Bullet Train has had a successful run at the box office, making more than $120 million (via Box Office Mojo), despite not having the best reception from critics. The film is an entertaining, over-the-top action movie about a group of assassins out to get each other, but they all somehow have the best luck possible.
It’s hard for a movie where all the characters have great luck to actually be engaging and feel like it has stakes, but Bullet Train impressively pulls it off. However, the 2022 movie isn’t the first film where the characters are unbelievably lucky. Between a death-defying archeologist, a lost-in-space astronaut, and a bunch of Johns, these characters totally have Lady Luck on their side.
Indiana Jones (Indiana Jones Franchise)
For as great as the franchise is, the Indiana Jones movies are full of plot holes, but the biggest one of all is how he can be so consistently lucky. All four movies see the character avoiding some kind of life-threatening event several times over, whether it’s surviving a plane crash or narrowly escaping being crushed by a giant boulder, and at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, he simply needs to stand still and close his eyes in order to survive.
And in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, he survives being thrown hundreds of feet inside a fridge. It was so ridiculous that the term “jump the shark” was temporarily replaced by “nuke the fridge.” But above all else, he is knocking on death’s door in The Last Crusade until he drinks from the Holy Grail, which miraculously cures him.
Ryan Stone (Gravity)
While most movies’ luckiest characters have showcased how lucky they are over the course of several movies, Ryan Stone only needed a single film to prove how ridiculously lucky she was, and Gravity is a lean 90-minute film at that. Ryan has more luck per minute than any other movie character ever.
The astronaut is lost in space, literally aimlessly floating through it, but within an hour and a half, she is safely back on Earth without any help from NASA or any other space research agency. Ryan is fairly competent at being an astronaut, but a lot of luck was required to naturally fall into place for her plan to work. And that’s why some think it’s rated too high on IMDb.
Scrat (Ice Age Franchise)
Ice Age is the best Blue Sky Studios movie by a country mile, and that’s partly thanks to Scrat, a saber-toothed squirrel who continuously tries and fails to retrieve an acorn. Scrat’s sequences serve as vignettes throughout the franchise in between the main story of each movie. Some might argue that he is completely unlucky, given that he never does reach the acorn. However, his goal has caused so many catastrophes, and he has survived every single one of them.
And, as if he wasn’t lucky enough, Blue Sky Studios created one last animation, which sees the saber-toothed squirrel final catch the acorn. After all the trials and tribulations and near-death experiences Scrat has gone through, he finally achieved his goal after 20 years. It just goes to show that hard work and determination do pay off, either that or that Scrat is the luckiest animated movie character ever.
John McClane (Die Hard Franchise)
John McClane is nothing more than a New York City cop, but he has single-handedly taken down several groups of terrorists at this point in the Die Hard franchise. Almost everything McClane does is a complete stroke of luck. In the first movie, the NY cop blindly throws C4 down an elevator shaft and ends up blowing up a couple of villains. And when he’s in the air vent directly above a couple of Hans’ henchmen, not one bullet hits him when they’re shooting at him with a machine gun. His luck continued with each sequel, and he got even luckier with each consecutive release.
However, almost like Scrat, McClane has only proved how lucky he is because he so often finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. He’s just as unlucky as he is lucky. Literally a couple of years after the Nakatomi Plaza incident, he found himself in the exact same situation, again during Christmas, only this time in an airport.
Domino (Deadpool 2)
Superhero characters might be off limits when it comes to luck, as they have so many superpowers and most of them have so much plot armor and are completely invincible. However, in Deadpool 2, Domino’s superpower is literally luck, and Wade doesn’t believe it until he sees it.
Domino literally survives so many explosions and crashes, and every one of them should have resulted in a fatality. While every cameo, including Brad Pitt’s The Vanisher, died in the skydive, Domino was the sole survivor. She then fell into a truck that she and Deadpool needed to steal where the guard’s gun malfunctioned, and when she’s then shot into the sky, she comfortably lands on an inflatable panda.
Cole Young (Mortal Kombat)
Mortal Kombat was a huge success and fans of the video games loved that it was faithful to the source material. However, the one exception to that is Cole Young, a character created for the movie who is dumb and naive about what’s going on, but he survives every attack and enemy that the Netherrealm sends to kill him. The biggest stroke of luck Cole had was when his literal gold plot armor miraculously covered him when he was fighting Goro.
Goro is the Mortal Kombat champion in the game, and he isn’t easily defeated, but Cole achieves it almost with his eyes closed. It isn’t the last fans have seen of Cole, as he’ll undoubtedly have a major role in the upcoming sequel, even though that’s not what fans want for Mortal Kombat 2. Fans want to see a rematch between Cole and Goro, where Goro is depicted as the Thanos-level threat that he is in the video games.
Roman Pearce (Fast & Furious Franchise)
Roman Pearce raised the issue about how lucky he was in F9 before critics got the chance. In the 2021 movie, he didn’t have so much as a flesh wound when he was literally in the middle of a gunfight. And he and Tej survived going into space in a rocket-powered Pontiac without any explanation.
But even way before F9 when Rome was introduced in 2 Fast 2 Furious, he was already super lucky. He was winning Demolition Derbys, squaring up to police officers without any repercussions, and flying into the sky in a muscle car and comfortably landing on a yacht. Whether it’s being stuck under ice or parachuting out of a plane in a car, Pearce should have died 10 times over by now.
John Connor (Terminator Franchise)
John Connor is actually incredibly weak, and most of the Terminator movies depict him as never being able to lead an army in an apocalypse. And the only reason he survived for so long was that he had a guardian angel in the form of a massive robot from the future, who turned up at the most convenient times. Whenever he’s in danger, the T-800 shows up to save him. That was the case in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and the exact same thing happened over a decade later in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
If it wasn’t for the T-800, John could never have led humans against the machines, he wouldn’t have survived Judgment Day in his 20s, and he certainly wouldn’t have survived in his teens either. The T-800 is the ultimate example of deus ex machina in movies, but it’s hard to criticize it when the character is so bad-ass.
John Wick (John Wick Franchise)
Granted, John Wick is extremely skillful, and getting out of fights with 30 other henchmen involved unscathed isn’t completely down to luck, but Lady Luck is certainly on the character’s side. Wick doesn’t dodge bullets like Neo does, but somehow, he rarely ever gets shot. But he isn’t just lucky when it comes to surviving.
At the beginning of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, the character runs through a random chandelier store and upstairs into some kind of knife museum. The character couldn’t have possibly known this place was in that location, but he seemingly had a sixth sense and knew exactly where to run. And, at the end of the 2019 movie, when he does get shot, he falls dozens of stories into an alleyway, hitting every possible thing on the way down, and he still lives to fight another day.
Ladybug (Bullet Train)
Bullet Train is the newest blockbuster action movie, and it follows Ladybug, who must retrieve a mystery briefcase. It’s a simple snatch and grab job, but Ladybug is under the impression that he has the worst luck. However, while the simple job does unfold into an all-out war between Russian gangs, British guns-for-hire, and several other mercenaries, Ladybug’s luck is absolutely incredible.
The character somehow survives a boomslang poisoning, getting shot, and several attempts on his life. And in the final act of the movie, he casually glides through the titular train as it’s speeding off the rails at 200 mph into a small village. Once all the action is over and everything has calmed down, Ladybug simply walks it off.
