Bruce Willis Takes Center Stage: The 10 Movies That Define His Career

Bruce Willis is an American actor best known for playing an action star. However, he's delivered other performances. So what movies did Bruce Willis give his best performance in? Here are ten top-voted recommendations from film fanatics in no particular order.

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Pulp Fiction 1
Image Credit: Miramax.

Pulp Fiction is a Quentin Tarantino crime film that tells multiple stories while interweaving them. Bruce Willis stars as Butch Coolidge, an aging boxer who double-crosses a crime boss who bet money on him losing his fight.

So he goes on the run but ultimately ends up in a messed up situation, leaving him facing a do-or-die choice that changes everything.

2. The Fifth Element (1997)

The Fifth Element 1 1
Image Credit: Buena Vista International.

The Fifth Element is one of the most underrated 90s movies. It's an English-language French science fiction action film set in the 23rd century. Bruce Willis plays Korben Dallas, a former Special Forces Major and current cab driver.

After a young woman named Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) falls into his taxi, they work together to gather four mystical stones crucial for defending the Earth from an impending attack from an evil cosmic entity. 

3. Die Hard (1988)

die hard 1988
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Die Hard is an 80s classic action-packed thrill ride and the first in the five-film franchise. It stars Bruce Willis as John McClane, a New York City police detective attending his estranged wife's Christmas work party in Los Angelos at the Nakatomi Plaza.

He finds himself in the middle of a terrorist takeover when Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) holds his wife and coworkers hostage to steal the $640 million in untraceable bearer bonds in the skyscraper's vault. 

4. Unbreakable (2000)

Unbreakable
Image Credit: Walt Disney Pictures.

Unbreakable is M. Night Shyamalan's superhero thriller starring Bruce Willis as David Dunn, a former star quarterback and security guard at a college football stadium. After surviving a train crash without injuries, he realizes he suddenly harbors superhuman abilities.

While wrestling with understanding his newfound skills, Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), a disabled comic book store owner with brittle bone disease, manipulates David to understand him. 

5. The Whole Nine Yards (2000)

the whole nine yards
Image Credit: Warner Bros.

The Whole Nine Yards is a hilarious crime comedy starring Bruce Willis as Jimmy “the Tulip” Tudeski, an infamous Chicago contract killer in the witness protection program due to a bounty on his head. He moves next door to Dr. Nicholas “Oz” Oseransky (Matthew Perry), a down-and-out dentist, and his wife, Sophie (Rosanna Arquette), a sponge who puts a contract on Oz.

After discovering who her new neighbor is, Sophie arranges for Oz to go to Chicago and rat out Jimmy for a finder's fee. However, things go differently than planned. 

6. 12 Monkeys (1995)

12-monkeys
Image Credit: Universal Pictures.

12 Monkeys is a science fiction classic starring Bruce Willis as James Cole, a prisoner living underground in 2035 after a virus released in 1996 has wiped out most of humanity.

To reduce his sentence, Cole is chosen to go back in time to help scientists develop a cure. However, Cole ends up in 1990 Baltimore and find's himself haunted by dreams of an airport shooting and foot chase. 

7. The Sixth Sense (1999)

the-sixth-sense
Image Credit: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution.

M. Night Shyamalan‘s The Sixth Sense is a supernatural psychological thriller starring Bruce Willis as Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist.

Malcolm is treating a patient, Cole (Haley Joel Osment), a nine-year-old boy who sees dead people. Meanwhile, his wife, Anna (Olivia Williams), distances herself, and he doesn't understand how to fix things. 

8. Armageddon (1998)

armageddon
Image Credit: Buena Vista Pictures.

Armageddon is a science fiction disaster film starring Bruce Willis as Harry Stamper, a third-generation oil driller who NASA approaches to save the world. An asteroid the size of Texas is on a collision course with Earth, and setting a Nuke off won't destroy it.

NASA needs Harry and his team to drill a hole deep enough into the asteroid. So that when they set it off, it explodes into millions of tiny pieces that won't destroy humanity. 

9. Tears of the Sun (2003)

Tears ot Sun
Image Credit: Columbia Pictures.

Tears of the Sun is an action thriller starring Bruce Willis as Lieutenant A.K. Waters, U.S. Navy – Team Commander. After turmoil erupts in Nigeria, Waters leads a U.S. Navy SEAL team on a rescue mission to extract Dr. Lena Fiore Kendricks (Monica Bellucci) after the rebels murder her and head toward her jungle hospital.

However, Kendricks refuses to leave without her patients. So Waters agree to help evacuate those able to walk. After forcing her into a helicopter against her will, he leads the refugees through the jungle. 

10. Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995)

Die Hard WaV
Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Die Hard With a Vengeance is an action thriller starring Bruce Willis, reprising his role as NYPD Lieutenant John McClane. However, a terrorist who set a bomb off downtown is calling the shots this time. Simon (Jeremy Irons) demands that McClane jumps through a series of hoops, or he will detonate another bomb in a more public place.

After being sent to Harlem wearing a sign with the nastiest racial slur painted across it, Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson) gets pulled into the terrorist situation. If the two don't comply with his game of “Simon Says,” he will detonate a bomb in one of the elementary schools in New York City. 

Honorable Mentions: Death Becomes Her (1992), The Last Boyscout (1991), and The Jackal (1997).

We hope you enjoyed the list of Bruce Willis movies with his best performances.

This thread inspired this article.

This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks