Bruce Willis' 16 Favorite Movies Of All Time

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From 2020 to 2022, Bruce Willis cranked out a huge number of movies, most of them low-budget sci-fi/action films that all went straight-to-video, and usually playing brief, supporting roles. The many films were, by and large, panned by critics and mocked by baffled fans, all of whom wondered by Willis didn't appear to have much on-camera dialogue, or why he wasn't the lead character. In three years, he appeared in 22 movies. 

In March of 2022, it was announced that Willis had been diagnosed with aphasia, a brain condition that affected his ability to speak and comprehend language. Many of the above fans expressed their deepest apologies, and even the Razzies, in a rare show of good taste, retraced Willis' Worst Actor nominations. Willis retired from acting because of his condition. In February 2023, Willis, now 69, was also diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, and he remains in the care of his family. 

Willis, of course, left behind a massive legacy in Hollywood, from his early days on "Moonlighting," through his stint as an action hero in the "Die Hard" movies, and into the hands of Quentin Tarantino, for whom he acted in "Pulp Fiction" and "Four Rooms." He was a comedy star, too, playing the voice of an infant in the "Look Who's Talking" movies, and staring in the wholly underrated slapstick heist movie "Hudson Hawk." "The Sixth Sense" was a massive, massive hit, and he remained prolific for decades. He was in eight movies in 2006 alone. His whole filmography is too impressive to list here.

Back in 2007, Willis was interviewed (via text message) by Ain't It Cool News about his favorite movies of all time. Willis, typing extemporaneously, rattled off 16 titles, all of them stone-cold classics, that he would happily call his favorites. Scroll down to read his full list of favorites.

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Here are the 16 films Willis said were his favorites in a text to Ain't It Cool News. Willis didn't rank the films in any order, so we at /Film present them chronologically: 

• "On the Waterfront" (1954)
• "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957)
• "Spartacus" (1960)
• "The Great Escape" (1963)
• "Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964)
• "Bullitt" (1968)
• "Patton" (1970)
• "The Last Picture Show" (1971)
• "The Godfather" (1972)
• "The Godfather Part II" (1974)
• "Taxi Driver" (1976)
• "Alien" (1979)
• "Raging Bull" (1980)
• "GoodFellas" (1990)
• "Reservoir Dogs" (1992)
• "300" (2006)

Willis noted that he watched all of the above films three to five times a year. 

The above films are all widely praised by critics and cineastes, and several of them often top lists of the greatest films of all time. There is nothing scandalous or unexpected about Willis' taste; he simply has a weakness for the classics. He's clearly very fond of Stanley Kubrick's earlier works, as he selected two of the director's films ("Dr. Strangelove" and "Spartacus"), and he leaned hard into the works of Martin Scorsese ("Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull," "GoodFellas"). There is only one sci-fi film on the list ("Alien"), but he listed six war movies ("River Kwai," "Spartacus," "Escape," "Strangelove," "Patton," and "300"). Five of his faves are about organized crime ("Waterfront," the "Godfathers," "GoodFellas," "Reservoir"). One might say that Willis has very aggressive, manly taste. 

The outlier seems to be Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show," a soulful, nostalgia-flavored character drama about teenagers having sex and surviving their relationships in 1951 Texas. Their local movie theater is about to close, and it feels like the end of an era. The emotions run high, and the drama is intense. It's the only film on Willis' list that doesn't center on fistfights, weapons, or guns.