 11,220 are killed in the resulting explosions that last until 1:34:59 (it is interesting to note that the graphics in the battle do not match the approximation that is shown in the Xandar war room which has significantly less ships shown)
1:33:56 Also during this time there are other ships destroyed totaling 14 plus 2 ravagers in a ship
1:35:09 Quill shoots 3 guards
1:35:56 Nebula throws a guy out of his ship
1:36:08 Nebula shoots a guard and Drax stabs one
1:37:16 Rocket rams the ship into Ronan’s ship killing 2 pilots
1:39:39 Groot dies
1:44:43 Ronan dies
Total: 11,597
There is a Collider article in 2016 that says this is the movie with the highest kill count ever citing the number of nova ships destroyed and then pulling 80,000 kills from what looks like nowhere. They do reference another web page: Gocompare, but many of their totals are also inaccurate (though I do admire the sheer number of movies on their list). I watched the movie on slow motion and freeze frame and can guarantee that there were not that many ships destroyed. Just look at 1:33:56 for reference. Each link between ships created a point of light. Just count the points.
Body Count also has a kill count using this same thought process and thus comes up with a similar total. However if you want to have fun you can pause their video at 4:26 to get a really good shot of how big the nova ships are in comparison to the Dark Aster. In the top right of the screen look for the cross hatch pattern. A single ship is in the center of the four lines. There is no way 80,000 ships are there if the visual is accurate. You can make out 6 from the bottom of the ship to the top of the screen and 6 from the edge of the main structure to the right edge.
This count is a little more conservative, but does a pretty good job and doesn’t take too many chances with estimates.