The 6 Best And 6 Worst Bruce Willis Movies

Bruce Willis has spent more than three decades shooting bad guys, quipping sarcastically, blowing up asteroids, and launching cars into helicopters. He's the quintessential grizzled cop, the guy who's sick of all this mayhem despite being the cause of most of it, the man who comes out of retirement one last time. He's been in some of the best action movies ever made — but he's also been in some of the worst.

For every Sixth Sense, there's a Reprisal. For every Fifth Element, there's an Air Strike. For every Die Hard, there's an A Good Day to Die Hard. It seems that just when you think he can't possibly reload for another movie, he comes back, just as ready to put the hurt on whoever needs it as he's ever been. Whether the film in question will become a timeless classic or a direct-to-streaming embarrassment is a coin toss — but hey, we love him anyway. Here are the six best and six worst Bruce Willis movies ... so far.

It seems crazy now, but twenty years ago, Sixth Sense writer-director M. Night Shyamalan was the man to watch in Hollywood. His 2000 follow up to that film, Unbreakable, was another hit. Willis stars as David Dunn, a security guard who's alerted to his own superhuman invulnerability after he survives a train crash that kills everyone else on board. Samuel L. Jackson plays Elijah Price, an art dealer with brittle bone disease, who guides Dunn with his knowledge of comic book lore.

Critics and audiences alike praised the movie as an emotional, thought-provoking subversion of comic book flicks. But it wasn't until it gained cult status in the years following its release that it became one of Shyamalan's most enduringly popular films. In 2016, M. Night released Split, in which James McAvoy plays a man suffering from severe dissociative identity disorder. The film, hailed as a return to form for Shyamalan, was later revealed to be a sequel to Unbreakable. 2019's Glass failed to satisfactorily conclude the trilogy, much to fans' disappointment. Yet Unbreakable remains a classic that features Shyamalan and Willis at their best.

Bruce Willis is best known for playing seasoned action heroes who live on the edge of law and order. But every once in a while, he'll take on a role in a completely different type of film ... and absolutely shine in it. Such is the case with Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. Willis joins an ensemble cast (featuring Tilda Swinton, Ed Norton, and Bill Murray) as a police captain who organizes a search party for the movie's child leads, who've run off in search of love and adventure.

Critics loved this film and audiences did too, quickly making Moonrise Kingdom a modern classic. In typical Anderson fashion, it's a movie bursting with color and detail that nabbed Anderson and co-writer Roman Coppola an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. This might not be one of Willis' most prominent roles, but it's a true delight to see the actor take on such heartfelt material, and absolutely worth a watch for any serious Willis fan.

Looper puts Willis entirely in his element, minus the paint-by-numbers laziness that characterizes so many of his later direct-to-streaming efforts. This gem, featuring Willis as the future version of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's time-traveling assassin, boasts one of the most inventive action scripts of the 2010s. We won't spoil anything for those of you who have yet to see the film, but rest assured that like all good time travel flicks, Looper features mind-bending twists and turns, locked down by sharp direction and a satisfying conclusion. Within Rian Johnson's confident vision, Willis absolutely shines.

Critics loved the movie, hailing it as a truly thought-provoking action thriller. Numerous top ten lists celebrated the film as one of 2012's high points, and its twisty screenplay garnered more than a few awards and award nominations. Looper remains as fresh and entertaining as the day it was released — a reputation that stands to only shine brighter with time.

If you could go back in time to 1999 and tell people who'd just seen The Sixth Sense that M. Night Shyamalan would one day be an industry joke, you'd likely be laughed at. The film is, of course, known best for its iconic twist ending, in which Bruce Willis, a child psychologist working with a kid (Haley Joel Osment) who claims he can see and communicate with the dead, discovers that he's been dead the whole time. It is indeed a killer movie moment, but it's easy to forget that the story leading up to that revelation is fantastic in its own right, and worth watching even if you know the twist is coming.

Critics were impressed by the film's expert blend of horror and action. It was also a commercial smash, raking in a then-monster haul of $672.8 million, making it the second-most successful film of 1999 after Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. Willis himself received widespread acclaim for his performance, though it was Osment and Toni Collette who nabbed Oscar nominations.

The Die Hard debate orbits around a single question: Is it just one of the greatest action films of all time (indisputable) or one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time as well? There's no easy answer. Willis himself has weighed in on the question: "Die Hard is not a Christmas movie! ... It's a g*****n Bruce Willis movie!" Hard to argue with the man himself. This film, about a cop who's forced to rescue occupants of his estranged wife's Los Angeles skyscraper on Christmas, is arguably the g*****n Bruce Willis movie.

It is also the one of the most insane, unapologetic, straight-up action thrillers ever made. It puts hair on your chest. It makes you want to punch terrorists in the teeth, even if they're played by beloved thespian Alan Rickman. It makes you want to leap away from an explosion using a fire hose to keep yourself tethered to the building. But of course, you can't do these things. Only John McClane can. Yippee-ki-yay indeed.

If you were wondering how Die Hard could possibly be outdone on a list of best Bruce Willis movies, look no further than Pulp Fiction, in which Willis plays a past-his-prime boxer on the run from a kingpin he's double crossed. The film is often cited as what revitalized John Travolta's sagging career, but it provided a significant boost to Willis as well, whose filmography immediately preceding it featured far more bombs than blockbusters.

The movie also launched director Quentin Tarantino's career — and a horde of imitators. Roger Ebert summed up the film's influence on screenwriting perfectly: It is "so well-written in a scruffy, fanzine way that you want to rub noses in it — the noses of those zombie writers who take 'screenwriting' classes that teach them the formulas for 'hit films'".

As for Willis himself, he had to take a pay cut and risk his superstardom to act in the moderately-budgeted film. But the gamble paid off. He received more recognition for pure acting than he ever had previously, and made millions in the long run. And of course, there are plenty of aspiring actors who would gladly take part in a North or a Vice if it meant getting to include something like Pulp Fiction in their filmography forever.