From small screen to the big screen, Bruce Willis has conquered many hearts over multiple decades of being a successful actor. In that time, he's produced a number of iconic characters and starred in a wide variety of movies from various genres.
Though fans and critics can often disagree one what his best movies and performances are, there are a number of successes that garner universal praise and this list should help to highlight a number of those. Here are the 10 best movies that Bruce Willis has starred in according to review aggregate site Metacritic.
Over the Hedge (67)
This DreamWorks animated movie was a decent hit with both critics and audiences, though never produced sequels like some of the company's more successful animated titles.
Willis voices a mischievous raccoon named RJ, who cons a close-knit group of woodland critters into becoming his heist accomplices in a daring mission to steal enough food from neighboring suburbia to pay back a vengeful bear that RJ is indebted to.
Die Hard 2 (67)
The first of the trilogy of Die Hard movies that feature on this list, Renny Harlin's sequel may not have been as groundbreaking as the original but delivered on many of the hallmarks that fans were wanting to see.
A slightly more sprawling–but still interestingly self-contained–story, set primarily in Dulles airport, recreates a commendable amount of the original's magic, in no small part due to Willis' charm as embattled police officer John McClane.
Live Free or Die Hard (69)
The future of the Die Hard franchise appeared so promising even in its old age thanks to the success of this sequel released almost 20 years after the original.
A Good Day to Die Hard, would prove the least successful by far with both fans and critics.
Die Hard (72)
John McTiernan's action classic permanently changed not only the action movie genre and Willis' movie career but the public perception of movies in general.
Willis' indestructible everyman and Alan Rickman's captivating villain helped elevate Die Hard from simply being a self-contained thriller to basically being its own genre.
12 Monkeys (74)
Terry Gilliam's idiosyncratic sci-fi head-scratcher has proven to be as big a hit with audiences as it has with critics not least for combining striking and unusual visual design with cerebral storytelling and the star power of actors like Willis and Brad Pitt.
Willis plays a prisoner sent backward in time to the post-apocalyptic future to try and find the root cause of a deadly virus that ravages the world. The tragedy of the journey was perhaps the most successful attempt at selling Gilliam's nihilistic tone to general audiences.
Grindhouse (77)
Willis features only relatively briefly in one of the segments that make up the B movie double-bill extravaganza of Planet Terror (in which Willis stars).
The segment follows a particularly comedic and grotesque zombie movie plotline, which features Willis as a rogue military leader near the beginning of the movie.
Looper (84)
Rian Johnson's wildly fun sci-fi thriller revolves around time-travel and a feud between a so-called 'Looper' (a hitman who kills people sent back from the future so that the body can never be traced) and the older version of himself, played by Willis.
The movie is quite clearly influenced by movies like 12 Monkeys and the fact that critics responded so positively in the face of such high aspirations speaks to its achievements.
Moonrise Kingdom (84)
Though they feel increasingly rare, Willis still takes roles in comedies and dramas from well-accomplished filmmakers as well as the thrillers that he's typically known for nowadays.
Wes Anderson's comedy about young love showcased a much-missed softer side to Willis's star persona with his role as a quiet and somewhat forlorn cop on a secluded island in New England.
Nobody's Fool (86)
Though rarely discussed much, Robert Benton's small-town drama is an underrated gem from the mid-1990s and features Willis in a ing role to Paul Newman's central role as an aging ne'er-do-well.
Newman's and Willis' characters have a somewhat playful rivalry throughout the story and the easygoing energy of the movie is often felt most strongly through their performances.
Pulp Fiction (94)
Quentin Tarantino's overpowering tour-de-force of charismatic filmmaking outshone Nobody's Fool in 1994 and became one of Willis' most iconic movies ever, despite the fact that he's only one of many main characters in the movie's impressive ensemble.
Willis plays a boxer in the movie who's on the run after failing to throw a fixed fight as he was supposed to and accidentally killing his opponent. His bizarrely unpredictable segment of the movie producing some of the most famous plot twists in modern cinema.
