Hollywood Walk of Famer, Bruce Willis, is a German-born American actor who has appeared in more than six dozen projects. Many of Bruce Willis movies are in the action genre, and following the tremendous success he has encountered in his acting career, he is ranked as the ninth-highest grossing actor in a leading role and the twelfth-highest grossing actor in a supporting role. For his performances, the actor has won several awards, including Golden Globe Award, Primetime Emmy Awards (twice), People’s Choice Awards (twice) and many others.
Below are a compilation of Bruce Willis movies and TV shows rated from best to worst based on their critical acclaim as well as their box office earnings.
Bruce Willis Movies And TV Shows Rated From Best To Worst
1. Sixth Sense (1999)
Production Budget: $40 million
Box Office: $672.8 million
This Bruce Willis movie was the highest-grossing horror film until 2017. It follows a boy named Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) who is able to see and talk to the dead and a child psychologist named Malcolm Crowne (Bruce Willis) who tries to help him.
Sixth Sense earned six nominations at the Academy Awards and gained Willis a Blockbuster Entertainment and People’s Choice Awards among several award nominations. It further had a total score of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes and 64% on Metacritic.
2. Pulp Fiction (1994)
Production Budget: $8 million
Box Office: $213.9 million
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, Bruce Willis appears alongside John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, and Tim Roth in the crime-drama film that tells the stories of two mob hitmen, a boxer, a gangster, and his wife.
Pulp Fiction scored 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and 94% on Metacritic and was nominated for seven awards at the 67th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. It further won Best Original Screenplay Award and earned Willis The Awards Circuit Community award.
3. 12 Monkeys (1995)
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Production Budget: $29 million
Box Office: $168.8 million
In this remake of the 1962 Chris Marker’s short film, La Jeteé, Bruce Willis features alongside Brad Pitt, Madeline Stowe, and Christopher Plummer. The mystery sci-fi film follows the tale of a convict who is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet.
12 Monkeys was nominated for various categories at the Saturn Awards. Its Rotten Tomatoes score is 89% while it’s Metacritic score is 74%.
4. Moonlighting (1985 – 1989)
Moonlighting is a comedy-drama TV show that stars Bruce Willis as a private detective alongside Cybill Shepherd. The multi-award-winning show was listed among Time Magazine’s 100 Best TV Shows of All-Time. It is credited with making Willis a star as a result of his performance that earned him Golden Globe Awards, People’s Choice Awards, and Primetime Emmy Awards, among numerous other nominations.
5. Red (2010)
Production Budget: $58 million
Box Office: $199 million
With Robert Schwentke overseeing this motion picture as the director, Bruce Willis plays the lead role of a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent named Francis “Frank” Moses. The action-comedy, which is loosely inspired by the limited comic book series of the same name, gained a Golden Globe nomination for Best Musical or Comedy Film. It holds a 71% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 60% Metacritic score.
6. The Expendables 2 (2012)
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Production Budget: $100 million
Box Office: $315 million
The Expendables 2 is definitely among the most popular Bruce Willis movies ever as it features a brilliant array of cast members that include Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, and Chuck Norris who are a mercenary group known as “the Expendables”. The group undertakes a seemingly simple mission which later evolves into a quest for revenge against a rival mercenary group that murdered one of their own and threatens the world with a deadly weapon. The movie has a score of 67% on Rotten Tomatoes and 51% on Metacritic.
7. Friends (2000)
Another series to make this list of Bruce Willis movies and TV shows is the Golden Globe-winning TV show Friends, which revolves around six friends in their 20s and 30s who live in Manhattan, New York City. The romantic comedy show received acclaim throughout its run as it became one of the most popular television shows of all-time. Thanks to his award-winning performance as a guest on the show, Willis went home with a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
8. G. I Joe Retaliation (2013)
Production Budget: $130 million
Box Office: $375.7 million
G. I Joe Retaliation is a military sci-fi film starring Bruce Willis, Dwayne Johnson, D. J. Cotrona, Adrianne Palicki, and Channing Tatum. The film is based on Hasbro’s G. I Joe toy, comic and media franchise. Despite being a box office success, the movie received mixed reviews as it gained a 29% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 41% rating on Metacritic.
9. The Whole Ten Yards (2004)
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Production Budget: $40 million
Box Office: $26 million
The Whole Ten Yards, which is the sequel of the 2000 film, The Whole Nine Yards, is a crime comedy film that stars Bruce Willis alongside Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, Kevin Pollack, and Natasha Henstridge. He plays the role of a retired hitman named Jimmy “The Tulip ” Tudelski in this movie that was a major critical and commercial failure. It holds a Rotten Tomatoes score of 4% and a score of 24% on Metacritic.
10. The Cold Light of Day (2012)
Production Budget: $20 million
Box Office: $16.9 million
The American/Spanish action thriller film tells the story of Will Shaw (Henry Cavill) who finds that his family has been kidnapped by foreign agents who are searching for a briefcase stolen by his father, Martin Shaw (Bruce Willis). This Bruce Willis movie was a critical failure as it has a score of 4% on Rotten Tomatoes and 22 % on Metacritic.
