Best Bruce Willis movies

- Director: Michael Bay
- IMDb user rating: 6.7
- Metascore: 42
- Runtime: 151 minutes

When a "global killer" asteroid is hurtling toward Earth and there's no plan to avoid catastrophe, what do you do? Obviously, you hire Bruce Willis to blow it up. Willis' oil rig operator is the "best deep-core driller in the world." The U.S. government hires him and his team of roughnecks to fly into space, land on the hurtling rock, and nuke it. Ben Affleck co-stars, along with Luke WIlson and Willis' "Whole Nine Yards" co-star Michael Clarke Duncan. Not only was this film a box office hit, it was added to the venerable Criterion Collection of world cinema.

- Directors: Mike Judge, Mike de Seve, Brian Mulroney, Yvette Kaplan
- IMDb user rating: 6.8
- Metascore: 64
- Runtime: 81 minutes

In this animated comedy, the hapless titular duo get embroiled with a couple who, mistaking the notorious idiots for hitmen, hire them to kill the other, in a bit where "do" gets misinterpreted as "have sex with." Willis and Demi Moore (his wife at the time) give voice to the seedy couple.

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- Director: Edward Norton
- IMDb user rating: 6.8
- Metascore: 60
- Runtime: 144 minutes

"Motherless Brooklyn" is actor Edward Norton's directorial debut. He also wrote, produced, and stars in this adaptation of the Jonathan Lethem novel. The film is known for its stylish redux of noir style in its studied period details, stunning cinematography, and riveting performances. Bruce Willis plays hardboiled detective Frank Minna, whose murder provides the jumping off point for the film's central mystery. Alec Baldwin, Willem Defoe, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and the late Michael Kenneth Williams also star in this stylish, sensitive thriller.

- Director: Nick Cassavetes
- IMDb user rating: 6.9
- Metascore: 53
- Runtime: 122 minutes

Justin Timberlake gives a hammy performance as a degenerate bad boy in this film about wild, drug-swilling California youths that is based on a true story. Willis plays the father and drug supplier of the young dealer who masterminds a kidnapping that turns tragic.

- Director: Tony Scott
- IMDb user rating: 7.0
- Metascore: 52
- Runtime: 105 minutes

Set amid the world of professional football, Willis plays a disgraced former Secret Service agent turned private eye who takes a job protecting a stripper played by Halle Berry. When she is murdered, he pairs up with her quarterback boyfriend and fellow public disgrace (Damon Wayans) to get to bottom of whodunit and what it was meant to cover up. Critics didn't love it, but audiences did, though the scuttlebutt is that the making of this movie was an exercise in misery.

- Director: Robert Schwentke
- IMDb user rating: 7.0
- Metascore: 60
- Runtime: 111 minutes

"Red" starts with Frank (Willis), a retiree having a sweet phone flirtation with the customer-service clerk (Mary-Louise Parker) who manages his pension checks. Soon his humble life gets rocked when his house is invaded and he slays a passel of mercenaries in his bathrobe. Frank is actually a former CIA operative, and he gets the band back together (Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren) to uncover a conspiracy that is targeting former Black Ops agents. The film made over $90 million and spawned a sequel in 2013.

- Director: Renny Harlin
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Metascore: 67
- Runtime: 124 minutes

Willis returns as John McClane in this hit sequel that out-earned the first "Die Hard." The setting moved from an office tower to Dulles International Airport—again at Christmas. The same formula applies, with McClane quipping his way through gunfight after gunfight while taking on mercenaries hellbent on freeing a captured drug lord (Franco Nero). The film's plot is based on the novel "58 Minutes" by Walter Wager, where a cop has, you guessed it, 58 minutes to foil a highjacking scheme before planes start tumbling out of the sky.

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- Director: Len Wiseman
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Metascore: 69
- Runtime: 128 minutes

The fourth entry in the "Die Hard" franchise brings McClane into the digital age as he battles hackers who have decided to hold a "fire sale" (a targeted crash of all utilities and public service systems across the U.S.) in order to cover up a massive heist. The film was both a critical and commercial success showing the ongoing cultural allure of the McClane figure, now middle-aged, but still a force of unparalleled heroism, especially when compared to the tech-savvy millennial played by Justin Long.

- Director: Robert Benton
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: 86
- Runtime: 110 minutes

In this acclaimed drama, Paul Newman (who earned a Best Actor Oscar nod) plays Sully, a 60-year-old drinker and occasional handyman who's simply no good at adulting. In a supporting role, Willis plays a rakish contractor in a rivalry with Newman over a snowblower, and whose wife (played by Melanie Griffith) has a secret affection for the older man. The film was lauded by critics and showcases some of Willis' best character work.

- Director: M. Night Shyamalan
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: 62
- Runtime: 106 minutes

M. Night Shyamalan's follow-up to "The Sixth Sense" again stars Willis, this time as a haunted superhero in a role conceived expressly for him. Willis' persona as a working-class everyman who's also invincible fits well within this moody, atmospheric origin story of a reluctant hero with special powers. Samuel L. Jackson plays Elijah or Mr. Glass, a sage nemesis with the opposite attributes, his body is particularly vulnerable to breaking.

- Director: Rian Johnson
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: 84
- Runtime: 119 minutes

This time-travel thriller from the writer-director of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" has Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing the younger version of Willis' hitman character, a "looper" who does the mob's dirty work in the past (where it's easier to hide the bodies), knowing that one day he'll be sent back to "close the loop" on himself. When that day arrives, the older Willis is ready and a game of cat and mouse ensues. The looping narrative offers a meditation on time and trauma, but much of the film's charm comes observing Gordon-Levitt's facial alteration, created so the actor could resemble a young Willis.

- Director: John McTiernan
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 58
- Runtime: 128 minutes

In the third "Die Hard" installment, the action moves to New York City, where John McClane (Willis) is back to being a divorced, slightly alcoholic cop. When a criminal known only as Simon (Jeremy Irons) begins bombing public places, McClane is called into action to stop him—at Simon's request. Samuel L. Jackson shares the bill as an average shopkeeper caught up in the action. Jackson's character openly quips about racism, as their scenes bristle with wry comic chemistry. The two had just shared the screen in 1994's "Pulp Fiction," only that time they never shared any scenes.

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- Director: Luc Besson
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 52
- Runtime: 126 minutes

This stylish and bizarre sci-fi caper sets Willis as a down-on-his-luck cabbie for whom fate literally drops out of the sky and enters his life—in the form of Milla Jovovich, the titular Fifth Element, a being created from the DNA of a perfect being meant to save the world from evil. Together they have to escape mercenaries and other unsavory space folk in search of the other four elements of existence (as represented within a series of sacred stones), with which Jovovich can fulfill her destiny. A bonafide hit with critics and audiences alike, director Luc Besson has publicly pondered a potential sequel, though given Willis' recent announcement such plans are quashed.

- Director: Paul McGuigan
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 53
- Runtime: 110 minutes

This hyper-violent neo-noir gangster film involves a flashback plot about mistaken identity and features hard boiled dialogue with a visual style that glamorizes brutality. A case of mistaken identity puts Slevin (Josh Hartnett) in the crosshairs of two rival gangs. Willis plays a hitman named Goodkat who is tasked with making sure Slevin does what his boss tells him to.

- Director: Wes Anderson
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 84
- Runtime: 94 minutes

When a pair of young adults take off together on a remote island, the town's folk, played by many of Anderson's usual cadre of stars, including Bill Murray, Edward Norton, and Jason Schwartzman, take pains to find them. Willis gives an understated performance as a police captain having an affair with a local (Frances McDormand) whose young daughter is one of the runaways. His performance fits well with Anderson's slanted approach to drama, and is another example of his excellent character work.

- Director: Terry Gilliam
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 74
- Runtime: 129 minutes

"Twelve Monkeys" is a remake of the 1962 French film "La Jetee," a short composed of still photographs about a time-traveling man who witnesses his own future death as a child. In director Terry Gilliam's expanded redux, Willis is the time traveler, a prisoner sent from the future to thwart a plague outbreak in the past. His child self also witnesses his own future death in an elaborate finale shoot-out. Willis reportedly did not receive a salary for this low-budget film, in order to be able to work with Gillam.

- Directors: Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 74
- Runtime: 124 minutes

"Sin City," adapted from Frank Miller's graphic novel, features an arresting visual style—stark black-and-white compositions appear with sharp stabs of occasional color that resemble comic illustrations. Willis plays police detective Hartigan, who is obsessed with helping the now-grown woman (Jessica Alba) whom he also saved when she was a little girl. Willis plays Hartigan as a man driven by a doomed love that inevitably merges with vengeance.

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- Director: John McTiernan
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 72
- Runtime: 132 minutes

Considered his quintessential role, Willis' portrayal of John McClane launched the actor to superstardom. When a band of terrorists take over an office tower during a Christmas party where McClane is a guest, this ordinary cop is forced into extraordinary circumstances in order to rescue his wife (Bonnie Bedelia), who is being held hostage. The character still inspires sequels and imitations over 30 years later. Rolling Stone voted it the second best action film of all time, just behind "Mad Max: Fury Road."

- Director: M. Night Shyamalan
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 64
- Runtime: 107 minutes

"The Sixth Sense" was a runaway hit propelled by a twist ending that struck audiences as alternately obvious and surprising, depending on who you talk to. Willis plays a melancholic child psychologist who works with a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) who claims, in the film's timeless piece of dialogue, "I see dead people." The film also dramatizes a tragic love story—one made more crushing when the final twist comes to light. It remains the biggest hit of Willis's career, grossing more than $670,000,000 worldwide.

- Director: Quentin Tarantino
- IMDb user rating: 8.9
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 154 minutes

In Quentin Tarantino's ode to pulp fiction storytelling tropes, Willis plays a prizefighter who skips out on a promise he made to gangster Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) by not throwing a fight. In his attempt to collect on bets he himself made and skip town, Willis' Butch finds himself in one of the most notorious sequences in the film—the one involving "the Gimp" and threats of a "pair of pliers and a blowtorch." Willis almost didn't appear in the film at all; his part was originally intended for Matt Dillon, but when Dillon refused to give Tarantino a straight answer about whether he wanted the role, the role went to Willis.