5. "Unbreakable" (2000)
Following up his sensitive turn in M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense," Willis continued his hushed tones with "Unbreakable," a movie that riffed on his action star persona with an admirable amount of seriousness along with the requisite twists and turns. As David Dunn, a depressive security guard who emerges the lone survivor of a deadly train wreck with nary a scratch on his body, Willis is terrifically afflicted -- you really feel how numbed he's become to life's various misfortunes. But he never loses that Willis twinkle, which makes one understand why his alienated son is starting to see his dad as something bigger, something more heroic. That, and the fact that he is a special person, as pointed out by art dealer and comic book aficionado Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), aka Mr. Glass. Watching Willis' resistance to playing the hero is one of the picture's most intriguing conceits, that the very idea of not only having special powers but quite possibly being indestructible is overwhelmingly scary. It's a strong yet fragile performance that's understated and powerfully mysterious.

4. "Sin City" (2005)
If George Clooney is the new Cary Grant, then Bruce Willis is the new Humphrey Bogart -- hound-dog face, sly, romantic and cynical. Nowhere does Willis show his Bogart better than in "Sin City," a picture tailor-made for his rugged charisma, sexy grittiness and essential moral decency in a world gone insane. Against the black-and-white luminosity of Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's blood-drenched comic-book noir is Willis' Hartigan, an aging police detective with a bum ticker who's undertaking the commendable job of hunting a serial killer who murders kids. Among a rogues' gallery of soulful freaks, twisted perverts and deranged priests, Willis is likely the most normal character in "Sin City," but that never makes him boring; rather, he's just part of the picture's grizzled soul, a hard-boiled gentleman offering a ray of hope among the hopeless. As he continues to protect Jessica Alba's Nancy, he's the quintessence of chivalry, even when blowing off a guy's privates -- something we never got to see Bogart attempt.

3. "12 Monkeys" (1995)
Terry Gilliam's masterpiece gave us Bruce Willis' rawest, most desperate hero. His performance is a wounded wonder. Willis plays James Cole, a prisoner who "volunteers" as a time traveler whose mission is to go back to 1996 in an attempt to figure out how a virus spread, killing five-sixths of the world's population. Since Cole and the rest of humanity now live underground, scientists need a pure sample so that humans can return to the surface of Earth. But as any Gilliam movie (or truly, any self-respecting complex film about time travel) should play, nothing goes smoothly for Cole, who, through some blundering, winds up in a 1990 county psychiatric hospital. Mingling with the loonies (including a terrific Brad Pitt), he finds it tough to judge anyone's sanity (including his own). Plus, his struggle to prove he's not nuts to a psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) he's fallen for results in extra complications both wild and tragic. It's a heroic yet stripped performance that manages to be romantic without being sentimental, action-packed without being invulnerable. Gilliam knew how to crack the mystique of Willis' Hollywood veneer, unleashing a more perplexing and difficult character from him, one who hasn't been seen since. One wishes the two would work together again.

2. "Die Hard" (1988)
Bruce Willis' John McClane is, it's not surprising, the actor's most famous, most enduring role -- he's died harder in four pictures now, and audiences are still excited. McClane (who sounds like a presidential candidate, or at least one that people would hope for) is so entrenched and beloved in our pop consciousness that even the world's biggest film scrooge is likely to love this series. Witness the first "Die Hard" (which remains the best of the franchise), in which we are introduced to harried New York policeman McClane, who has no idea what kind of Los Angeles Christmas party he'll be contending with when visiting his two daughters and estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia). As nefarious German thieves (led by Alan Rickman) place the skyscraper under siege and hold the Nakatomi Corp. employees hostage, Willis does right by his handgun, thinking of all kinds of ways to trick and trap the seemingly unstoppable men from their evil mission. What's great about this beefed-up, charmingly grimacing performance is just how human Willis is while playing an unbelievable superman. Sure, he tosses bad guys down elevator shafts with notes that say, "Now I have a machine gun, ho, ho, ho," but he also finds time to reassess his life and appreciate his family in the process. He's thoughtful and sweet and valiant and badass, without being corny.

1. "Pulp Fiction" (1994)
Really, it was tough ranking the No. 1 Bruce Willis performance. Should I base merit on the power of the role's movie star iconography (as in "Die Hard")? Or should I dig a little deeper, awarding the man for his more unexpected turns in movies such as "The Sixth Sense" and "Nobody's Fool"? Since so much of Willis' on-screen force is tweaked from his movie star image (which he gamely poked fun at in Robert Altman's "The Player"), the call became even more convoluted: Which Bruce works best? Pondering the Willis mystique probably more than anyone was Quentin Tarantino, who saw fit to place Willis in "Pulp Fiction," the movie that boasts Bruce's finest work, and, as you can see, the No. 1 performance on my list. Rolling his big-screen action-hero appeal, his sensitivity and poignancy, his romantic sexiness and his winking humor into one appealing palooka, Willis' boxer Butch Coolidge reminded us why we liked Willis in the first place. Though people frequently refer to "Pulp Fiction" as John Travolta's great comeback, it was something of a refresher for Willis as well. After duds such as "Hudson Hawk" and "Death Becomes Her," the actor was perilously perched on the downturn; he needed the right movie to get his mojo back in full working order. More than the right movie, "Pulp Fiction" gave Willis the film's most recognizable hero, the reformed boxer who loves his woman (France's Maria de Medeiros), honors his late father (via a watch -- if you've seen the movie, you know how that story goes), refuses to take a dive and, in one of the picture's most legendary scenes, saves Ving Rhames from sadistic hillbilly rapists. Yeah ... it's tough not to love this guy. It's also tough to think of anyone else who could have played this role so perfectly -- he's charming, he's real, he's extraordinary, and he double-checks to see if his girlfriend got her blueberry pancakes.

What is your favorite Bruce Willis movie? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com

In addition to her regular contributions to MSN Movies, Kim Morgan is a film writer for the LA Weekly, Fandango and Reel.com. She was a film critic for The Oregonian and has written about movies for various print and Web media. She served as DVD critic on Tech TV's "The Screen Savers" and has appeared as guest film critic on  Ebert and Roeper, AMC's "The Movie Club with John Ridley" and on E! Entertainment. She writes the MSN Movies blog.

Sound off: Comment on this story | Also: Features archive

Back