The Bucket List

Two elderly men, blue-collar automotive mechanic Carter Chambers and billionaire Edward Cole meet for the first time after both men are diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Given that he owns the hospital, Cole demands a private room but his no exceptions policy regarding double occupancy prevents this.

Carter is a gifted amateur historian and family man who wanted to become a history professor in his youth but he chose to start a family instead. Cole is a four-time divorced healthcare tycoon and cultured loner who enjoys tormenting his personal valet Thomas — who later reveals his name is actually Matthew. Cole enjoys drinking kopi luwak, one of the most expensive coffees in the world.

During their time in the hospital, Carter and Cole manage to find common ground. For fun, Carter started writing a list of activities to do before he "kicks the bucket." After hearing he has less than a year to live, Carter dejectedly discards his list. Cole finds it the next morning and urges Carter to do everything on the list, adds his own items to it, and offers to finance all expenses. Carter agrees and, despite the protests of his wife, Virginia, the two patients begin their globetrotting last vacation. They go skydiving, drive a vintage Shelby Mustang and Dodge Challenger around California Speedway, fly over the North Pole, eat dinner at Chevre d'or, visit the Taj Mahal, ride motorcycles on the Great Wall of China, attend a lion safari in Tanzania, and visit Mount Everest.

Atop the Great Pyramid of Giza, they confide mutually about faith and family. Carter reveals that he has long been feeling less in love with his wife and feels some regret for the life he chose. Cole discloses that he is deeply hurt by his estrangement from his only daughter, who disowned him after he drove away her abusive husband. Later, while in Hong Kong, Cole hires a prostitute to approach Carter, who has never been with any woman but his wife. Carter declines and realizes Cole was behind the woman's attention, whereupon he insists they stop the bucket list and go home.

During the return journey, Carter tries to reunite Cole with his estranged daughter. Considering this a breach of trust, Cole angrily storms off. Carter returns home to his family while Cole, feeling alone though amid the company of escorts, breaks down weeping in his luxury high-rise suite. Carter's family reunion turns out to be short-lived as while readying for marital romance, he collapses and is rushed to the hospital. The cancer has spread to his brain.

Cole, who is now in a remarkable remission, visits him and they share a few moments. Carter, always a Jeopardy! fan knowledgeable about trivia, reveals how Cole's kopi luwak coffee is fed to and defecated by a jungle cat before being harvested. Cole was unaware of this and he and Carter share a hysteric laugh. Carter implores Cole to finish the list without him. Carter undergoes surgery but dies on the operating table.

As news of Carter's death is given to his wife and family, Cole attempts to reconcile with his own daughter. She accepts him back into her life and introduces him to the granddaughter he never knew he had. After greeting the little girl with a kiss on the cheek, Edward thoughtfully crosses "kiss the most beautiful girl in the world" off the bucket list. Soon after, Cole delivers a eulogy at Carter's funeral, during which he explains that the last three months of Carter's life were, thanks to Carter, the best three months of his own life.

An epilogue reveals that Cole lived to age 81, and his ashes were then taken to a peak in the Himalayas by Matthew. As Matthew places a Chock full o'Nuts coffee can alongside another can, he crosses off the last item on the bucket list, "witness something truly majestic", and tucks the completed list between the cans.

The Bucket List received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 41%, based on 174 reviews, with an average rating of 5.15/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Not even the earnest performances of the two leads can rescue The Bucket List from its schmaltzy script".[3] Metacritic gave the film a score of 42 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[4] Snehil Sharma of Humari Baat MSME gave 4 stars for the film.[5]

Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2002 and whose lower jaw was removed in 2006, criticized the film's portrayal of cancer sufferers, writing in his one-star review that The Bucket List "...thinks dying of cancer is a laff riot followed by a dime-store epiphany."[6]

A score album from Varèse Sarabande was released on January 15, 2008, featuring composer Marc Shaiman's original score for the film as well as a selection of newly recorded themes from Shaiman's previous scoring projects, including City Slickers, Simon Birch, The Addams Family, Mother, North, Sleepless in Seattle, South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, Mr. Saturday Night, and Stuart Saves His Family. It also features a rearranged version of the James Bond theme "Goldfinger" (titled "Printmaster"), with Shaiman's own voice and lyrics in which he spoofs the industry's habit of tracking music in scenes where they don't belong.

The full list of 23 tracks is as follows:

1. Hospital Hallway (from the movie)
2. Like Smoke through a Keyhole (from the movie)
3. Best in L.A. (from the movie)
4. Really Bad News (from the movie)
5. Milord – Édith Piaf (from the movie)
6. Hotel Source (from the movie)
7. Did You Hear It? (from the movie)
8. Flying Home (from the movie)
9. Homecomings (from the movie)
10. Life and Death (from the movie)
11. The Mountain (from the movie)
12. End Credits (from the movie)
13. Theme from The American President ("A Seed of Grain")
14. Theme from City Slickers
15. Theme from Simon Birch
16. Theme from The Addams Family
17. Theme from Mother
18. Theme from North
19. Sleepless in Seattle / A Wink and a Smile"
20. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut/"Blame Canada"
21. Theme from Mr. Saturday Night
22. "Printmaster" (After John Barry's "Goldfinger")
23. Theme from Stuart Saves His Family ("What Makes a Family")

The theme song, John Mayer's "Say," is not included on the Bucket List soundtrack, but included on the re-release of Mayer's third album Continuum.

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray June 10, 2008.

• Hawks, a 1988 film with a similar plot
• Knockin' on Heaven's Door, a 1997 film with a similar plot
• John Goddard, early producer of a bucket list.
• Bucket List (2018 film), Indian Marathi language comedy-drama

• Official website
• The Bucket List at IMDb
• The Bucket List at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Bucket List at Metacritic
• The Bucket List at Box Office Mojo
• The Bucket List at AllMovie