*Bruce Willis is taking a break from acting as he battles aphasia, a neurological condition that affects the ability to communicate. 3/30/2022
Want to know the best Bruce Willis movies? How about the worst Bruce Willis movies? Curious about Bruce Willis’s box office grosses or which Bruce Willis movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Bruce Willis movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences? Well you have come to the right place.
I have followed Bruce Willis’ career since he hit the big time with his star making role as David Addison on Moonlighting. I still think the Moonlighting 3 episode story arc with Mark Harmon,was some the best television I have ever seen and the pinnacle of that series. Since Moonlighting, Bruce Willis has had a very busy career, making over 60 movies over the last 27 years. It has been a roller coaster ride…the highs….. movies like Pulp Fiction, most of the Die Hards, and The Sixth Sense…..the lows….movies like The Whole Ten Yards, Hudson Hawk, Bonfire of the Vanities and North. His IMDb page shows 145 acting credits since 1980. In the table below, Ultimate Movie Rankings ranks movies in 6 different sortable columns.
Bruce Willis Movies Ranked In Chronological Order With Ultimate Movie Rankings Score (1 to 5 UMR Tickets) *Best combo of box office, reviews, and awards.
Bruce Willis Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort Bruce Willis movies by movie title and movie trailers.
- Sort Bruce Willis movies by co-stars of his movies.
- Sort Bruce Willis movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
- Sort Bruce Willis movies by adjusted worldwide box office grosses using current movie ticket cost
- Sort Bruce Willis movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Bruce Willis movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Bruce Willis movie won.
- Sort Bruce Willis movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Possibly Interesting Facts About Bruce Willis
1. Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in the town of Idar-Oberstein, West Germany. His dad was an American while his mother was a German.
2. Bruce Willis worked as a bartender when he was a struggling actor in New York City.
3. In 1984, Bruce Willis left New York City to audition for roles in Los Angeles.
4. Bruce Willis’ big break was getting the role in the television series Moonlighting (1985-1989). Glenn Gordon Caron had to fight with ABC to put Willis in the lead role having already signed Shepherd for both the pilot and series. Caron claims he tested Willis about a third of the way through testing over 2,000 actors, knew “this was the guy” immediately, and had to fight through twice as many more acting tests and readings while arguing with ABC executives before receiving (initial) conditional authorization to cast Willis in the pilot. ABC, according to Caron, did not feel that anyone viewing would think there could possibly be any “believable” sexual tension between Shepherd and Willis.
5. Although Bruce Willis was the 115th choice to play John McClane in 1988’s Die Hard….he was given an unheard, at the time, salary of $5 million dollars.
6. Bruce Willis was the only celebrity that attended Julia Roberts’ wedding to Daniel Moder. Their friendship is referred to in Ocean’s Twelve (2004), when he mistakes Tess Ocean for Julia Roberts, and asks her about ‘Danny’.
7. Bruce Willis was the first actor to ever “act” in a video game (Apocalypse (1998)). No one before had ever done voice work along with having their likeness and movements digitally added to the game, as well as receiving prominent billing on the game’s cover.
8. Bruce Willis was considered for the role of Kyle Reese in The Terminator (1984), which went to Michael Biehn.
9. Bruce Willis has been married two times. He has 5 daughters. His first marriage was to Demi Moore. His current marriage is to Emma Heming.
10. Check out Bruce Willis’ career compared to current and classic actors. Most 100 Million Dollar Movies of All-Time.
Personal Top Ten Bruce Willis Movies
- Die Hard
- The Fifth Element
- Looper
- Lucky Number Slevin
- Nobody’s Fool
- Pulp Fiction
- Sin City
- The Sixth Sense
- Twelve Monkeys
- Unbreakable
Our You Tube Video that goes through the Rankings all of Bruce Willis’ movies.
My Letterboxd.com Bruce Willis Movie Reviews.
Steve Lensman’s Bruce Willis Top 50 Movies You Tube Video
If you do a comment….please ignore the email address and website section.
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Sad news about Bruce Willis’s aphasia condition. I was really hoping he’d make a comeback, maybe with another Die Hard movie, a good Die Hard movie, maybe another Christmas Die Hard? [Bob growls]
Razzie Awards organizers canceled the ‘special honor’ of Bruce having his own category for eight films he appeared in last year. I’ve seen a couple of them and Bruce was barely seen. Sad.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60952358
The link includes a nice message from his friend John Travolta.
Hey Steve. I am right there with you on all of your thoughts. I was hoping a 6th Die Hard movie would repair the damage part 5 did. Apparently the latest movie he made with Travolta was the last time the Bruce of old was around…at least according to his longtime stunt double. Thanks for the link. Good stuff from Mr. Travolta. Hope all is going well.
Still digesting the news of Bruce Willis and his battle with aphasia. Been thinking about his movies a lot since the news broke. I went to the theater 41 times to see a Bruce Willis movie. That has to be the most times that an actress or actor got me to a movie theater to see a movie. Tom Hanks might be in second place as I have seen 23 of his movies in theaters.
It is not clear from The Work Horse’s 3 April post at 7:45pm whether:
(a) the figure of 41 represents the numer of times that he has seen one particular Willis movie [if so which one?] OR
(b) he has seen 41 times each MANY Willis movies OR
(c) 41 times is the total visits that he has made to Bruce Willis movies collectively – eg is he saying that in effect that he has seen 41 different Brucie movies and then maybe the most appealing of them a number of times in multiples of for example 3 or 4 visits each?
I have binge-watched several individual movies myself but have never kept count of the totals. For example Jimmy Stewart’s Bend of the River and The Far Country; Rock Hudson’s All that Heaven Allows and Magnificent obsession; Gene Hackman’s Best Shot aka Hoosiers; and Patrick Swayze’s Road House.
However whichever of the alternatives that I have set out above is the one The Work Horse meant; and whatever any total figures my own binge-watching would reveal if known, I would supect from any information I have ever seen on the subject the three CHAMPS of binge-watching would probably be-
HOWARD HUGHES: He is reputed to have been so fascinated by The Duke’s performance as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror that he watched it hundreds of times; and it is said that at one stage he even withdrew – or attempted to withdraw – it from general circulation so that he could have it “all to himself”. It is also general knowledge that he was obsessed too with Rock Hudson’s 1968 Ice Station Zebra and so gave that countless viewings as well.
SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL: Deanna Durbin was reportedly Winston Churchill‘s favorite movie star and the British Prime Minister was granted the opportunity to see her films before they were released to the general public in Great Britain. Following crucial military victories, Churchill would celebrate by screening her 1937 film One Hundred Men and a Girl, accompanied by brandy and a cigar and clearly watched it countless times.
ELVIS: Apparently every time the King of Rock n Roll became depressed [which allegedly was frequently in later life] he would lock himself away in solitude and watch 1953’s The Wild One. There are in fact in the public domain photos of Elvis on a motor cycle and wearing a leather jacket so that on those occasions he clearly saw himself as cutting the figure “Johnny” whom Brando played in that movie. [Revenues from the patent for the Wild One jacket reportedly still brings-in revenues to the estate of the late Marlon even today]
When I have reservations about any ranking list of movie stars, out of courtesy to the author (s) I always sit back and attempt to weight up alternatives.When doing so I like to be sure my surroundings and clothing are familiarly comfortable.
Accordingly sitting here typing this under a portrait of Joel Hirschhorn grinning down at me; wearing one of my most-brightly-coloured Joel T shirts; and with an autographed photo of Myrna Loy at one hand and an unsigned one of Asta at my other it occurs to me that there is maybe always a case for the publication of ALTERNATIVE ranking lists at the same time.
For although today only AFI’s famous LEGENDS lists ever get mentioned, at the time of their release AFI also published a ranked list based on the narrower criteria of their perception of the greatest ACTORS as such of all-time.
[I have mentioned it to you before and you said that if you had the time you might try to tract it down just as you were to make an effort to seek out for Flora details of that Cowboy of the Century award that Robert Taylor coveted but griped about never getting. It was given to Jimmy Stewart in fact.]
I think that Brando was actually No 1 on the AFI “Actor” list; so that if my memory is correct Marlon topped that list but was of course ‘just’ No 4 on the AFI male Legends list behind Bogie, Al Leach and my Jimmy.
Good company indeed; and in a joint television interview after the release of The Godfather Mrs Gloria Stewart told the interviewer that she thought her husband sitting beside her was every bit as good an ACTOR as Brando [then attracting all the superlatives] to which Jimmy murmured “Thank you dear!”
My own verdict for what it’s worth: Marlon the more versatile actor [“He performed roles that the traditional Hollywood megastar would not even have attempted” -Davis Shipman] but Jimmy ‘s material was overall the more entertaining for me especially in all those westerns.
Give W o C my regards. Those additions to her memorabilia are certainly very valuable – though I bet you 10 to 1 that she has none of Hirsch’s T shirts in her collection: those are made available to only the greatest of his fans!
to The Bob, great fun. i too consider acting ability as a part of stardom and both as part of being a legend. The legend Brando over Bogart. The star Wayne over harrison ford. The actor stewart over tracy over grant over hanks. i am happy to hear of the mildness of your covid and full recovery.
HI BOB
Thanks for your wellwishing. I enjoyed your comments about Bogie, Brando etc.
Hey Bob Roy……hope your CoVid recovery is going well. Stay healthy.
Hey Bob…. I went and saw 41 different Bruce Willis movies (including Split after Steve told me in was in it) in theaters. If I were to add in the ones, I saw more than once in theaters that total would reach 50….as I saw Armageddon twice in theaters, Pulp Fiction twice in theaters, 12 Monkeys twice in theaters, the Sixth Sense 5 or 6 times in theaters. Why The Sixth Sense so much? The reaction of the theater when they finally figured out Bruce was dead the whole time was one of my all-time favorite movie watching experiences. You could hear when people finally realized the twist. Good stuff as always.
HI BRUCE:
Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate the courtesy.
41 out of the 86 movies in your own chart is by my reckoning just under 48% of Mr Gimme More’s Cogerson total.
Although I do not beat you in reaching that total I can better you % wise for a couple of my idols. For example I have seen 36 of the 38 movies listed on Brando’s Cogerson page which is almost 95% of the Great Mumbler’s Cogerson total.
So I’ll gratefully take that as I am glad that I can beat you or Flora in SOMETHING concerning “have-seen” movie stats.
I agree with your comments re 6th Sense which showed that Brucie has been more than an action star.
Thanks for your good wishes re coronovirus. Take care yourself.
HI BRUCE: Thanks for your replies. While we are on the subject of unfortunate health issues, actually I had the Coronovirus for about a week last month. Thankfully it was a light bout as I am in the officially-recognised most vulnerable age groups that attract the virus’s attention; though maybe Ladd fans of whatever age benefit from the domino effect of Alan’s own on-screen toughness!
I haven’t mentioned my contracting the disease before because I’m not one of those whining mamma’s boys that you might well get in places like say Manchester in England or Virginia in the US. By the way the young James Drury ie TV’s The Virginian turned up in a key support role in a TV rerun of an old Raymond Burr Perry Mason 1961 episode that I watched last night. Raymond whom I adore on TV was a Canuck and Drury was as said The Virginian on television: now where have I come across that combination before?
I realise that any rankings criteria has to be applied consistently or else it can become to one extent or another meaningless; and that under your own criteria the exclusions of Brucie and Cam are just “the way the cookie crumbles” as Jack Lemmon kept resigning himself to matters in 1960’s The Apartment.
Your criteria has its own merits as it is as ‘all-embracing’ as possible whereas to on the other-hand base a ranking list on the Quigley polls for example would in my opinion be too arbitrary judging by what I have seen of them.
However rightly or wrongly taken at face value your own lists -eg the 1950-2010 ones – might give the impression that for example Peter O’Toole among the men and Charlize Theron on the women’s list have been greater STARS than Willis.
Whatever you might think of Cam Diaz I am sure that in the case of Brucie at least you would agree that O’Toole and Theron have not been greater stars – especially under the Bette Davis dictum about box office clout determining stardom.
However it does credit to your own respect for impartiality that you haven’t attempted to ‘weasel’ Mister Gimme More onto your ranking lists in defiance of your chosen criteria – though I still haven’t completely forgiven you over the outrage of “Split” nor for excluding The Great Mumbler from the men’s 1950-2010 list!
Hi, Bob. I read that you had Covid last month. Glad to hear it was mild and that you are recovered. I too had a mild case of covid last month after the mask mandate was lifted. Thankfully Mom never got it.
HI FLORA: Thanks for your good wishes for my health. Many in my wider family got the Coronovirus but thankfully all have recovered.
Indeed my wife and I had overlapping bouts of it and we are both in one of the age groups that is most vulnerable to attack by the virus but all is well that ends well as the saying goes.
I am delighted that you too have recovered and that your mom has so far escaped it. Please tell her that I hope that she continues to stay free of it.
Best wished BOB
The following should have replaced the paragraph in part 2 of my previous posts that said that Humphrey Bogart didn’t live beyond his 50th birthday. I apologise for the original error.
“A 44-year career is in fact highly impressive when one considers that Ty Power, Flynn, Monty Clift, Dean, John Garfield and Ladd were all actually sadly deceased by the time they had reached the anniversary of their 50th birthday; with the likes of Bogie, Gable and Cooper unfortunately following them from this world at the ages of 57, 59 and 60 respectively. Therefore whilst one feels very sorry for Brucie in terms of his health affliction he IS thankfully still with us!”