Bruce Willis (born March 19, 1955, Idar-Oberstein, West Germany) is an American actor best known

for his performances in blockbuster action films, particularly the Die Hard series.

Willis was born in West Germany, where his father was stationed at an American military base, and
the family moved to New Jersey in 1957. After high-school graduation he took a series of odd jobs
before studying theatre at Montclair State College (later Montclair State University). He dropped out
of college and moved to New York City, where he began his acting career with Off-Broadway roles
and appearances in television commercials.

Moonlighting

1 of 2

MoonlightingBruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd in the television series Moonlighting (1985–89).

Bruce Willis

2 of 2

Bruce WillisBruce Willis in Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), directed by John McTiernan.

Willis had a number of small film roles in the early 1980s before he was hired as a wisecracking
detective opposite Cybill Shepherd in the television sitcom Moonlighting (1985–89). The show made
Willis a household name and helped to launch his film career. In the action thriller Die Hard (1988),
Willis portrayed the cynical but good-natured New York City police detective John McClane, who
finds himself embroiled in a terrorist attack on a Los Angeles office building. The film was a major
box-office success and helped establish Willis as a leading action hero. It also spawned the sequels
Die Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), and A Good Day
to Die Hard (2013).

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Theatre in Los Angeles, California. Hompepage blog 2009, arts and entertainment, film movie
hollywood

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Willis took roles in a number of violent and darkly comedic films, including Pulp Fiction (1994), in
which he played a professional boxer who double-crosses a mobster after agreeing to throw a fight;
12 Monkeys (1995), about a convict sent back in time to investigate a virus that devastated
humankind; and The Fifth Element (1997), a visually impressive science-fiction action film. While he
continued to act in large-budget action films—including Armageddon (1998) and Tears of the Sun
(2003)—Willis also appeared in comedies, including The Whole Nine Yards (2000). In 1999 he starred
in The Sixth Sense as a psychologist who counsels a child who claims to see dead people. The drama,
which was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, was a critical and commercial success. Willis
reteamed with Shyamalan on the supernatural thriller Unbreakable (2000).

Willis’s subsequent films included the stylized Sin City (2005), which was adapted from Frank Miller’s
graphic novel series; the thriller 16 Blocks (2006); and the buddy comedy Cop Out (2010). He also
appeared in the action franchises Red (2010, 2013), as a retired CIA agent, and The Expendables
(2010, 2012), as an active one. The latter series brought together several aging stars of the genre.
Among Willis’s other roles in 2012 were a lonely cop in the whimsical Moonrise Kingdom, a time-
traveling hit man in the sci-fi thriller Looper, and a professional gambler in the comedy-drama Lay the
Favorite. G.I. Joe: Retaliation, released the following year, provided another rugged action role for
the prolific actor. In 2014 Willis reprised his Sin City role in the sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. He
played a mercenary in Barry Levinson’s musical comedy Rock the Kasbah (2015) and a kidnapped
former spy in the action flick Extraction (2015).

Willis later starred in the 2018 remake of Death Wish, a 1974 action film about a father who
becomes a vigilante after his family is attacked. In Glass (2019) he reprised his role as a security
guard/superhero from Unbreakable. His other films from 2019 included the comedy Between Two
Ferns and Motherless Brooklyn, a crime drama set in the 1950s. Over the next several years he
starred in a string of action movies that included Breach (2020), Out of Death (2021), and A Day to
Die (2022).

Willis made his Broadway debut in 2015, appearing in an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel Misery;
he portrayed a writer held captive by an obsessed fan.

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In 2022 it was announced that Willis was “stepping away from his career” after he was diagnosed
with aphasia, a disorder that impairs the expression and comprehension of language. The following
year his family announced that the actor’s “condition has progressed” and that he was suffering from
frontotemporal dementia.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Pulp Fiction

Table of Contents

Introduction

Plot and themes

Reception and awards

Influence and legacy

References & Edit History

Related Topics

Images

Pulp FictionMrs. Mia WallacePulp Fiction

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Entertainment & Pop Culture

Movies

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction John Travolta (left) and Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction (1994), directed by Quentin
Tarantino.

Pulp Fiction

film by Tarantino [1994]

Written by
Fact-checked by

Article History

News • Ronnie Yeskel, ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Casting Director, Dies at 76 • Jan.
16, 2025, 7:05 AM ET (The Hollywood Reporter)

Pulp Fiction, American crime-comedy film, released in 1994, that was written by Quentin Tarantino
and Roger Avary and directed by Tarantino. Pulp Fiction, the second full-length film directed by
Tarantino—after Reservoir Dogs (1992)—secured his reputation as a bold, new voice in filmmaking.
The film is influential for its nonlinear plot structure, vibrant dialogue bursting with pop-culture
references, and comical take on violence and the criminal underworld.

Plot and themes

Mrs. Mia Wallace

Mrs. Mia WallaceUma Thurman in Pulp Fiction (1994).

Pulp Fiction begins with displays of two dictionary definitions of the word pulp that foretell the film’s
nonchronological narrative (pulp as a soft, shapeless mass) and its subject matter taken straight from
the lurid, hard-boiled, cheaply produced crime stories of the early 20th century (popularly called
“pulp novels” or “pulp fiction”). The film is set in modern Los Angeles and follows a series of
characters who seem unrelated to each other but whose storylines are revealed to be
interconnected. Two lovers, Pumpkin (played by Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer)
decide to rob a diner they are sitting in. Two hitmen, Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega
(John Travolta), retrieve a stolen briefcase belonging to mob boss Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames).
Vincent also takes Marcellus’s trophy wife, Mia (Uma Thurman), out for dinner on Marcellus’s orders.
A boxer named Butch (Bruce Willis) accepts a payoff from Marcellus to throw his next fight but then
double-deals Marcellus by winning the fight, collecting money on a side bet, and going on the run
with his girlfriend, Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros).

Cast

John Travolta (Vincent Vega)

Uma Thurman (Mia Wallace)

Samuel L. Jackson (Jules Winnfield)

Bruce Willis (Butch Coolidge)

Ving Rhames (Marsellus Wallace)

Tim Roth (Pumpkin)

Amanda Plummer (Honey Bunny)

Harvey Keitel (The Wolf)

Maria de Medeiros (Fabienne)

Eric Stoltz (Lance)

Rosanna Arquette (Jody)

Phil LaMarr (Marvin)

Important subplots include the capture and torture of two characters in a pawnshop run by
sadomasochistic neo-Nazis, an accidental killing that requires the services of a crime-scene “cleaner”
(Harvey Keitel), and Jules’s sudden decision to quit crime and lead a spiritual life (which he describes
as a decision “to walk the earth”). Most scenes are punctuated by violence that has a comical rather
than fearsome or menacing tone, with the exception of the pawnshop’s torture scene.

The dialogue is also more humorous than serious, with interchanges taking place that initially seem
irrelevant to the plot. One of the film’s most famous exchanges involves Jules and Vincent as they
make their way toward retrieving the stolen briefcase. Their conversation focuses on arcane topics
such as what the French call a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder and Big Mac (“Royale with Cheese” and
“Le Big Mac,” respectively) and how a pilot television program is chosen to become a series.
However, both topics reappear later in the film. Another scene featuring a bizarre monologue by an
U.S. Air Force captain (Christopher Walken) about a gold watch passed down through generations
reveals itself to be important to the plot, complicating Butch’s escape after he throws his fight.

Despite the film’s veneer of irreverence, themes that emerge in the story include vengeance and
redemption. Several characters are shown engaging in inner moral battles, negotiating the terms of a
relationship—whether between lovers, enemies, or crime partners—and dealing with the
consequences of their choices in ways that either save or cost them their lives by the film’s end.

Reception and awards

Production credits and notes

Studios: Miramax, A Band Apart, and Jersey Films

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Writers: Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary

Cinematography: Andrzej Sekula

Editing: Sally Menke

Running time: 154 minutes

Pulp Fiction received overwhelmingly enthusiastic reviews from critics after its release and was a box
office success. A few months ahead of its wide release, it premiered at the Cannes film festival,
where it won the top prize, the Palme d’Or. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including
for best picture, directing, and film editing. Jackson, Thurman, and Travolta all received acting award
nominations, and Tarantino and Avary won the Oscar for best original screenplay. The film’s
soundtrack, featuring an eclectic mix of classic soul hits, surf music, and a cover of a Neil Diamond
tune, became a best-selling album.

Influence and legacy

Many other filmmakers subsequently attempted to duplicate Pulp Fiction’s elements of fractured
narrative, stylized violence, and a script loaded with pop-culture riffs—some more successfully than
others. Films that owe their structure or style to Pulp Fiction include Things to Do in Denver When
You’re Dead (1995), 2 Days in the Valley (1996), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Lock, Stock, and Two
Smoking Barrels (1998), and Go (1999). Film buffs also indulged in imaginative speculation about
certain elements in the film, such as what appear to be plot threads connecting its characters with
those in Reservoir Dogs and theories about the contents of the stolen briefcase, which are not
revealed but give off a mysterious glow whenever the case is opened. (The glowing briefcase was, in
fact, an homage to Robert Aldrich’s 1955 film noir drama Kiss Me Deadly, and many other scenes in
Pulp Fiction similarly evoke other classics of that genre.)