Bruce Willis' best movies

[Tamas]

I despise 5th element.

Why do you hate fun?

I used to really like it, but the last time I caught it on TV, it tired me. If going with first impressions then yeah I loved it.

[Syt]

That's fair, tastes change.

[Berkut]

No love for Looper????

[mongers]

Moonlighting of course.

[Habbaku]

No love for Looper????

It says "favorite" movies and you can only pick two. If you can pick Looper over all but one of the others listed, then something may be wrong with you.

[celedhring]

Yeah, Looper would've been my third choice.

[Habbaku]

Unbreakable and Fifth Element for me. As others have said, I don't consider Pulp Fiction to be a "Bruce Willis" movie. I had a hard time not picking Die Hard.

[Tamas]

The thing with Pulp Fiction, while it is not a "Bruce Willis" movie, it is hard to imagine a better casting for his role than him.

[viper37]

A celebration of Bruce Willis' career, the common-man action star, who also managed to make many interesting films on the side of his well-known actioners. What's your favorite film of his? Looking back at the body of his career, he had a hell of a run.

Since nearly everybody is going to vote Die Hard, I allowed 2 votes per user, to get some diversity.

For me it's Die Hard + Pulp Fiction. I also love Looper, one of the few last films that felt like blew up my brain. I used to be a huge fan of both Sixth Sense/Unbreakable, but I sort of feel they haven't aged that well (they're still outstanding films).

Die Hard and Fifth Element.

Pulp Fiction is excellent, but I would not rate Willis as the lead, more like a lead, among others.

[crazy canuck]

Die Hard and 5th Element, yup.  Those movies wouldn't have been as good as they were without him.

[Berkut]

OK, so using the metric of a movie that would have simply been a different movie without him, I would have to go with Die Hard.

My problem is that I just don't think Die Hard is nearly as great a movie as everyone else does. Probably because I just don't love that genre all that much as most people do....

[Barrister]

I don't get the love for Die Hard.

I mean - it's a fine movie.  I'll certainly watch it if it's on.  But I don't get how it's any better than any of a bunch of 80s action movies.

I agree with the sentiment that Pulp Fiction is a great movie, but not really a Bruce Willis movie.

I apparently need to see Looper.  Actually given how I man-crush on Rian Johnson I really do need to see it.  But I haven't so I can't rank it.

I think that leaves me with Sixth Sense and 5th Element.  Which are both great movies.

[Jacob]

I think it's that Die Hard is seen as the exemplar of the whole genre.

[Sheilbh]

I think it's that Die Hard is seen as the exemplar of the whole genre.

Yeah I think it's kind of an epochal film. Maybe there were bigger trends in place and there were other productions doing this, but I think it pivots the entire genre.

But to me it marks the shift from the 80s action (with a literal killing machine, Rambo, special forces guys etc) into 90s which is either those guys but retired or more normal people like cops or normal, non-special soldiers - plus a different style of wise-cracking (less Roger Moore with an Austrian accent, more Will Smith in Bad Boys). And I think a lot of that rests on Willis' performance.

[celedhring]

Yeah, Die Hard is comfortably a top 5 Hollywood action film of all time (imho) and it set the framework of the genre for the 1990s and 2000s. It was incredibly influential, there was a time when people would pitch action films to studios as "Die Hard, but in [insert location]". And a lot of that rests on Willis' portrayal as McLane.