In 2022, movie fans were heartbroken to hear that the legendary action star Bruce Willis retired from acting due to his diagnosis of aphasia. Willis' friends and associates within the industry were quick to express their support, with writer/director M. Night Shyamalan recently stating that he is "forever grateful" for their collaborative experiences. It's hard for movie fans to reconcile the fact that Willis isn't working on new projects since his last movie Assassincomes out early this year. Willis is certainly one of the most beloved action movie stars of all time; That hard was a film that defined the genre, and since then many action heroes have taken inspiration from Willis' performance as John McClane. However, Willis was also a much more versatile performer than he was credited with, showing his range in films like The Sixth Sense And Pulp Fiction.
Unfortunately, the quality of Willis' work has steadily declined over the past two decades. While his performances were rarely the problem, the projects he was involved in just weren't as strong as those early in his career. Many of Willis's recent films were distributed directly to video-on-demand services and barely received a theatrical release; some of his fans may not have even realized that new movies of his come out every year. However, there are still many gems from his recent filmography that show why Willis is still a legend. Here are the 10 best Bruce Willis movies of the 21st century, ranked.
10 Ocean's Twelve
One of the reasons Willis has remained so popular among movie fans for so many different generations is his sense of humor. Besides appearing in multiple hilarious comedy parts throughout his career, Willis has never been shy about making a fool of himself. In Steven Soderberghs Ocean's TwelveWillis appears as an augmented version of herself who acts alongside Julia Roberts in the meta-universe of the Ocean movies; Roberts plays a version of her Ocean character, Tess, who funnily pretends to be the real Julia Roberts.
9 Glass
although unbreakable seemingly left the door open for another installment, fans of the movie who wanted to see the story of Willis' character David Dunn continue didn't get the chance until his surprise cameo appearance at the end of M. Night Shyamalan's 2017 film Divide. Glassunites the two films into a complex story about the role of superheroes in modern society. In one of his more mature performances, Willis shows how a lifetime of serving others in secret has taken its toll on David.
8 Live free or die hard
That hard fans had plenty of reason to be skeptical about a fourth film in the saga. Live free or die hardwas released more than a decade after the franchise closed seemingly perfectly in 1995 Die hard with vengeance, a film many have found to be a satisfying conclusion to John McClane's character arc; it was also the first That hard film rated PG-13. However, Live free or die hard managed to revive the series for the digital age by pitting McClane against a ruthless group of cyber-terrorists. It's also one of the funnier episodes in the series thanks to the comedic banter between Willis and Justin Long, who co-stars as the hacker Matt Farrell.
7 Lucky number Slevin
Lucky number Slevinis a film that simply needs to be viewed several times to fully appreciate, as the constant plot twists and shocking revelations force the viewer to remember previous scenes in a different light. There are many all-time great actors who pop up as eccentric characters in the dense crime story, including Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley, but Willis' performance as the elusive criminal known as "Mr. Goodkat” is one of the most intriguing.
6 Motherless Brooklyn
While Willis' role in the Edward Norton-directed crime saga Motherless Brooklynis a relatively small one, it proves how emotional he can be in a limited amount of time. Willis stars as Frank, a kind-hearted detective whose death inspires Norton's character Lionel to delve deeper into a corruption scandal at the center of New York's infrastructure development. Unfortunately, the movie underperformed at the box office, and not many fans of Willis got to watch one of his most emotional performances.
5 Red
Willis had a small part in it The expendables franchise, a series of movies that tried to bring back an older generation of action stars for a new adventure, but just didn't work as a brutal sendoff. However, he also appeared in the multiple Redmovies; based on the comic book series of the same name from Wildstorm Productions, Red follows retired CIA assassins Frank Moses (Willis), Joe Matheson (Morgan Freeman), Marvin Boggs (John Malkocich) and Victoria Winslow (Helen Mirren) as they realize they have all been betrayed. Despite initial rumors of a third film in the series, plans are underway Red 3 were effectively dropped in favor of progressing with a television adaptation.
4 sin city
Even within the dense crime story of Robert Rodriguez's hyper-stylized noir thriller sin city, Willis' performance as the ruthless detective John Hartigan stands out as one of the best characters in the story. Despite his brooding demeanor, Willis shows the empathy Hartigan has when he rescues young Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba) and returns years later to protect her.
3 Moonrise Kingdom
Willis stepped outside his comfort zone to work in Wes Anderson's quirky comic world Moonrise Kingdom. Surprisingly, Willis fit right in with the quirky ensemble and delivered one of his most emotionally serious performances in years. He stars as police captain Sharp, who after discovering the quest of adolescent lovers Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Lucy Hayward), decides to adopt the young orphaned boy as his own.
2 Looper
Although Willis is primarily seen as an action star, he has an equally significant history within the science fiction genre thanks to his roles in films such as 12 monkeys, Armageddon, And The fifth element. Willis returned to sci-fi for one of the darkest roles of his career as hitman Joe in Rian Johnson's brilliant time travel thriller Looper. As Joe travels through the past to track down the man who killed his wife, he is hunted by a younger version of himself, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a remarkable performance.
1 Unbreakable
Although Willis and Shyamalan first worked together on 1999's The Sixth Sensetheir next collaboration created an interesting franchise that would not come to fruition until almost two decades later. unbreakable was a film ahead of its time; Shyamalan deconstructed what the life of a super-powered individual would actually look like, and how their abilities would become a desperately sought-after commodity. Willis has a quiet strength in his emotional performance as David Dunn.
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