No. 2: Bruce Willis — Top Action Movie Stars

My sense is that we won’t need to argue too hard to convince anybody of Bruce Willis’ legendary action hero status. John McClane from the ‘Die Hard’ series is one of this generation’s most well-loved action heroes and Willis is still riding high on that franchise (although many fans would love to see the McClane adventures die more easily.)

Willis has perhaps weathered the downswing of action film popularity the best out of all the major action headliners of the 1980s. Whereas Arnold’s films took such a dive that he headed to politics, and Stallone virtually disappeared (and then mounted the aforementioned glorious comeback), Bruce Willis found his place in the new generation of action films quite comfortably (with films such as ‘Pulp Fiction,' ‘The Fifth Element,' and ‘Armageddon.') And not only that, but Willis found great success in collaborating with talented directors and has made a major name for himself outside of the action genre with his work in M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘Unbreakable,' as well as ‘Twelve Monkeys,' ‘The Last Boy Scout,' and even this year’s ‘Moonrise Kingdom.’

2012 sees Willis returning to his action roots with a sequel to ‘Red’, a sequel to ‘G.I. Joe’, a promising sci-fi actioner ‘Looper,' and the obvious ‘Expendables’ sequel. The man has had some small dry stretches, but we’ll keep watching Willis waste the bad guys until he’s doing it with an oxygen tank (and even then I’ll still watch.)