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Not even a single scratch.

"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets!"

Immune to Bullets is when a character cannot be killed with conventional ammunition, whatever "conventional" happens to mean for the show in question. Frequently, the script requires the police/army/whatever to demonstrate this with Five Rounds Rapid. This is especially bad news when it's the Monster of the Week who is immune, as opposed to our friendly protagonist.

Zombies, mummies, and various other film monsters are routinely depicted as subject to penetration by bullets, but (especially if they are undead) not having a central nervous or circulatory system that can be critically injured by them. They have what is sometimes called "suspension of disbelief" damage limits. That is, they can take bullet after bullet, usually in spectacularly gory fashion, until their body is so (visibly) damaged the audience will no longer believe it can keep functioning.

The Chest Shots Only rule usually applies in these cases, particularly in B movies. That is, even if the monster obviously cannot be stopped by bullets or bullet wounds to the torso, all characters (except possibly the male lead, and often the female lead) will continue to shoot at the creature's chest until it kills them. This occurs even when the audience, not being Genre Blind, can see the obvious need to switch to another weapon or aim for the head or the knees and feet of the creature, where the bullets might do some good. Note that this rule allows for cheap special effects, as blood squibs taped to the chest are the simplest gore effects possible.

A common variation in science fiction has a Monster of the Week which is not merely immune to energy weapons (lasers, phasers, etc.), but can actually absorb energy from those weapons, making it stronger.

Note that certain abilities can make a character effectively immune to bullets without, strictly speaking, being examples of this trope — they'd get hurt if a bullet actually hit them, but they're just too fast, agile, and/or alert to let that happen. (For instance, as noted below Wonder Woman varies between true immunity to bullets and ability to deflect them with her bracelets.)

To kill them, there are various solutions such as Attacking Its Weak Point, or using fire or Depleted Phlebotinum Shells. The creature may turn out to be Not So Invincible After All. If the monster is immune to energy blasts, heroes may try to give it more energy until it explodes. Compare Giant Equals Invincible.

This is often set up as a surprise, so SPOILERS AHEAD.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Agni's Philosophy: The acolyte's magic is able to render them thus for a short period of time, but they are eventually overwhelmed.
  • Angel in Angel Beats!, when she activates Guard Skill: Distortion. They phase through her harmlessly.
  • Assassination Classroom: Koro-sensei is completely immune to lead bullets. As Irina, one of the other teachers of Class 3-E and a trained assassin, finds out, lead bullets simply melt inside Koro-sensei's body without injuring him.
  • In Berserk since it's a medieval setting it's "Immune to Cannonballs" example with the God Hand as when Guts fires on Femto aka Griffith with his Arm Cannon, it doesn't work. Guts did same to Slan later and while it does actually "damage" her (or the physical body she possessing at the very least) Guts only manages to get her aroused. Outside the God Hand the only other Apostle shown to be immune to Gut's cannon is Grunbeld whose Greatshield can repel the cannon balls, actually subverted with the rest of the monsters who are greatly damaged or killed by gunpowder. Cannons are just as much a Story-Breaker Power as magic in Berserk.
  • The Battle Butler in Black Butler, as demonstrated when he takes several shots to the chest, plays dead for a little bit, and then spits the bullets out and throws them back with as much force as a gun. However, he still tends to dodge bullets, because they damage his impeccable suit.
  • Chiropterans in Blood+ are shown to be completely immune to bullets by virtue of a ridiculous ability to regenerate. However, large caliber rounds can stun them, so the human characters tend to use Five Rounds Rapid despite knowing that they are unable to kill them. Saya, on the other hand, uses a sword, which can kill Chiropterans if filled with blood, and dismember them without.
  • Inverted in Cannon God Exaxxion. Bullets are just about the only thing that can penetrate Deflector Shields based on Artificial Gravity tech. They have to be really high powered, though, not just some run of the mill pea-shooters, as that poor special forces team in the first volume found out the hard way...
  • In the notoriously bad series Chargeman Ken!!, The Jural, strangely enough, are not affected by bullets, but they are by Ken's laser gun.
  • City Hunter:
    • Anyone dosed with Angel Dust becomes functionally this. They will eventually die, but unless it's a headshot it will take a while, and in the meantime they'll kill you. And not even a headshot is a sure way to kill them on the spot.
    • Umibozu is partly immune: due his sheer size, he can easily shrug off being shot with .38 Special bullets.
  • In Code Geass, Jeremiah Gottwald has this after being rebuilt. (C.C. and V.V. and later Charles also have this as a result of their "code", though it's more a case of Good Thing You Can Heal)
  • The Cowboy Bebop episode "Pierrot le Fou" is perhaps the biggest deviance from the relatively hard science approach of the anime; the titular villain is a Psychopathic Manchild who has been made immune to bullets (as well as gaining the ability to levitate at will) as part of a secret program to create Super Soldiers, apparently revolving around genetic manipulation. Mad Pierrot's bullet immunity only deflects high-velocity projectiles like bullets. It lets in low-speed things like oxygen, and Pierrot has no direct control over it. Spike is able to hurt him with a knife because it's slow enough to get through — even then, Pierrot could have easily dodged if Spike didn't freak him out first, and Spike only manages to cause Minor Injury Overreaction with his knife (Pierrot dies by freaking out and getting stepped on by a giant mascot robot). As another franchise would put it, "The slow blade penetrates the shield."
  • Protagonist Hei's Badass Longcoat in Darker than Black gives him this ability. Also subverted later in the series. The one time when Hei was shot when he wasn't wearing that coat, he spent the rest of the episode limping badly. And it was plain old vanilla guns that took down November 11, while neither Hei nor Maki managed it.
  • Ryuk, Sidoh, and presumably other Shinigami in Death Note, to the horror of many characters. Bullets pass right through them like ghosts.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • It's fairly clear anyone who has Ki can use it as invisible armor against firearms that's why normal humans like Master Roshi can catch bullets but when Ki is not being used the body is vulnerable to being shot.
    • Saiyans have bullet resistant skin, even as a child Goku survived getting shot in the head by Bulma, though it did hurt a lot. Later on General Blue threatens an immobile Goku with a shotgun to his head, which causes Bulma and Krillin to panic, worrying that the gun will be big enough to kill Goku, suggesting Saiyan kids have limits to their Nigh-Invulnerability. This is certainly not the case with adult Saiyans, as seen when Raditz catches shotgun shells effortlessly and painlessly.
      • Zigzagged much later on in Dragon Ball Super when Mai snipes Goku Black with a sniper rifle (admittedly with a special bullet) that manages to knock him down. Not to mention Goku, getting taken down with a simple laser blast by Sorbet since Goku didn't have his guard up. Later Goku also gets scratched on his forearm when shot by a normal human indicating he was too relaxed and needed to train harder.
    • Namekians appear to be immune to bullets as well, as the Demon King Piccolo showcased when King Furry's men shoot at the Namekian with a barrage of machine gun fire and the bullets just bounced off like milk duds. Add regeneration to that and it's no wonder the Namkians are capable of equaling Saiyans in combat.
    • Cell is one of the most notably bullet resistant villains, given that he spent the majority of his time hunting down regular humans Horror Movie style in his Imperfect form. At one point in the anime one poor guard empties an entire machine gun on Cell to no effect and slips on his wasted shell cases before being absorbed. Not to mention the time where when the world's army attacks Perfect Cell with everything from tanks to airstrikes and Cell just stands there amused.
    • There's also Majin Buu, but it's more appropriate to say he isn't bullet resistant, more like the bullets just get stuck harmlessly in his gooey pink chewing-gum body.
    • Beerus as Physical God of Destruction is immune to firearms, seen in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods when Gohan (while drunk) deflects a bullet into Beerus's firehead unlike kid Goku he doesn't react in pain but Beerus still says it itches and becomes dangerously annoyed.
    • Early example with Bora who just mans through a hail of gunfire, worth noting Bora isn't an alien, god and nor does he have any Ki... he's just one strong Earthling. He's clearly not immune to thrown spears, however, suggesting his skin is kevlar-like and harder to penetrate with bullets than it is to cut.
  • The diclonii in Elfen Lied have the power to deflect bullets with their vectors, but their ability to deflect depends on the strength of the diclonius and the power of the bullet and gun. Lucy manages to deflect some of the force from a fatal .50 caliber anti-tank round, although she still gets shot in the head and develops a second personality.
  • The Proxies, god-like beings in Ergo Proxy, cannot be killed by conventional weaponry. Later on it is found that only UV radiating bullets can kill them.
  • Played with in Fullmetal Alchemist.
    • The homunculi have regenerative abilities, and simply reform after normally fatal gunshot wounds, explosions, etc. They have limited number of times they can regenerate, and if they reach that limit then a gunshot will kill them.
    • Lampshaded when Hawkeye complains about this.
    • Greed's shield and Sloth's skin are outright immune to bullets, Sloth is still affected by heavy artillery though.
    • Subverted in the Final Battle: God!Father can block bullets rather easily and regenerate from them quickly but he still has to make a conscious effort to block them and is momentarily incapacitated by the injury, which is enough for some soldiers to divert his attention to save several major characters by just firing artillery and bullets at him. The constant, endless fire helped distract him and contributed to making him waste the energy he needed to keep his power in check.
    • Al, by the virtue of being an Animated Armor.
    • In Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), the Homunculi actually are immune to bullets (and everything else) unless you have a piece from the bodies of the people they were meant to resurrect (i.e. to kill Sloth, they needed a piece of Ed and Al's Mom's body near her).
  • Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu. After the school janitor goes berserk with a chainsaw merely because Sagara and Tsubaki fed him his pet koi that he'd been raising for fifteen years, the next day we see the two slumped against a shot-to-pieces school wall muttering "live ammo has no effect, live ammo has no effect..."
  • In Gate, Rory's regeneration makes her pretty much invulnerable to bullets.
  • Many targets Golgo 13 faces have bulletproof glass or something similar protecting them, though he always finds another way.
  • Grave in Gungrave isn't completely immune to bullets, but can survive a barrage of gunfire because of his power of regeneration (he uses his body as a shield for Mika and the bullets simply fall out of him). Bunji finds a way around this — a gun that shoots bullets laced with pinkish goo that induces paralysis in Necro-Risers/Deadmen.
  • In Gunslinger Girl. Section II's cyborgs have carbon-fiber skeletons, allowing them to use their arms as makeshift shields when being shot at. However, with each surgery required to replace their damaged artificial muscle tissue, their lifespans shorten and they become more dependent on the medication given to them.
  • Given what they are, the Nations in Hetalia: Axis Powers seem to be this. Especially since it's shown that France could shrug off a rifle round to the head.
  • In Hunter × Hunter, any users of Nen will be able to withstand gunfire, though the ease and amount of which they can do so vary depending on their skill and type of gun. A more powerful Nen user will be easily able to shrug off sniper fire, well a weaker Nen user may last seven to eight shots from a pistol before taking damage. If another Nen user fires a gun infused with their Nen, it will do considerably more damage and usually negate the protection Nen provides.
  • Inferno Cop parodies this trope when Inferno Cop fights a giant baby-headed crab monster. Inferno Cop shoots the monster, at which it announces "I am immune to your bullets!" and deflects the bullet into Inferno Cop... only for Inferno Cop to announce "So am I!", and deflect the bullet back at the monster, causing it to explode with a Big "NO!" for some reason.
  • While they're rarely ever used, guns have a hit-or-miss relationship with the characters of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. One of its bigger bads, Dio Brando, is generally depicted as being affected by bullets (that is, if they can hit), but being a vampire he can regenerate. A more solid example would be with Kars of the Pillar Men. So fine is his control of his own body, he can harden his flesh so that bullets bounce off. And this is before he ascends to the power of a perfect organism. When it comes to most other characters, though, bullets can feasibly work; again, assuming they actually connect. Jotaro Kujo can catch bullets with his stand, and other characters have stands that can similarly block or intercept such projectiles. It's largely for this reason that guns are rarely used. That, and because it would be too easy.
    • Even if the person isn't a vampire or doesn't have a stand, Hamon energy is enough to defend against machine gunfire as Joseph Joestar gloriously displays in Part 2.
  • The second and third chapters of Kamen Rider Spirits has Rider #2 blocking automatic weapon fire with his gloved hands to save the kids and doctors standing behind him. And before that — in the best two pages devoted to Kamen Rider ever — he stops a TANK ROUND with a punch for the same reason.
  • Pycal the Magician, from the first Lupin III manga, is completely immune to any kind of projectile fired at him. This was kept in the adaptation for the Lupin III: Part 1 episode "The Man They Called A Magician". Lupin, Jigen, and Fujiko try pistols, machine guns, and even a bazooka on him, but it has no effect on his body.
  • Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Macross 7 has the Protodeviln, who are completely invulnerable to normal weapons' fire. It is shown that sufficiently powerful weapons (such as the Macross Beam and "Reaction Weapons") can do some damage, but the human/zentran forces can't fire those quickly enough to actually kill them. Then it turns out that the Protodeviln are weak against singingnote .
  • Protagonist Rin Asougi of Mnemosyne is regularly killed by gunfire. However, she just comes right back to life.
  • Phase Shift Armor in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and its sequel is designed to make any physical attack becomes useless which includes normal bullets and shells.
    • The Gundam is immune to Zaku II's machine gun attack in the series' beginning.
    • Same story with the 5 suits from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing. Part of the reason the Gundams were so fearsome was because their armor was made using a special alloy that conventional weapons couldn't even dent.
  • Zombina of Monster Musume happily abuses this to look cool.
  • My Hero Academia: Kirishima and Tetsutetsu both have similar Quirks that allow them to transform their skin into a hardened substance that makes them immune to bullets. This plays an important role in two major instances during the main storyline.
    • In the Training Camp Arc, Tetsutetsu, along with his classmate Kendo, fight the villain Mustard in order to stop Mustard's poison gas Quirk. During the fight, Mustard managed to shoot the gas mask that Tetsutetsu had, which made him vulnerable to the poison gas cloud they were in the middle of. He quickly realized Tetsutetsu's immunity but deliberately kept shooting him in order to keep him at bay and prevent him from attacking. His repeated shooting also slowly weakened Tetsutetsu's transformation. All of this threatened to kill Tetsutetsu from either asphyxiation from holding his breath too much, from breathing in the poison gas, or by losing his transformation and being shot in his normal body. Thankfully, Kendo was able to distract Mustard long enough for Tetsutetsu to attack him and knock him out, automatically dispelling the poison gas cloud in the process.
    • In the Internship Arc, the Yakuza group known as the Shie Hassaikai began producing and selling special bullets that could temporarily De-power people and prevent them from using their Quirks. During one instance of a criminal using said bullet, Kirishima was shot while protecting his schoolmate, Tamaki, but the bullet bounced off his head thanks to his Quirk making him immune to even these special bullets. This would end up being extremely important, as the bullet bouncing off of Kirishima meant that the Heroes and Police were able to recover the bullet and analyze its contents. This would in turn ultimately lead to the raid on the Hassaikai's headquarters, which would end with the defeat of the boss, Overhaul, and the downfall of the organization.
  • Nearly every Angel in Neon Genesis Evangelion was immune to the standard pallet rifles carried by the Evas. A notable exception is Matarael, which, after some difficulties in getting a clear shot, was taken down with a few bullets. The actual immunity comes from their ability to generate "Absolute Terror Fields" which only EVAs are able to effectively neutralize.
    • To give you an idea of the massive amounts of firepower these AT Fields can soak up. During the first episode, the Third Angel Sachiel isn't even affected by shelling from at least a division of tanks, two battalions of VTOL fighter missiles, an uncountable amount of rocket artillery barrage, and even multiple Air-to-Ground SRBMs. They then Nuke 'em...which halts it for a bit, but it's no worse for the wear even minutes afterward. Later, the Fifth Angel Ramiel shrugs off firepower that would put the above paragraph to shame.
    • A list of things that actually can breach an AT Field: another AT Field (via destructive interference), a shot from an antimatter cannon powered by the electricity from the entire Japanese power grid, and the Lance of Longinus (a piece of Phlebotinum built by Precursors that is specifically designed to not be affected by AT Fields). Everything else just bounces off the things. However, humans, despite having AT fields of their own, are affected by bullets normally.
    • Note that Angels can be hurt by bullets if the AT field can be neutralized, but the only thing that can nullify an AT field is another AT field, which in most cases is generated by an Evangelion unit. However, this requires that the Eva get so close with an Angel that the range of a pallet rifle is a non-factor and melee attacks become more practical. In practice, the pallet rifle is used more to keep the Angel distracted and off balance more than it is to do damage.
  • One Piece:
    • Luffy is a Rubber Man, meaning that bullets will bounce right off of him. Cannonballs too. Also immune to bullets are Logia users, since almost everything passes right through them. However, this is averted with Seastone Bullets, which bypass Devil Fruit powers as Luffy discovered when he took one to the shoulder in Film Z. Luffy has figured out a way to counter this in the Wano anime, i.e coating his arms with Armament Haki so that Seastone rounds have no effect.
    • Certain Paramecia Users other than Luffy can also be immune to bullets, such as Daz Bones (aka Mr 1) thanks to his steel-like blade body and Charlotte Katakuri who can sense where the rounds will hit and nullify them safely. There are also some Zoans such as Pekoms, thanks to his power letting him protect himself with a turtle shell (though a sneak attack can still at least injure him as Capone Bege showed).
    • Fishmen appear to have highly resistant skin as Kuroobi demonstrates in a Flash Back and cannon balls don't do much either. And when Hody Jones takes the Energy Steroid, he can withstand all manner of gunfire and cannonfire. Though Fisher Tiger (a super badass Fishman) was shot many times from all directions, which eventually led to fatal blood loss, so they do have limits to the amount they can take.
    • Franky is also immune to bullets thanks to his cybernetic body, though his back is vulnerable as Nero exploited. Even then, getting shot straight in the back didn't do more than slightly hurt Franky.
    • Subverted with the rest of the Straw Hats as even the strongest members behind Luffy (Zoro and Sanji) still have to dodge like hell when they're shot at. Though Zoro has enough Super-Reflexes to cut bullets out of the air and Sanji uses Armament Haki to deflect bullets like his captain does. In Wano, Zoro and Sanji are able to deflect Orochi's sniper rounds with their attacks, causing the bullets to fall harmlessly to the ground. When Sanji awakens his dormant genetics in Onigashima, he doesn't even need to use Haki to No-Sell bullets.
    • Charlotte Linlin aka "Big Mom" has no Logia power but bullets, cannon balls, missiles just bounce off her and swords break on her skin. She's been dubbed an "Iron Balloon" for her durability and only mental trauma can lower her defense and potentially leave her vulnerable to attack. The exact reason for durability is unknown, she is simply a natural-born destroyer.
    • The Vinsmoke siblings due to Bio-Augmentation, have bulletproof skin (as their father Judge happily boasts) and fireproof too, as the Big Mom Pirates discovered when they shoot at Reiju, Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji. However it's subverted as the Big Mom family wisely just use a Gatling gun armed with special bullets and mow the Vinsmokes down.
  • Most weaker monsters or heroes in One-Punch Man are not immune, but the higher ranks are simply too fast and too durable for bullets to scratch.
    • Garou is shown to be capable of deflecting a full magazine from a souped-up Gatling gun with only minor bleeding, and this was when he was far away from his full strength.
    • Dark Matter Thieves' Lieutenant, Melzargard tries to exploit this, by engaging the heroes in close combat and asking the spaceship to bombard the area with massive artillery. It fails because of Tatsumaki.
    • Zombieman tanks through bullets with sheer regeneration. You can shoot him, but you can't kill him.
  • Photon takes a point-blank zap of Aho Energy from a rudely awakened Keyne Aqua, which does zero damage. Keyne is stupefied that her attack had no effect on Photon, and Photon actually apologizes for being unhurt. It's later specified that Photon can channel Un-Aho Energy, making him the antithesis of the universe's Aho weaponry. Photon can even function normally within the statis fields that his half-sister can generate, which otherwise cause everything within the field to come to a dead stop.
  • Averted with the witches in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, who are shown to be very much vulnerable to bullets and grenades, a fact that Homura uses to her advantage... Except for Walpurgisnacht, which is so powerful it can take thousands of explosives and still keep moving. Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story would reveal that these bullets and bombs do need to have some magic in them to work, though Homura's massive armory would suggest this isn't a hard threshold to reach.
  • Possibly slightly lampshaded in the Read or Die OVA when Drake shoots at an enemy, only to have his bullet stopped in midair by electricity. He just stares at it for a little, groans exasperatedly, and starts the fight over.
  • Averted in Rurouni Kenshin. Badass ninjas that they are, the Oniwabanshu are most definitely not immune to bullets.
  • In one episode of Sailor Moon, Eudial shot Sailor Neptune with multiple heavy machine guns. By the time the machine guns ran out of ammo, Neptune wasn't even scratched (she had felt it, but it didn't pierce her skin), and Eudial had realized in how much trouble she was.
  • In Slayers, due to his chimera transformation, Zelgadis is immune to bullets and cannonballs… though a cannonball will knock him out.
  • In Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind Evil Ryu's aura is strong, bullets just bounce off. It's especially significant as Ryu at least had to dodge bullets in a prior animated movie but the satsui no hadou removes such trifles.
  • Mugann in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are immune to the mundane weapons of Grapearls until Leeron invents a Spiral bazooka.
  • In Tokyo Ghoul, the titular creatures are highly resistant to standard weaponry. To counter this, the CCG uses Quinque Steel ammunition to take down Mooks, though even these are ineffective against stronger ghouls. This point is driven home in the sequel, when Marude shoots Yoshitoki Washuu in the face. He gets back up almost immediately, with the bullet embedded into his forehead.

    Comic Books 
  • Discussed in the first issue of Alias. Facing down a political fixer's armed bodyguards, Jessica Jones informs them that if they shoot at her, she's going to pluck the bullets from her coat and shove them up their asses. Her Internal Monologue says she's actually bluffing, though: she actually doesn't know if she's bulletproof and isn't interested in finding out.
  • In Astro City story "Pastoral", Roustabout. Introduced in a Shooting Superman scenario.
  • The titular Atomic Robo is all but unfazed by light gunfire, and even heavier weapons don't do much. His smarter enemies tend to use the gunfire to distract him while something beefy enough to actually hurt him gets into position for a surprise attack.
    Soldier: Shooting's no good on this one.
    [shoots Robo in the face at point blank to no effect]
    Soldier: See?
    Robo: It's not like that doesn't hurt, you know.
  • Whilst not technically immune to bullets, Batman does wear a bullet-proof suit that protects him from most fatal injuries. And he wears a Bat-shaped target on his chest, where the heaviest bulletproofing can be found.
  • When the D.E.O blackmailed Batwoman into working with them, one way they sweetened the deal was by upgrading her costume to make her effectively bulletproof. Even she admitted it was pretty awesome.
    "I'm a damn superwoman."
  • The Bug Demons from Spike's crew in Buffy the Vampire Slayer have bulletproof armor. However, their heads are still vulnerable, thus Simone Doffler had no problem ploughing through them. Additionally, in the Angel comics (Angel (IDW) and Angel & Faith) Illyria was unaffected by army gunfire before chucking a car at them.
  • Ben Grimm, AKA The Thing from the mainstream Marvel Universe Fantastic Four, has a unique take on this trope. While he is bulletproof, it's been mentioned on many occasions that while a small number of bullets (no matter what the caliber or even if they're armor-piercing) is no problem, the heavy and sustained automatic fire could chip away at his armor sufficiently enough to allow bullets to start getting through. Then, as Ben puts it, he'd be in for a bad case of bleeding.
  • The Incredible Hulk is immune to bullets, and grenades, and everything short of a nuke, as the military, General Ross and others seem to forget in most portrayals. Though even special rounds don't do much either, Ross once shot an Adamantium Bullet straight into Hulk's eye and it did little more than piss off the Jolly Green Giant.
  • The Mighty Thor: A Physical God is naturally Immune To Bullets, as some dumb militia discovered when they tried to shoot innocents in front of the God of Thunder.
  • Jesse Custer from Preacher can make anyone obey him by speaking in The Voice Of God, so to win a gunfight all he has to say is "Miss". Although they have to be able to hear and understand him.
    • In a more literal application, Cassidy, being a vampire, is quite immune to bullets, hand grenades, fists, and pretty much everything else, except for sunlight. They can't kill him, but they can tear him to pieces, if the calibre's big enough. At least, until his Healing Factor sets in. This allows someone to torture him by repeatedly shooting him with a Lee Enfield .303 rifle.
    • The Saint of Killers is a man immune to a nuke.
      "Not enough gun."
  • The "heroes" in Sin City are not immune to bullets, but they can apparently get shot multiple times while only suffering minor injuries. Marv seemingly gets clipped or outright shot in almost every gun fight he gets involved in but he doesn't even slow down. Hartigan took about a dozen shots in the opening of Yellow Bastard before he went down and even then, he spent some time in the hospital but was otherwise fine. The finale also saw him getting clipped to no avail. Keep in mind that the guy is a senior citizen with a heart problem.
  • Spider-Man: Subverted, as while Peter has enough Super-Toughness that bullets can't kill him like they would a normal person that doesn't mean they can't seriously hurt him. This is seen in Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man #1 when Spidey decides to use his Super-Reflexes to attempt a Bullet Catch and he actually manages to snag one bullet harmlessly in his hand, the other bullet however goes straight through his palm and into his shoulder causing him to faint.
  • Superman:
    • The Man of Steel is probably the granddaddy of aliens with this ability, hence the trope Shooting Superman.
    • The immunity is taken to such an extreme in Superman Returns that we are treated to an extreme closeup slow motion sequence of a bullet fired directly at Superman's ''eyeball'' which flattens as if it's struck an impenetrably hard substance, and then falls away. Hilarity Ensues.
    • Averted in the few instances when a villain (Metallo most notably) wises up and uses a Kryptonite bullet. Though this is Depending on the Writer and/or the period in question; sometimes, kryptonite bullets don't penetrate his skin any better than regular bullets, but just being around the kryptonite will make him sick.
    • Kryptonite Nevermore: At the beginning of the story Superman tanks several cannon shots when he stops a band of air pirates. As his doppelganger steals his power, though, he becomes weaker, until bullets actually hurt him.
    • Kryptonite Bullets doubly suck for Superman because of his often-overlooked Healing Factor. Meaning if the kryptonite bullet doesn't go clean through there's a high chance the wound will close before Supes's allies can dig it out and his Nigh-Invulnerability will render further surgery near impossible. Batman once had to get a sharp piece of kryptonite to cut Superman's chest open to remove the first piece of kryptonite.
    • Supergirl is, unsurprisingly, immune to bullets. Unsurprisingly, mooks are completely oblivious to this fact.
    • In The Death of Superman (1961), Supergirl breaks into the Luthor's lair while he and other criminals are celebrating her cousin's death. Several of them shoot her — even though she has just informed them that she is Superman's cousin — and she suggests that they stop wasting bullets.
    • Many Happy Returns had the situation play out as normal, right until the mook throws the gun at her — the gun hits Supergirl in the head, and she collapses. Then, she gets back up in the next panel.
      Supergirl: Just kidding!
    • Kara lampshades it in Supergirl (1982) #12:
      Supergirl: I hate thinking of the fortune in ammunition thugs like you have wasted on me over the years!
    • The Supergirl from Krypton (2004): Shortly after emerging from her pod, Kara is shot by several cops. Naturally, the bullets bounce off.
    • Bizarrogirl is naturally bulletproof. During the story, Gangbuster shoots Bizarrogirl, but the bullets do nothing.
      Gangbuster: Tried to... get her away from everybody... Turns out she's not vulnerable... to bullets...
    • In The Girl with the X-Ray Mind, Lex Luthor is given super-powers, and immediately breaks out of his cell. When several guards try to stop him, Luthor smugly boasts over his newly-gained invulnerability to bullets.
      Lex Luthor: Ha, ha! Shoot, you fools! I'm invulnerable! Those bullets don't even tickle me!
  • Swamp Thing: "You can't kill a vegetable by shooting it in the head."
  • Ben Grimm from Ultimate Fantastic Four as he finds out in a trial by fire. Literally; he tried to blow his own brains out off-screen, and it didn't work.
  • Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman is, strictly speaking, not immune to bullets — she's simply fast enough to block them with her armored bracelets. If a smart criminal (like Lex Luthor) had the sense to simply shoot her in the foot, she'd be hopping mad. Thanks to Power Creep, Power Seep, Diana's relative invulnerability changes depending on the story being told and the title it's being told in. Sometimes (such as when she needs to fight Superman) it's up to Superman's levels. Other times... yeah, she needs those bracelets. There was some attempt to explain that bullets because they're much smaller and put pressure on a smaller area of skin, are much more dangerous to her, but it's a pretty feeble handwave for someone being vulnerable to bits of lead yet able to take a punch from a Physical God.
  • X-Men:

    Comic Strips 
  • Scary Gary: Gary, being an undead vampire, can be shot at with but not killed by guns.

    Fairy Tales 
  • In "The Two Brothers", collected by The Brothers Grimm, the younger brother is captured by a witch. The elder brother goes to his rescue and threatens to shoot the witch, but she laughs and tells him bullets can't hurt her. She's right — at least until he gives up on lead and improvises some Silver Bullets, which are much more effective.

    Fan Works 
  • In Power Girl fic A Force of Four, the titular heroine is invulnerable to bullets right like her cousin was, as noted by Jimmy Olsen when he reminisces Superman's first appearance.
    A man who could laugh off machine-gun bullets like they were spitballs?
  • The Negaverse drones quickly became this in Sailor Moon: Legends of Lightstorm in response to the escalating threat of the protagonists.
  • In Supergirl (2015) fanfic Survivors, Kara is obviously as immune to bullets as any Kryptonian. At the beginning she gets shot and believes she's been hit with some kind of sonic weapon because she heard a very loud sound but didn't even feel the bullets.
  • Towards the end of the Animorphs fanfic The Thing from Another World, Alloran morphs into a gelatinous tentacle monster. The military people shoot him with both regular bullets and Dracon beams, but they don't harm him at all.
  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Supergirl crossover The Vampire of Steel, Kara is Kryptonian and bulletproof. Willow notes she shouldn't be hurt by a mere gun.
  • In Emergence, Team RWBY are so tough that ordinary bullets at most sting them. The military is advised to resort to anti-tank weapons if they go berserk.
  • In Harmony Theory, Rarity is knocked unconscious by a sniper rifle shot to the head, with the witnesses shocked that it didn't penetrate her flesh and kill her.
  • Ebony of My Immortal not only seem to be unaffected by them physically, but also allow her to travel through time. No, really.
  • Rubric Marines of Thousand Shinji are immune to bullets thanks to their extra-tough Powered Armor.
  • Equestria: Across the Multiverse:
  • Boldores and Boomsticks has Jangmo-o's Ability Bulletproof discovered to work on actual bullets as well as bullet or bomb-like moves.
  • Roger Aubrey gets this as his main power in Sixes and Sevens, determining that he can make his skin as hard as diamond and first demonstrating the ability when a bullet fired at him ricochets off and hits a HYDRA soldier instead.
    • When Arclight attacks, she's able to use her electrical powers to throw bullets away from her. While Michael holds her off, Jason and Sue quickly make a device that can fire a light-based projectile and knock her out.
  • Subverted in Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams when a mugger empties his entire clip into Sleepwalker. The bullets pierce Sleepwalker and he's soon covered in his own blood, but he's so enraged at the muggers threatening his human host Rick Sheridan that he doesn't even seem to notice.
  • A Certain Droll Hivemind: Played with; the Misaka clones are electromasters who supplement their mid-level powers with conventional firearms. Many powers render espers largely immune to bullets, especially at high level, and the clones largely treat any power that doesn't make you invulnerable to conventional weapons as basically useless. After all, if a clone that has been murdered 10031 times can take you out, then what's the point?

    Films — Animation 
  • In The Incredibles, one of Bob's mementos from his Glory Days is a jar full of deformed bullets with the label "Bullets that bounced off of me".
  • In Monsters vs. Aliens, Gallaxhar's giant robot is able to take everything the U.S. Army can throw at it, leading to this line:
    President: Eat lead, alien robot! [fires his gun, cue gulping sound from offscreen] Evidently, they eat lead. Huh.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In the Alien series:
    • The acidic blood of the aliens was specifically invented to provide a novel answer to the question "Why don't they just shoot it?" Not that that stopped anybody in the first sequel. Dealt with very clearly in the novelization of the original film, where the response to "It's got a wonderful defense; you don't dare kill it," was "Not on board a sealed ship anyway." On a planet, in a breathable atmosphere, this is no longer an issue — the issue is keeping the spillage well clear of YOU (as the fates of Hicks, Vasquez, and Drake demonstrate).
    • In Alien: Resurrection, Call takes a bullet to the gut and is A-OK. She's an android. No android in any of the movies is killed by bullets, but since Bishop was ripped in half and could still talk and grab Newt as she was about to be sucked into space, we can safely assume that it would have been pretty difficult to kill any android with any sort of small arms fire, and chest wounds in particular would be pretty useless.
  • The Batman films often play around with the fact he wears a bullet-proof suit. Usually for dramatic effect.
  • Big Trouble in Little China. When the Three Storms (magical henchmen of the Big Bad Lo Pan) face off against the gang members in the alley, the gang members fire their guns at them. The Three Storms are completely unaffected by the gunfire
  • In Blackenstein, Malcolm empties his revolver into the monster Eddie to no effect.
  • In Blazing Saddles, Bart gets on his gun belt to shoot the wild man, Mongo, but Jim warns him not to.
    Jim: Oh, no, don't do that, don't do that. If you shoot him, you'll just make him mad.
  • That classic 50's schlock monster, The Blob (1958) is one of the most famous examples of this trope. The Blob wasn't just immune to bullets; it was also invincible to anything. If bullets ever affected the Blob, it would just become pissed off. Turns out that cold was its only weakness.
  • In Bride of Frankenstein, villagers and policemen try to stop the Monster with bullets, to no avail.
  • Constantine (2005): When Angela Dodson is confronted by the Mexican man possessed by the Spear of Destiny, she shoots him repeatedly in the chest. The bullets go right through him but don't affect him at all.
  • In Curse of the Undead, vampire gunfighter Drake Robey cannot be harmed by bullets. His standard tactic is let his opponent draw and fire first. This means that no one can deny his actions were self-defence, as he was clearly shooting at someone who had already shot him; with witnesses assuming that the first person simply missed.
  • DC Extended Universe:
    • Like in most other portrayals, Kryptonians have this trope down packed in Man of Steel, with even the 30 mm cannons they're hit by not damaging them at all. However subverted as they still realistically follow the laws motion and conservation of energy as a hail machine gunfire can slow Superman down in BVS and a high-speed homing missile to the face was able to knock out Faora, so they're Not So Invincible After All.
    • In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the back of Batman's cowl is tough enough to deflect a point blank pistol shot.
    • Word of God has explicitly stated that this is not the case with Wonder Woman (2017). Diana has fast enough reflexes to block bullets with her bullet-immune bracers, but it's established very early on that the Amazons are not bullet-immune, not even her. The very first action scene has her bleeding after getting grazed by one, which is presumably why she blocks, dodges, or takes cover when faced with them in every other film. In her second film she's pierced by bullets twice when her reflexes fade a bit.
    • In Aquaman (2018), Arthur Curry/Aquaman easily shrugs off assault rifle bullets, and getting shot with a high-explosive grenade launcher only knocks him out for a few seconds.
    • Just like in the comics, SHAZAM! (2019) has Billy exhibit "bullet immunity" when some muggers try to shoot him with pistols, to his and Freddie's absolute glee. They even ask the robbers to shoot him a bunch of times to confirm it. Though he's nervous about testing it too much. Applies to his rival Black Adam as well.
      Freddie: Wait, are you bulletproof, or is it just the suit? Hey, guys, can you shoot him in the face?
      Billy: Yeah, yeah, shoot me in the face! Wait, what?
      [robbers shoot him in the face to no effect]
      Billy: ...kind of tickles.
    • In The Suicide Squad, Starro the Conqueror takes gunfire from the Cortlo Maltese army which does nothing but anger it further, and it even releases his spores on them in response. Nanue/King Shark is also unfazed by bullets.
  • In Dead Again in Tombstone, Gurrero's Cool Horse seemingly becomes bulletproof after Dr. Goldsworthy raises him from the dead.
  • Lampshaded during a gunfight in Dead Heat, a cops vs. zombies comedy:
    Bigelow (cop): Hey, Roger! Remember the good old days when bullets killed people?
    Mortis (cop zombie): You're just jealous, that's all!
    • This leads to a scene near the end of film that has two zombies firing each other with submachineguns, to no effect.
  • The titular trio in Death Machines all wear bulletproof armor underneath their jackets, turning them into examples of this trope. This is most prominently demonstrated during the shootout at the police station, where the officers attempt several times to shoot the white Death Machine, but to no avail.
  • The Devil's Advocate: Kevin tries shooting Milton after the latter's Post-Rape Taunt, but he just laughs it off. This causes Kevin to finally realize that Milton is not human at all
  • In Dracula vs. Frankenstein, two sheriffs' deputies empty their revolvers into Frankenstein's Monster when he is abducting the girl in Lover's lane, but their shots have no effect on the creature.
  • Downplayed in End of Days. Handguns only mildly inconvenience the Devil but forces him to repair his host body and machine gun fire does take him down, albeit temporarily.
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once:
    • Jobu Tupaki has Reality Warper powers to such a degree that she is completely immune to physical harm. When she is shot she fakes a tearful death scene, only to reveal that the "blood" Evelyn has been splattered with is actually organic ketchup. The guard who seemingly shot several large holes in her is very confused.
    • In the climax, Evelyn awakens her own powers and catches a bullet. Then she transforms it into something harmless. By all indications, activating these powers for defense is done completely instinctively, with no chance of overwhelming them with surprise.
  • In Firestarter, Charlie literally burns bullets before they touch her.
  • Fright Night (1985). When Billy (The Renfield to Jerry Dandridge) is shot six times with bullets, he bleeds from his wounds but keeps on coming. He's only stopped when Charley stabs him with a wooden stake.
  • At the end of From Beyond the Grave, the thief uses the proprietor's own antique pistols to rob him. The proprietor refuses to hand over any cash and advances on the thief. The thief fires, but discovers the bullets have no effect on the proprietor.
  • The undead outlaws in Ghost Town (1988) cannot be harmed by anything made later than the time they were cursed, so when Langley shoots them with his modern firearms, it has no effect beyond putting holes in them. Only when he acquires period weaponry and ammo from the Ghost Town does he stand a chance of hurting them.
  • One of the more awesome scenes in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance has a goon fire his Uzi into Ghost Rider's mouth as he swallows it up like popcorn before spitting it out.
  • The Neo-Vipers from GI Joe The Rise Of Cobra walk through massed assault rifle fire with the rounds bouncing off harmlessly, and the Cobra gunship takes 50-cal triple-A without even a dent.
  • Godzilla, and most other Kaiju. See also related trope: Giant Equals Invincible.
    • The rhedosaurus in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is a notable variation. It was quite vulnerable to conventional weapons, but its blood carried a disease that would surely kill us all, which meant that bullets and their like were right out.
    • Gamera: Guardian of the Universe has a rather odd use of this. The young Gyaos are implied to be unaffected by bullets (in an early scene, a guard unloads an entire clip at an off-screen Gyaos and still winds up eaten) but they are shown to be vulnerable to tranquilizer darts. One Gyaos even dies after getting overdosed with tranquilizers. (How ironic: the only time the humans successfully kill a monster in this film, it's because they're trying to capture it alive.)
    • Though the military firing at the giant monsters is visually impressive in Godzilla (2014), like this trope implies, it's not very effective.
  • Michael Myers from the Halloween series alternates between bullets hurting-but-not-killing him and bullets causing nothing more than a minor nuisance.
  • The gruff and alcoholic superhero Hancock is immune to bullets... but not his booze bottle, and a gang he's trying to stop makes the mistake of breaking it when shooting at him.
  • In Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, Monroe tries to destroy Pinhead by shooting him. Since he's shooting at a solid pillar statue it's virtually useless and Pinhead just spits out the bullets, asking him if they can now talk sensibly.
  • Highlander:
    • The immortals can be perforated by bullets, but this won't kill them. Using guns to take down your opponent long enough to chop his head off is explicitly against the rules, and only truly reprehensible characters attempt it.
    • In one case, an immortal who's somewhere between Vigilante Man and Well-Intentioned Extremist points out that he could use his high-powered gun to blow MacLeod's head off. MacLeod responds with "but you won't", and the two draw their swords and fight by the "rules".
    • Also, whether using guns in their duels is explicitly prohibited or merely considered dishonorable or unsporting by most immortals in unclear. After all, "The Game" had its rules set up long before guns were invented.
  • Independence Day: The aliens' ships are this thanks to their shields. Heck, they're nuclear weapon-proof. They, however, aren't, thankfully.
  • "Butcher" Benton from Indestructible Man is indestructible... up until he's hit with a bazooka, then a flamethrower, and finally stumbling into the main transformer of a power station.
  • Jocántaro in Karate a Muerte en Torremolinos. It seems immune to everything.
  • In Lady Frankenstein, the Monster gets shot multiple times with no noticeable effect.
  • In Left for Dead, the demonic ghost of Mobius Lockhardt is completely immune to bullets (and all other conventional weapons it seems). Bullets that hit him open up a hole that then immediately vanishes. The only weapons that can harm him are his infernally forged pistols.
  • Lifeforce (1985): When the two male vampires (in human form) attack the guards, they are shot multiple times (resulting in bloody bullet wounds) but keep right on coming. They are only stopped by grenade explosions..
  • Maniac Cop has as the main villain a cop who murders people and is immune to all gunfire. The funny thing is, the movie isn't supernatural and explains that the cop was once sent to prison for crime he never committed. While in there, he was so badly beaten and abused by the other inmate, for obvious reasons, that he lost the nerves in the body that give him the feeling of pain. Upon being stabbed and left for dead in the prison bathroom, he later awoke, somehow alive, and wanted revenge for what happened... which he did by murdering innocent people. Kinda defeats the purpose. However, in reality, this explanation makes no sense (bullets are deadly not because they hurt, but because they put holes in parts of the body that can't function when holes are put in them) and relies heavy on the audience forgetting about real-world logic and going along with the movie's train of thought.
  • In Manos: The Hands of Fate, it seems guns are on the list of devices the Master does not approve of, given that bullets evidently don't harm him.
  • The Man Who Turned to Stone: When the immortality treatment wears off, the users begin to petrify. There is a period before they totally petrify when they are still mobile but their skin is as hard as stone, making them Nigh-Invulnerable. While Eric is in this state, Dr. Freneau shoots him several times to no effect.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Iron Man repeatedly demonstrates the imperiousness of Tony Stark's suit to ammunition. His suit still takes damage, getting very much scratched up and dented. He even has a bit of trouble getting it off again after the first time he takes it into battle due to the damage it took. In defense of Tony's design, the suit by that time had taken hits from triple-A followed by a crash-landing, an air-to-air missile, and an F-22's cannon. Even his crappy first suit still is bulletproof enough for a minor Ten-Rings goon to get headshot by his own bullet when it reflects off of Tony's helmet.
    • The Hulk is immune to bullets, missiles and even hail of alien energy blasts (though it did briefly incapacitate him). The antagonists of The Incredible Hulk (2008) fail to grasp this with Blonsky still trying to shoot Hulk in the head with a simple handgun which has the same effect as an annoying fly. Hulk's immunity extends to his alter ego Bruce Banner, as in The Avengers (2012), Bruce mentions that he once tried to commit suicide by eating his gun, only for "the other guy to spit it back out".
    • Loki, the Big Bad of Thor and The Avengers (2012), is immune to bullets thanks to his Ice Giant/Asgardain Bizarre Alien Biology biology. In the opening scene Loki is shot in the head by S.H.I.E.L.D agents and it only makes him flinch. Loki also gets back up after getting shot through a wall with Coulson's Destroyer Armor Prototype Gun.
    • Those injected with the Extremis Virus in Iron Man 3 have this immunity plus an overall Healing Factor. At one point, Rhodey empties an entire clip into two Extremis thugs — while affected, they quickly shrug it off, more pissed off than anything else.
    • Adult Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) can form dense roots from his arms to counter flying robot turret fire, though it's clear that getting shot bothers him.
    • Steve Rogers/Captain America and Bucky Barnes play with this trope as they both have ways of being immune to bullets without actually being so (since the Super Serum doesn't actually give them this trope). Cap is mostly immune thanks to his vibranium shield, which can deflect everything from bullets, minigun fire to even a strike from Mjolnir. Bucky is immune thanks to his cybernetic arm, which he uses to block rounds. However, without the shield, one or two bullets will take Cap down, and Bucky's arm can't withstand Tony's Uni Beam.
    • Thanks to his vibranium suit, T'Challa/Black Panther can just stand and take a volley from a helicopter turret without flinching. Black Panther (2018) also shows that his suit and vibranium in general can be an Attack Reflector. It's even lampshaded at one point in the movie.
      Okoye: Guns... so primitive.
    • In Avengers: Infinity War, Greater-Scope Villain and Hero Killer Thanos doesn't react to Star-Lord's Quad Blasters hitting his torso and Tony's missiles only annoy him. Bucky also fires at Thanos with an assault rifle to obviously no effect.
    • Subverted in Spider-Man: Far From Home with the Elementals. The reason why Nick Fury and Maria Hill's guns didn't work on Sandman is because they are shooting at an illusion created by drones controlled by Mysterio. Played straight with Spidey in the same movie. In the Final Battle, he shrugs off multiple small missiles, thanks in part to the suit he's wearing and his own Super-Toughness.
    • When a police officer shoots at Drax in The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, he just laughs as if he's being tickled while showing no damage from the bullets.
  • Zig-zagged in The Mummy Trilogy. No mortal weapons can harm Imhotep — although that doesn't stop people from shooting him — but other mummies can be harmed by bullets.
  • The killer in Midnight Movie gets shot several times by Detective Barrens. He doesn't even flinch.
  • Same trope except with lasers in Planet of the Dinosaurs. While much importance is placed on the lasers, and how they can kill almost anything, the dinosaurs of this planet just get really annoyed when shot with one.
  • Power Rangers (2017): When Rita Repulsa gets shot in the chest with a shotgun, all it does is knock her down for a few seconds.
  • Project Power: When Frank takes Power he's bulletproof for five minutes. Getting shot point blank still gives him a bruise, but apparently not a concussion even if he's shot directly in the temple.
  • A pretty humorous example is the title character in Prince of Space. In the original version, he was good at dodging attacks but wasn't immune to them. However, the American dub (as shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000) had him frequently exclaim "Your weapons are useless against me!" which made the aforementioned dodging simply look ridiculous.
    Crow: Your weapons are useless, but scare the crap out of me anyway!
  • Played with in The Quick and the Dead, where a duelist called Spotted Horse claims he cannot be killed by a bullet and his body is covered with scars from bullet wounds, showing that he's not all talk. In the Quick Draw tournament, he gives his opponent Cort a nasty shock when after being shot he gets back up and carries on fighting, instead of dying immediately as expected. Cort's second shot, which is to the head, puts Spotted Horse down for good, although it briefly looks like he's going to come back for more.
  • In The Return of Count Yorga, two policemen are beset by Yorga's vampire brides. Spooked by them appearing out of nowhere, they shoot two of the brides point blank. The brides winch a bit and gain bloodied stomachs but aren't phased and continue coming after the two policemen.
  • RoboCop:
    • This is the main advantage that RoboCop has over conventional cops, along with Improbable Aiming Skills. The only weapons capable of harming him are antimateriel weapons like the Cobra Assault Cannon.
    • RoboCop 2: The title replacement's robot body proves completely immune to bullets fired by regular firearms. Even when the original RoboCop uses the Cobra Assault Cannon on him, it does no damage at all.
  • Shanghai Noon: Roy O'Bannon in the movie's final firefight, walks away with the priest robes he was wearing looking like Swiss cheese, but no a scratch on him, briefly leading him to believe that he was invincible. Course, at the end he reveals his name to really be Wyatt Earp, so he may be onto something there.
  • In Sleepy Hollow High, Z shoots the Horseman and he falls over. He then gets back to his feet with no ill effects
  • In Split, when Casey shoots the Beast repeatedly with a shotgun, it staggers him and knocks him down but doesn't kill him. Given that in Glass (2019), the Beast fights David from Unbreakable, who's able to hurt and take blows from him, this gives further credence to the idea that David is bulletproof as well.
  • Played for laughs in Star Trek: First Contact. Data, being an android, is immune to bullets. When an Earth woman from the past thinks he's an enemy and riddles him with her machine gun, he shrugs it off and nonchalantly greets her. She faints in response.
  • Star Wars:
    • While they're not immune to them if they get hit, attempting to attack a Jedi/Dark Jedi/Sith with a blaster is not only typically fruitless unless the plot demands it, but is in fact counterproductive. This is because they not only block blaster bolts with their lightsabers, but often reflect them back at the person that shot them. Reflecting blasterfire has become the effective primary purpose of the lightsaber when the Sith aren't around, with entire styles of saber fighting designed around it. This is averted, however, in the comic book Star Wars Infinities — in the alternate retelling of The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader is killed when fired upon by Han Solo.
    • In The Empire Strikes Back, the AT-ATs are invulnerable to most weapons the Rebels have. One is destroyed by a well-placed shot to a weak spot above the neck joint, the next by Insert Grenade Here, and the third (in the novelization) by a snowspeeder pilot ramming the cockpit. The EU establishes that this was simply because the Rebels didn't have big enough guns, however: in X-Wing: Isard's Revenge four X-Wings destroy four AT-ATs in as many minutes and take no casualties at all.
    • That size matters when talking about blaster weaponry is demonstrated on-screen in Rogue One, when Blue Squadron X-wings at the Battle of Scarif make mincemeat of the AT-ACTs supporting the base there (despite Baze's RPG unfazing AT-ACTs before the X-Wings showed up).
  • In Sugar Hill (1974), George repeatedly shoots Baron Samedi, who doesn't even react. Later, King and Morgan shoot the zombies, with similar results.
  • Superman Returns shows the Man of Steel shrugging off not only a Gatling gun, but a point-blank shot from a .45 pistol right into his eye. The scene is parodied in Epic Movie when Superman reacts like anyone else would if someone poked them in the eye. And then falls off the building while stumbling about in agony.
  • Syfy Channel Original Movie:
    • Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus: The title monsters shrug off torpedoes, missiles, and shells which, they being kaiju, do precisely jack.
    • Inverted Mongolian Death Worm. The titular monsters except the gigantic queen can be killed instantly by single hits from small-arms fire, even though real worms have few non-duplicated vital organs and could easily survive comparable wounds.
    • In Skeleton Man, the titular monster doesn't even react to being shot with a mini-gun. In the same fight scene, the hero is able to grapple with and then judo throw the skeleton man.
  • In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), the Turtles' shells are bulletproof, which they were quite delighted to learn.
  • The Terminator films use this frequently:
    • The Terminator: The T-800 is effectively immune to conventional gunfire, being able to walk through an entire army of police officers armed with automatic weapons. High impact weapons like shotguns can knock it off of its feet for a few seconds, and precise shots can hinder its more delicate mechanisms, such as when Kyle shoots it in the eye and the arm. In the former case, the flesh covering of its eye was damaged — which obscured its vision and compromised its human disguise, and in the latter case, the mechanisms that moved the fingers were misaligned, but were easy to reset back into place. A homemade pipe bomb placed in its torso was able to blow most of the machine to bits.
      • Terminator Genisys retroactively averts this as Sarah's BMG sniper rifle, pierces through the T-800's exoskeleton, though to be fair to Kyle in the original him and Sarah didn't have access to that kind of firepower.
    • Terminator 2: Judgment Day: The T-800 again walks through a hail of bullets from a squad of SWAT officers, only destroying its flesh covering. The T-1000, due to being made of liquid metal, can have its mass disrupted and slowed by even small arms fire, with stronger weapons like shotguns and explosives able to blast apart its structure, though it will reform within seconds.
    • Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines: The T-X has a much stronger armored chassis than the T-800, and thus shrugs off even greater firepower.
    • Terminator Salvation: The T-600 could be damaged by John Connor's automatic rifle, as he headshots one to kill it near the start of the film, and a gatling gun attached to a helicopter is enough to finish off a second. The T-800 RIP at the of the film, however, is even more impervious than T-800s from the earlier timeline — able to walk through weapons and molten metal that the others were damaged by.
    • Terminator Genisys: The T-3000 is made of nanomachines that are more difficult to disrupt than the T-1000 model, and even if it is disrupted, the nanomachines can disperse and move any way they wish within an undefined cloud. While in a human disguise, it could also fake a normal reaction to being shot, complete with fake blood that reconstituted into nanomachines when the ruse no longer served a purpose.
  • Downplayed in Them!. The giant ants can be taken down by sustained small arms fire (though flamethrowers and explosives work better), but there are so many giant ants that it's pointless unless the heroes can kill them individually, or are in an enclosed space.
  • In The Thing from Another World, the titular 'Thing' is of course immune to bullets. "What do you mean guns are no good?!", demands one character.
  • Transformers Film Series:
    • Played with when it comes to the Transformers. The US military is capable of damaging them. The special ammunition they use (sabot rounds) do more damage than normally, but aren't especially effective at bringing them down (anything less, they can shrug off or heal very quickly). This is especially evident with Brawl (i.e. the tank) in the first movie; who has dozens of rounds pumped into him, but is still on the winning end of his firefight with the military. In the end, it takes Bumblebee to come along and save their arses.
    • Somewhat referenced in the midquel comic series 'The Reign Of Starscream', in which Starscream is giving a speech to a bunch of soldiers about how he will spare them if they don't get in his way. Cue one soldier with an itchy trigger finger and a bazooka shooting him in the face. BAD IDEA.
  • Averted in Tremors: As Burt Gummer shows, graboids are not immune to bullets, you just need a big enough gun. One could actually see the defining scene as a deliberate parody of this trope, as Burt and Heather were emptying gun after gun after gun into the graboids to no effect, until the fight more or less became a stubborn pissing contest between a nearly immobile graboid and a couple with a hundred seemingly useless guns. Eventually Burt's stubborn-ness won out.
    • For that matter, it wasn't immune to the smaller weapons, but wasn't being deterred by them. It arguably would have died from half the wounds it collected in that protracted shoot-out, just not immediately and it certainly would have eaten the Gummers first. The elephant gun was the only weapon they had that caused enough trauma to kill it instantly.
    • Justifiably played straight when they're under the dirt, though. As Burt himself says, the ground is one of the best bullet stoppers around, so combine it with the thick hide and size of a graboid and none of your shots will pierce the skin.
  • Played for drama in Unbreakable. David Dunn's son believes his dad may be a superhero, so he points a gun at him to prove it. Averted, since David is able to talk him out of firing and we never discover what would have happened. The scene parallels the Real Life account of Superman actor George Reeves who talked a boy down from shooting him.
  • The zombies in Japanese movie Versus seem to have greater immunity the more recently they had died. In the beginning, two zombies take a three-gun barrage of shots to the chest, but the first one only dies when the hero shoots it once (blowing out most of its torso, despite him having a pistol like the others) and the other eventually gets up and wanders away.
  • What Planet Are You From? parodies this: An alien boasts that "Your puny Earth weapons are no match for my great intellect," and is then shot dead. Turns out he was simply mistaken on this point. Specifically, he was saying that his Ray Gun can deflect any "primitive" weapon. After he's shot, the protagonist admits that he always thought that was bullshit.

    Literature 
  • In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, giant squids attack the Nautilus. Captain Nemo says that his bullets (electrically charged) will be useless, since they won't go off in that jelly. The crew attacks them with axes.
  • Adventure Hunters: When a gun is pointed at her, Lisa is not afraid that the bullets will hurt her; she's afraid they'll bounce off her and hurt someone else.
  • Animorphs: In Megamorphs #3, the kids are transported to an alternate universe D-Day, where to their surprise they find that bullets won't kill them. They suffer huge pain for a second, then the next second they're fine. Ax deduces that this is because of the deal that Ellimist made with Crayak to allow their time travel: that one of the Animorphs would die, but only one.
    • Downplayed in a few books where they morph rhinos and elephants. The kids use them for scenarios where they expect to run into a lot of small arms gunfire, as both beasts are thickly built enough to tank a few shots.
  • The transmortals of The Ashtown Burials have but downplay this, as their immortal Healing Factor means that while bullets will hit, and hurt, they aren't slowed down for long. At one point Nolan is caught in a hail of gunfire through an air vent and emerges damaged but still capable of fighting. Enough damage or pain, however, may temporarily disable a transmortal through sheer shock.
  • In Dale Brown's books, the Tin Man Powered Armor and CID Motion-Capture Mecha employed by the heroes are immune to small arms, though anti-tank weapons still work.
  • In Daemon, normal gunfire is worthless against the Razorbacks or first AutoM8. Nothing less than a 50-cal rifle will damage them, and even then you need multiple shots.
  • Walter in The Dark Tower, strictly speaking, is probably vulnerable to bullets, but has a magic power that causes all guns aimed at him to misfire 100% of the time. It only applies to guns from Mid-World, his original 'home'. When Roland goes for Jake's ruger, Walter turns the hell around and starts running. It's specifically mentioned that his power only applies to guns/bullets of his world.
  • DFZ: Nik has a lot of cyberware, to the point that bullets just bounce off him. He also wears a Bulletproof Vest, just because.
  • The scifi short story Diplomatic Immunity by Robert Sheckley is all about this. Humans have to kill the "Ass" in Ambassador who's guiding an Alien Invasion fleet, but he's resistant to any form of attack.
  • In the Dora Wilk Series, insane witch Viola proves impervious to bullets. It's rumoured that she made a Deal with the Devil for immortality.
  • The Eschaton Series: In Singularity Sky, Charles Stross talks about the futility of attacking an enemy who had serious nanotech available to them. So-called bush robots made from fractally branching structural members which went right down to the molecular level tipped with nanomechanical manipulators would happily eat bullets and energy weapon fire and thank you for the additional mass and power you just gave it.
    • Of course, vague references to unpleasant nanotech weapons such as eaters, shapers, and antibodies demonstrate that even these rather improbably resilient devices were still quite vulnerable to advanced weapons.
  • The Osthan of The First Dwarf King are on the receiving end of dozens, if not hundreds of bullets...none of which leave so much as a scratch on them. But then again, what did you expect from Humanoid Abominations?
  • Inverted in the Humanx Commonwealth series, where researchers and botanoprospectors on poorly-explored wilderness planets prefer otherwise-outdated projectile firearms. That's because contemporary electric or neuronic weapons can't be relied upon, if one of the local predators turns out to lack a conventional nervous system. (They do pack explosive shells, though.)
  • The vampires in I Am Legend can't be killed by bullets, due to a body glue in their bodies which seals the bullet openings and encases the bullets.
  • In the Incarnations of Immortality series, the Deathcape, the black cloak worn by the Anthropomorphic Personification of Death while on duty, is impervious to bullets and anything else that could possibly harm the wearer (who is still a living human being).
    • This applies to every incarnation really, except Satan who is in fact very mortal, but uses a complex plan to hide that fact. Chronos' (time) cloak ages anything (or anyone) that touches it into oblivion, turning them into dust. Mars (war) is the most gifted soldier alive, and immune to weapons of war (as each incarnation has supreme authority over its dominion).
    • Death in fact does not need the cloak at all, as Zane himself found out. The cloak is a placebo so to speak. Since he's the master of death, he cannot die unless he wills it so (every incarnation is the ultimate authority regarding its office). However, if, even unconsciously, the holder of the office of death is ready to die (and thus automatically go to heaven), any attack that makes it past the cloak will indeed kill him.
      • Death cannot be killed during his initial training period because he would have to retrieve his own soul. Death changes office by someone killing him, but only someone whose soul is in near perfect balance requires Death's personal attention. All others are handled by lesser agents.
  • Jason Wood: In Digital Knight, the hero, after facing creatures Immune to Bullets for 5 of 6 short stories, finally encounters something that can be killed by firearms, prompting him to declare, "Well, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, will wonders never cease; a horror from beyond time that I really can just shoot dead."
    • Of course, it's not that easy: "I should have known, I should have known, you can never kill a monster with bullets, never, it's in the friggin' Monster Union Rules!"
  • Jesus and His army of saints from heaven at the Battle of Armageddon in the Left Behind book Glorious Appearing. Even a missile couldn't stop Him from turning the entire Global Community Unity Army into bird food! Before His appearance, though, the cross in the sky granted the believers in Petra immunity to bullets.
  • First Lensman opens with a Sufficiently Advanced Alien using his powers to walk right into the secure headquarters of the Galactic Patrol and empty a pistol into their top scientist. As the scientist is himself a Sufficiently Advanced Alien he's completely unaffected, and no-one even notices as he's holding them under a zone of compulsion. The scientist gives an Ironic Echo of previous statement made by his failed assassin. "I permitted that, as an exercise in futility."
  • In one Larry Niven short story, "The Meddler", the startled protagonist fires his gun at an alien intruder who solemnly replies "Thank you for the gift of metal." Turns out the alien really can "Eat lead".
  • The 20th century outlaw Nikola Šuhaj — at least according to the book Nikola Šuhaj loupežník (Nikola the Outlaw) by Ivan Olbracht — reputedly possessed a charm that protected him from being shot. In the end, he was betrayed by some of his companions and killed ... with an axe.
  • Old Kingdom: Exaggerated — there's a militarized zone between Ancelstierre and the Magical Land of the Old Kingdom, but certain powerful Dead or Free Magic spirits can only be harmed by magic, so even artillery fire only slows them down.
  • Sacreya's Legacy: Ben Mason considers this one of the biggest benefits to being a zombie, and one of the top reasons he followed his dream of becoming a detective after his death.
  • In Seven Stars, the Artifact of Doom renders its possessor immune to bullets, among other effects. The details vary from wielder to wielder: one manifests glowing armor, and proves to be vulnerable to being shot in the face when she opens the visor; another looks no different, but when he's shot in the face the bullet simply passes through without leaving any damage (though his face does ripple for a moment like water when something is dropped in).
  • Sarah in Tales of an Mazing Girl doesn't like Bullets — but they don't really hurt her.
  • Acheron Hades in the Thursday Next books.
  • In Tunnel in the Sky, Rod asks his mercenary sister for advice on what gun to bring for his off-world survival test. She recommends that he take only a knife, warning him of the false sense of security a gun provides. She explains that she had a gun on her first mission, lost it, and ran from a creature that she didn't know was Immune To Bullets rather then dying trying to fight it. The creature in question basically has no vital organs; its nervous, circulation, even assimilation systems are decentralized. If you wanted to kill it quickly you would have to grind it into hamburger.
  • The War Against the Chtorr. The Chtorran gastropedes are very difficult to kill due to their Bizarre Alien Biology. At one stage the protagonist tries using a flechette rifle firing 3000 rounds-per-minute — after using up two magazines shooting out the Chtorran's eyes, breaking its arms, and disintegrating its multitude of teeth the alien still almost kills the protagonist by collapsing on top of him. And even then it's not dead. The Enterprise fish is not only massive (one is revealed to be twice the size of the aircraft carrier it attacks) but is covered in so many layers of blubber that it takes half an hour of concentrated bombing before it even realises it's being attacked. Two have been destroyed using low-yield nuclear weapons.
  • The first Wax and Wayne book's villain Miles "Hundredlives" is immune to bullets and basically all other forms of conventional harm (including dynamite) thanks to the incredible Healing Factor granted by his unique combination of magic abilities. Wax mostly just tried to disarm him when forced to fight, and their plan to actually beat him mostly just centers around immobilizing him, since he's not actually notably stronger or faster than a normal person.
  • World War Z is a subversion: Zack was NOT immune to bullets, but to the psychological warfare tactics of modern warfare (e.g. "shock and awe"). It was the latter to blame for the global Oh, Crap! moment known as the Great Panic. Later, the best strategy the US came up with after learning its current strategies were useless was Napoleonic infantry lines. Though played straight in a way as well: A ghoul could only be stopped by destroying the brain or completely shredding the body, so the center-of-mass shots the army was initially trained for (from fighting foes that did die from a gut-shot) were next to useless.

    Live-Action TV 
  • In the original The Adventures of Superman TV series, villains would always shoot at Superman's massive chest, the bullets bouncing off, and then throw the gun at his head — and he would duck. This reflected the fact that the bullets were just special effects, but the gun was a solid prop. This is spoofed in Justice League Unlimited when several bank robbers are shooting at Wonder Woman who deflects the bullets. They empty their clips and one gets ready to throw the gun at her when she sarcastically comments "Yeah, like that's gonna work." This was also spoofed during Peter David's run on Supergirl. A bunch of mook villains were firing at Supergirl; when they ran out of bullets one threw his gun at her. Instead of ducking or the gun bouncing off of her, she fell over much to the shock of the mooks. After a beat she jumped back up again and said "I always wanted to do that" before dealing with the mooks.
  • The Supers in The Boys (2019) are all of course bulletproof as Homelander and Queen Maeve showcase after killing a sniper in a building and remember they have to make it sound like self-defence for the people outside, so Homelander picks up an assault rifle and fires harmlessly into Maeve's chest who doesn't even flinch. Later in the first season Billy Butcher fires two rounds from a 50.BMG rifle into Starlight's chest and while it does painfully knock her down, she's otherwise unharmed.
  • Buffyverse:
    • Vampires can't be killed by bullets. That said, they do hurt a lot. Spike has the biggest feat of toughness against bullets as in "Underneath" while Taking the Bullet for Gunn and Lindsey he gets his back gorily shredded by a Uzi, but Spike doesn't even slow down or show any real pain. Vampires of course have limits, given how fast Angelus and Drusilla got out of the way of a RPG (see below), though that causes some Fridge Logic later as Angel and Spike in "The Girl in Question" could tank a bomb that wrecks a Rome street going off in their faces... and they only get Clothing Damage.
    • The Judge boasted that no weapon forged could stop him. The last time he got taken out, an army had to be brought to bear and most of them died. However, Xander figured out that the term was descriptive, not prescriptive, and that weapons technology had come a long way since then. The Judge gets one-shotted into a million pieces by a rocket launcher, effectively putting him down (sure the pieces were twitching, but they ain't doing much else).
    • Immune to crossbow bolts, in Glory's case.
    • The Haxil Beast was a subversion: Early in the episode, Angel is looking up addresses for shooting ranges. Wesley then comments "Guns can kill it? Well, that does make things easier!" Even though it turns out that the monster itself is either immune or highly resistant to bullets, it gets brought down anyway when Wesley uses a gun to shoot a tank of liquid helium that Angel had thrown at it, freezing the monster, which is then shattered by blunt force.
    • Another episode had Wes go Guns Akimbo at the Beast (who is apparently Made of Indestructium) repeatedly for a long time before running out of ammo and realizing it's not going to work. The same melee also featured axes, swords, crossbow bolts, wooden stakes; everything that Team Angel could throw at it to no avail.
    • A demon mob boss from The Prodigal was unharmed by gunfire, but not to the swing of an axe.
    • After a woman is possessed by an Eldritch Abomination, Wesley swings an axe at her neck. The blade shatters on her skin and she doesn't even notice the blow. Bullets have no effect either, thanks to her ability to slow down time.
  • Most demons in Charmed (1998).
  • Doctor Who does this a lot. In fact, the trope is named after Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's quote from "Robot".
  • In one episode of Earth: Final Conflict reveals that Taelons, being Energy Beings, cannot be harmed by physical objects. As a demonstration, Zo'or lets a woman put a finger through his forehead, although he can obviously be seen reacting to this. This doesn't stop them from interacting with the world and people as a solid being would. The Atavus (ancestors to Taelons and energy vampires) in Season 5 are immune not only to bullets but also low-power energy weapons. It takes Renee a number of shots from her energy pistol to take one down.
  • Several episodes of Farscape hinge around energy belts, which protect their wearers against energy weapons, but leave them vulnerable to things such as bullets, rocks and falling into a pit of lava.
    • An interesting variation occurs because the energy belts are merely activated by energy weaponry and technically shield against everything when active. Thus, Crichton had to resort to firing at himself more than once.
    • Scarrans are immune to standard pulse fire, though if the gun overloads and explodes it can still kill them. One suspects the Doylist reason for the Scarrans allying with the Charrids is that they're not immune to bullets, allowing shoot-outs to keep happening.
  • Forever Knight: Nick Knight is often shot in the line of duty, but since he's a vampire he quickly recovers. He'll often use this to his advantage by making himself a shield for other people who wouldn't be able to survive it otherwise. Subverted in the final episode when Nick gets shot and the bullet passes through his body and kills his human partner.
  • In Grimm, the Zerstörer was this, along with immunity to pretty much everything else, including a just-this-side-of-nuclear poison.
  • Interview with the Vampire (2022): Vampires cannot be killed with bullets. In "Is My Very Nature That of a Devil", Alderman Fenwick shoots his gun twice at Louis de Pointe du Lac, who doesn't even flinch, and the only thing that's damaged is his chic purple suit.
  • Subverted in Jekyll: Hyde isn't immune to bullets, just extremely hard to kill; in the finale, he takes several hundred rounds to the chest, and survives just long enough to drive off his attackers before finally dying.
  • Many monsters of the week in Kamen Rider fall under this trope. Unless said bullets were fired from the show's resident Gunslinger. Specifics include:
    • The Grongi, who after being shot at could just pop the bullets out of their bodies, though their eyes do not have this power, as Zu-Mebio-Da found out the hard way, though she got her full set of eyes back. Eventually subverted when the police develop a bullet that can take down the Grongi from studying a Gurongi's corpse (Gooma's) that wasn't killed by Kuuga.
    • The Unknown. The bullet doesn't even hit them. They just stop mid-way to their forehead and they explode. Including the bullets that could take down the Grongi. Subverted when G3 gets upgraded to deal with them. Not only can his bullets hit them, they can eventually kill them.
    • Subverted for the Orphnoch, though they need more than a standard amount of bullets to be take down.
    • The Phantoms are immune to normal bullets due to being magical in nature and thus immune to conventional weapons. This even includes Mooks. They can only be truly harmed by a Magician or magical weapons such as silver bullets.
    • Justified with the Ganma as well, as they are not only not of this world, but are spectral in nature, thus, normal bullets just fly right through them.
  • Kolchak: The Night Stalker:
    • In "The Devil's Platform", a police officer fires six shots at Robert Palmer while he's in dog form. The bullets have no effect at all.
    • In "Horror in the Heights", a police officer fires six shots into the rakshasa, but it's completely unhurt. It takes being hit by a crossbow bolt blessed by Brahma to kill it.
  • A recurring joke character in Late Night with Conan O'Brien had ♪ bulletproof legs ♫. Another character would always shoot him in his gut.
  • The smoke monster in Lost is apparently immune to bullets, as demonstrated by an unfortunate redshirt mercenary who attempts shooting it with an assault rifle only to be dragged into the jungle and mauled.
  • In The Mandalorian the beskar armour the titular Mando wears, protects him from all kinds of laser fire including a powerful MK-modified rifle shot from Cold Sniper Fennec Shand on Tatoonie. Although just because the armour is strong doesn't mean Mando is any less squishy underneath, this was seen during the Final Battle as Big Bad Moff Gideon instead of wasting his shot trying to kill Mando, shoots a nearby turret generator which blows up and mortally wounds Mando.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Deconstructed with Luke Cage (2016). Luke has impenetrable skin that bullets, blades, and other objects can't penetrate. However, only his skin is invincible, so when a weapon with enough concussive force is used against him, he can receive internal injuries.
    • In Jessica Jones (2015), the impact from Jessica firing a shotgun pressed directly against his neck in an attempt to break Kilgrave's control over him causes massive internal injuries and bleeding, which then can't be treated by conventional means because there's no way to get through his skin. Claire has to insert the needle through his eye socket to drain the fluid that builds up.
    • In Luke's own show, the first type of bullet that can penetrate Luke's skin comes along — the Judas, made of Chitauri metal with a bit of time-delayed explosives. When Diamondback shoots him with them, the Healing Factor makes it incredibly difficult for Claire to get it out, forcing Claire to take Luke all the way back to the doctor who supervised the original experiment that gave Luke his powers, then douse him in an acid bath along with some salt and boil it to weaken his skin enough to cut it and get the fragments out of him.
    • In the finale of WandaVision, Monica Rambeau leaps in front of Billy and Tommy when they are shot at by Hayward, and the bullets phase harmlessly through her body due to losing all their kinetic energy. Billy is also able to stop bullets in mid air due to inheriting his mother's Mind over Matter powers.
    • Sam Wilson a.k.a. the Falcon in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier blocks a hail of gunfire with his mechanical wings, though given Sam still has to dodge heavy artillery, this likely only applies to smaller firearms. His wrist gauntlet appears to be bulletproof as well.
    • Moon Knight (2022): In addition to granting an impressive Healing Factor, the Moon Knight armour is nearly indestructible. Marc protects Layla from a rain of gunfire with his cape, then launches all of the bullets right back at their assailants. Once Marc is Brought Down to Normal however, he's quickly killed by the Big Bad with a regular handgun.
  • In the Masters of Horror episode "Imprint", the disfigured prostitute and her evil mutant twin shrug off being shot and taunt Christopher that they'll follow him everywhere. This is because they are part of his deranged visions.
  • My Dead Ex: Ben is unaffected from being shot multiple times, as he just heals, though a shotgun knocks him down temporarily.
  • Any time in Power Rangers when the team whips out their big powerful team weapon (usually combined from each Ranger's personal weapon) to use on the Monster of the Week before the end of the episode draws near, you just know it's not going to work. The trope shows up in its classic form in Power Rangers Time Force. Initially mundane authorities, and later the Silver Guardians, will often try to take on the Monster of the Week before the Rangers show up. It never works, and Hilarity (of the extremely painful kind) Ensues.
  • In Smallville, Clark and other Kryptonians, obviously, although Clark likes to dodge or catch bullets when he's bored.
  • Pretty much every Monster of the Week in Special Unit 2. And there is that gnome liaison, Carl who is immune to everything except diamond...
  • Stargate SG-1:
    • The series used this for Anubis' Kull Warriors, which were basically indestructible by any weapon short of a heavy artillery shell (they can't fight physics). The Tok'ra and SGC had to develop a specialized energy weapon just to fight them.
    • Inverted with the Replicators, who were immune to energy weapons, but fell apart if struck by so much as a single bullet center mass. Human-form replicators play it straight, though.
    • Some Goa'uld like to use energy shields that render them immune to fast-moving bullets. But not to slower-moving thrown knives. That last part might be justified in that an energy shield that prevented ALL solid objects from penetrating it might prevent said Goa'uld from being able to partake in certain activities that are essential to life (such as eating) without deactivating the shield, as demonstrated by Rodney McKay in the Atlantis episode "Hide and Seek". The same idea was used in Dune, which is why learning to knife-fight was such a big deal in that universe.
  • The Wraith in Stargate Atlantis were first introduced as functionally Immune To Bullets due to their Healing Factor. After a season or so, however, Villain Decay set in, and now Wraith soldiers die just as easily as any other enemy Mook from a burst of P90 fire. Justified in that it was explicitly stated that their regeneration is based upon how long ago it was that they fed. With fewer supplies, most wraith haven't been feeding as much and thus, Villain Decay.
  • Stranger Things:
    • The Demogorgon the Arc Villain of Season 1 appears to be this which is confirmed in Season 4, high caliber bullets (even More Dakka from AK-47s) don't do much more than piss it the hell off thanks to its tough compostion being from the Upside Down. Fortunately the Demogorgon has a severe weakness to fire which Murray mercilessly explioits with a flamethrower Henry Kreel weakening the Demogorgon enough for Badass Normal Hopper to dice it up with a sword. The Demodogs are less study and can be brought down with assault rifles.
    • Henry Creel aka Vecna the Big Bad of Season 4, thanks to turning into a Humanoid Abomination due to years living in the Upside Down is largely immune to bullets. This is showcased when Nancy goes to town on him in the Final Battle with a sawn-off Remington 870 at point blank range (after Robin and Steve had just Flambéd him with Molotov Cocktails) as while she does manage to blow Vecna out of the window, in Michael Myers fashion Henry survives and walks it off. According to Will they did at least succeed in badly hurting him.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation (and later series) used this for the Borg, who would become immune to a particular phaser setting after the first (or sometimes second or third) time one of them was shot with it. Despite phaser immunities, the Borg were not actually immune to bullets, and actual firearms were quite effective against them. As was, surprisingly enough, melee combat with simple metal blades.
    • Technically, since the incident in question was on the holodeck, they were bullet-shaped force fields.
    • Worf chopping off a Borg's arm and tying his damaged suit shut with the severed wires in Star Trek: First Contact.
    • The changelings from Deep Space Nine are a race of intelligent slimes who can assume the form of other creatures or objects. Since they have no organs, they are immune to bullets, being stabbed, or blunt trauma. Even if parts of the body are cut off, they revert to ooze and remerge with the rest of the body. Energy weapons, fire, and electricity are the only thing that can harm them. Even then, a shapeshifted Klingon is shown needing an absolutely obscene amount of fire poured into it to kill it.
    • A similar case turned up in one of the Deep Space Nine novels: The frothingly xenophobic aliens known as the Bekkir are firearms junkies, but since everyone else in the Star Trek universe uses energy weapons, the Bekkir developed armor (even spacecraft-grade armor) designed to reflect energy weapon beams. The only ways to affect them: captured rifles, explosives (phasers overloaded into bombs), extreme heat, or an EMP.
  • The Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager, being a hologram. In fact, bullets just seem to go right through him.
  • Almost every monster in Supernatural is immune to normal bullets. The only thing shooting reliably (if it isn't salt or silver) does is piss the monster off.
  • In the Torchwood episode "Sleeper", the sleeper agents emit a field that makes them invulnerable to needles, scalpels and bullets — none can break their skin. However, by the end of the story, Torchwood has deactivated it, allowing them to fall to bullets.
  • The Twilight Zone (1959):
    • In "A Nice Place to Visit", Rocky Valentine discovers that Pip is not human when he shoots him and the bullets have no effect.
    • In "The Passersby", the Union soldier that Lavinia Godwin shoots suffers no ill effects from the bullet as he is already dead.
    • In "Printer's Devil", Douglas Winter shoots Mr. Smith three times in the chest at point-blank range but he is completely uninjured as he is the Devil.
  • Ultraman Titas of Ultraman Taiga can pull this off with the technique Wise Man's Muscle: By flexing his muscles, he can make low-level projectile and beam attacks bounce off his extremely toned abs and pecs.
  • The Umbrella Academy (2019):
    • The comical masks Hazel and Cha-Cha are bulletproof, seen when Five tries some Forced Friendly Fire on them in Episode 2.
    • In Season 2 in the Bad Future sequence, Luther was shown able to shrug off a Russian missile fired at his back. It's implied this at the peak of his powers given he's able to be killed by bullets and hurt by a knife in the previous season.
    • Both Vanya and Diego prove to be immune to bullets by either redirecting them with telekneis or making the rounds stop and implode in mid air.
  • The Visitors in V (1983) wear body armor to ward off small-calibre weapons fire. However, the Resistance eventually gets better ammo that can punch through while Donovan has a stolen energy pistol that is effective as well.
  • In Wynonna Earp, shooting revenants with anything other than the Earp Ancestral Weapon "Peacemaker" will at best slow them down. And even with Peacemaker, only hitting them between the eyes will kill them and send them back to Hell.

    Music 
  • In a line of the song "Attack of the Radioactive Hamsters From A Planet Near Mars," "Weird Al" Yankovic warns a group of soldiers not to waste their bullets, because shooting only makes the titular hamsters angry.
  • David Guetta: "I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose, fire away, fire away. Shoot me down, I won't fall, I am titanium".
  • The Men That Will Not Be Blamed for Nothing cannot be harmed by conventional weapons, according to the album This May Be The Reason Why The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing Cannot Be Harmed By Conventional Weapons, and this may be the reason why... whatever "this" is.

    Podcasts 

    Tabletop Games 
  • Novas in Aberrant have several different ways of becoming effectively immune to conventional weapons.
  • In the Atomic Robo RPG, "bulletproof" is an explicit benefit that "mega-stunts" (more powerful than stunts allowed to mere mortals at the cost of giving the game master more fate points to use to mess with the player characters) can provide; it also renders the character proof against less powerful attacks that aren't literally bullets, although it comes with a mandatory cost or weakness. For example, as in the comics, Robo's own "Just Guns?" mega-stunt makes him bulletproof — and provides him with an armor rating against heavier weapons, too — but leaves him vulnerable to strong electromagnetism.
  • Chainsaw Warrior has the final boss the Darkness. This entity is immune to every weapon you have except for your Laser Lance, a weapon that only has 3 shots to it. So save that Laser.
  • Deadlands. Virtually any sentient horror is going to have some form of the phrase "Immunity: Normal Weapons" in its description. Even some of the non-sentient ones do. Good time to go get those bullets blessed, compadre.
  • In the Original/Basic and Advanced versions of Dungeons & Dragons, many monsters were outright immune to all damage inflicted by weapons that weren't magical. Additionally, in these versions of the game, wizards could invoke this trope with a spell called "Protection From Normal Missiles", which made them immune to any projectile weapon that wasn't enchanted.
    • In fifth edition Lycanthropes are immune to damage from non magical, non silvered weapons, so a low level party could be taken out by a single wererat if they didn't have access to magic or magic weapons.
  • This is one of the many "Immune to X" creature power schticks in Feng Shui.
  • GURPS:
    • GURPS Supers had a section on how to make a character immune to bullets. Unliving (zombies), Homogeneous (blobs) and Diffuse (swarms) things are also extremely resistant to damage from bullets.
    • GURPS Magic has the Missile Shield spell. This spell causes ANY projectile (including bullets and cream pies) to flat out miss...no matter the shooter's skill. There is also the deadlier Reverse Missiles spell which, as the name implies, reflects all projectiles back to the attacker that launched them.
  • Mutants & Masterminds allows "Impervious" protection which automatically resists all damage below a certain threshold with conventional firearms topping out around 6 with pistol fire capping at 4. Alternately, there are characters with Immunity (Ballistic Weapons) for only a few more points. In 3E, a character needs 8 ranks of Impervious Toughness to be immune to pistols and 10 to be immune to all conventional guns that appear in the corebook.
  • White Wolf's Old World of Darkness and Chronicles of Darkness:
    • Vampires in both The Masquerade and The Requiem games aren't quite immune, but are highly resistant — where other creatures take lethal damage (gouging and tearing) from bullets, vampires take bashing (blunt impact) because bleeding out isn't a threat to them. Still, enough bullets will put them down. Werewolves are in a similar position (unless the bullet is silver); Mages not so much.
    • The squishiness of wizards is highly variable as well, sometimes changing abruptly with the addition of a single skill level. A mage in Ascension advanced enough in Forces, for instance, can simply declare that nothing moving over a certain speed is allowed to enter the space he's occupying that scene, making him effectively an example of this trope.
  • Anything with Mega-Damage in Rifts requires military-grade energy weapons or the like to damage.
  • Creatures with the Immunity to Normal Weapons power in Shadowrun take no damage from non-magical attacks if the damage isn't enough to punch through the Hardened Armor granted by the power (twice the creature's Magic attribute). If the creature has the Allergy negative quality, weapons made from that allergen bypass its immunity.
  • A Touch of Evil: Virtually all Ghost minions require you to use Spirit instead of Combat in a fight.
  • Warhammer 40,000 universe:
    • Zig-zagged, based on edition. Everything in Warhammer (Fantasy, 40,000, Age of Sigmar, or spin-off game) is time-bound. In the current edition (9th edition, late 2020), this trope is averted. Enough pistol fire from mooks with the weakest guns in the game will down even the biggest, baddest foes. "Enough" may mean thousands of shots, but every individual shot has a chance to damage any eligible target.
    • Warhammer changes over time; all examples should state when they were true. Some of the past rules can be seen below.
      • Before 7th Edition, small arms are little to no use against most of the "big things", to say nothing about Greater Daemons, Avatars of Khaine, or manifestations of the C'tan. Considering that the standard Redshirt Army firearm is a Frickin' Laser Beam capable of blowing limbs clean off and going through a few feet of concrete, that says a lot about how nasty-tough the opposition is. Then you get into stuff that Eldar monomolecular-edged shuriken and Space Marine 0.75 cal armor-piercing explosive Bolter rounds still ping off... Including in the game: A Strength 3 weapon (e.g. the lasgun) without special qualities can't do anything to a creature of Toughness 7 and above (it doesn't even get a roll), and will always ricochet on any vehicle (armor value starts at 10, which the shooter must beat with 3+1D6...)
      • Tau, who are terrible in close combat, pack weapons with enough firepower to have their small arms pose a credible threat to tanks. In early editions, Tau could bang out light vehicles with their rifles even on their front armor, and could pierce most tanks with their sidearms if they got to the weak rear armor. In the current (late 2020) edition, they can deal a ton of wounds to anything with their basic rifles.
      • Dark Eldar Grotesques, who are basically horrifically mutilated BDSM fans who have been weaponized and augmented with a variety of combat drugs and biological enhancements, had a special rule that allow them to ignore any and all shooting attacks that have a Str value below 5. They also have two wounds. Yeah. For the uninitiated, this means that they only die from shooting attacks which would normally kill them anyway. You need something more suited for destroying armored vehicles to drop a Grotesque.
      • Up until 7th Edition, any vehicle/walker with an armor value of 14. AV10 is enough to be immune to lasgun fire, AV11 shrugs off bolter fire, AV12 resists heavy bolters, AV13 assault cannons and AV14 laughs off even autocannons and plasma fire. It takes a lucky rocket or something even more powerful (meltagun, railgun) to even scratch it. As of 8th Edition, this is no longer the case.
  • In Warhammer, Bretonnian knights are immune to gunpowder weapons due to the magic provided by their faith in the Lady of the Lake. That is to say, most of the Bretonnian army is immune to gunpowder weapons.
  • Berserker zombies from Zombicide can only be killed with melee weapons.

    Video Games 
  • Despite being more of a horror game with limited gunplay, Alien: Isolation features both a .357 Magnum revolver and a pump-action shotgun. Neither of these weapons are capable of causing any meaningful damage to the Alien whatsoever, though the shotgun is at least capable of stunning it long enough for you to either haul ass away from it, or pull out a more effective weapon or gadget.
  • Bendy, in Bendy and the Ink Machine, where he is the only enemy that Henry can't kill with the tommy gun in Chapter 3.
  • Trying to shoot Robert and Rosalind Lutece in Bioshock Infinite just results in light mockery and wasted ammunition. This is just one of their stranger qualities.
  • In Bloodborne, the lore states that the Beasts simply shrug off regular bullets, which means that Hunters' firearms instead use Quicksilver (aka mercury) bullets infused with the user's blood - and even then, firearms are still generally much less effective than hacking and slashing Beasts to pieces.
  • Borderlands 2
    • There are a few enemies (mostly bosses) that have armor so tough that bullets bounce right off and have a chance to hit you. Normal bullets, anyway; E-Tech and explosive rounds do the trick.
    • Some of the raid bosses are invulnerable to bullets to some degree or other, and have a trick to hurting them. Deciduous has to be hit in a weak spot that moves now and then, for instance, while Master Gee can only be hurt by his own acid pools. The others are just Damage-Sponge Boss taken to the next level.
  • The Bunny Graveyard has an extreme example, with the false Skye surviving a shotgun point-blank to the eye right before the game began. Not only does she successfully capture her assailant (a young frog boy named Ben) perfectly fine, but thanks to her Healing Factor, she looks as if nothing happened in just a few hours.
  • While enemies in Castlevania aren't bulletproof, how much bullets are actually practical against them generally depends on the game and the type of gun.
  • Devil May Cry:
  • The dog from Duck Hunt, much to the player's rage when the son of a bitch laughs at you for the hundredth time! There is a way to avert this.
  • Eternal Darkness, in one of the few boss battles it has, using bullets on the Black Guardian all but makes it mock you for even thinking or trying to harm it with guns.
  • Final Fantasy being a JRPG series that runs on Critical Existence Failure, has this in later games as strong enemies and player characters can shrug off gunfire like it's nothing.
    • Played with concering Cloud in Final Fantasy VII while SOLDIERS are not bulletproof In-Universe (as poor Zack shows), Cloud just uses the flat of his BFS to block More Dakka and from Shinra troops.
    • Some enemies in Final Fantasy XII have a passive ability that makes damage from guns be practically worthless, forcing you to find other ways of hurting them.
    • When any of the L'cie of Final Fantasy XIII use a guard ability, they envelope themselves in a Beehive Barrier that makes them highly immune to damage, up to and exceeding machine gunfire.
  • First Encounter Assault Recon:
    • Alma. Seriously, you've possibly emptied entire magazines into her, thrown a grenade at her, hell, you even blew up a nuclear reactor. Trust me on this one, it isn't going to work. Justified in that she's a ghost, more specifically an onryo. Subverted at the end of the first game, where shooting Alma is mandatory to prevent her from killing the Point Man.
  • In Gears of War, the berserker locust can only be killed by the hammer of dawn.
  • Half-Life 2's bigger synth enemies (Striders and Gunships) are essentially immune to any sort of normal ammunition, so they have to be dispatched with rocket launchers or energy orbs.
    • The large mechanical enemies are not immune to normal fire, but they're generally too powerful to be ditched by normal means. Also, the Hunters were specifically coded to take much more damage from physics objects than bullets.
  • Temperance, one of the bosses of House of the Dead 4, cannot be injured with bullets. Since this is a light-gun game, that bodes ill for the main characters. The only way to defeat it is to fight your way to the top of a clocktower, lure Temperance under a giant clock face, and drop it onto the monster's head.
    • The World in the same game, as well as High Priestess and The Moon in Scarlet Dawn, all downplay this trope. Their health bars can be depleted by just shooting at them, but bullets alone can't put them down for good; they are instead killed with something more destructive (blown up by a self-destructing PDA, ignited by a flammable liquid, and struck by lightning due to being impaled by a rod, respectively).
  • Honkai Impact 3rd: Even the standard mook Honkai beasts are immune to bullets because of their silicon-based armour. It takes anti-tank weaponry to defeat them, and elite mook Honkai beasts are even tougher than that, being able to withstand multiple shots from tank rounds.
  • In Injustice: Gods Among Us, everyone eventually gets enhanced by Kryptonian nanotechnology, explaining how the Non-Powered Costumed Heroes and villains can fight the Flying Bricks and the like in gameplay. The first demonstration of this is when The Joker gets shot with a machine gun right after being enhanced — and it doesn't so much as affect his clothing.
  • The monster under the school in Kindergarten. Which leads to the principal, who kidnapped one of the students and has a habit of using his trust Hand Cannon to deal with problem children, getting a big dose of karma.
  • In Kingpin: Life of Crime, a particularly grating instance of this trope occurs at the end of the game. At the end, you fight against the Kingpin and his henchwoman (some claim girlfriend) Blunt. You can hurt the Kingpin just fine, but Blunt is completely Immune To Bullets. Fortunately, you can set her on fire with the flamethrower (it will not kill her), and she will run around screaming instead of shooting at you. When you kill off the Kingpin, a cutscene occurs in which Blunt will run off and escape via helicopter and warn you that you may become the new Kingpin, but she will be back. That is right, this trope was applied on her because the developers wanted her to survive and make a Sequel Hook. Were they truly unable to find a way to accomplish this without making her Immune To Bullets?
  • The skeletons from Majesty are almost impossible to hit with arrows, though it's not explained if this is from the lack of vital organs to hurt with them, or that the bony frame is genuinely hard to hit. Either way, don't try to fight skeletons with arrows, it doesn't work.
  • This is an ability in the old strategy title Master of Magic. Missile Immunity is a fairly rare ability enjoyed by various units, the most basic of which is the low-level Skeletons (which have no vital organs and thus could care less about your arrows) and a few other units (such as units protected by wind magic). Interestingly, Missile Immunity wasn't immunity at all, it was just an immense amount of extra Defense that only worked against physical projectiles-the halfling slingers could get powerful enough to crack it.
  • Metal Gear:
    • Fortune from Metal Gear Solid 2 causes bullets to swerve away from her for no apparent reason, which extends to any explosives in her vicinity (all duds). How she does die is all part of MGS2's Gainax Ending.
    • In Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, cyborg technology has advanced so far that the carbon-fiber musculature of military-grade cyborgs can shrug off bullets with ease, and the only thing that can really damage them is the uber-sharp cutting power of High-Frequency swords, this and Rule of Cool explaining why everyone's fighting with swords in 2018. To hammer this home, a few police cyborgs holding Raiden at gunpoint decide to use lethal force, and promptly put away their pistols and prepare to thwack him with their reinforced batons.
  • Certain armored personnel carriers in the Modern Warfare series are bulletproof and even immune to frag grenades and grenade launchers.
  • In Mortal Kombat many of the denizens of Outworld and supernatural characters aren't bothered by high velocity firerounds. In MK9 Reptile when shot at spits out an acidic mist do that Stryker and Kabal's bullets don't hurt him and in MKX Fallen Elder God Shinnok when shot at by Sonya, just creates barrier in the air like Joesph Joestar forcing Sonya to toss her assault rifle aside. Played straight with in MK11 Kabal when fired upon by Cassie, as he just uses his Super-Reflexes to dice the bullets out of the air with his hookblades before they reach him. Averted with human characters like Johnny as he freaks out to his older future self, when a bullet scrapes his cheek. Played straight in the matches themselves as non-supernatural characters can survive getting shot up by the likes of Cassie or Erron Black and get back up no problem.
  • "Chaff Field" boost ability in MS Saga: A New Dawn is a skill that makes any bullet attack become ineffective.
  • The Orgamechs from NanoBreaker are mechanical enemies made of nanomachines, and feeds on metal. The opening FMV depicting the military's disastrous attempts at containing them has their bullets getting harmlessly absorbed and assimilated into the Orgamechs, who then proceed to slaughter and infect everyone.
  • Many higher-level enemies in Ninja Gaiden are immune to standard shuriken or can block them if Ryu fires them off-the-cuff. Fortunately, he has more powerful stuff.
  • [PROTOTYPE]: Though not completely immune to firearms, Alex Mercer can take a lot of bullets without much trouble — especially with the Armor evolution. It isn't until the tanks and missiles launchers and aircraft arrive that there's a real threat to him. James Heller of the sequel can get an upgrade that makes him fully immune to bullets, yet enemy soldiers will still shoot at him, possibly dying of their own richochet. Like Mercer, Heller still has to deal with the heavier weapons.
  • In the Survival Horror h-game "Overgrown: Genesis" the Dryad is this to the fullest degree, forcing Juno into a brief game of Cat & Mouse. It's only when Juno utilizes the ventilation systems to circulate a certain airborne compound that weakens it and is then no longer immune to firearms and thus able to be defeated by Juno.
  • Psychonauts gives us this gem:
    Lungfishopolis Citizen: Good Lord! He is impervious to bullets... and love!
  • Resident Evil:
    • While a great many enemies in the series have proven to be particularly tough to kill, Nemesis is possibly the most bullet-resistant of them all. If a player is feeling particularly aggressive, they could empty hundreds of bullets and plenty of explosives and all they would manage to do is repeatedly knock it out for a few minutes. Ironically, bullets do kill it in the end (if the player chooses to do so), but only after being doused in acid and shot with a railgun. Even then, it isn't clear if it stays dead until the town gets nuked.
    • Predating Nemesis in the firearm-proof Department is the Tyrants who tank shotgun blasts, magnum rounds, grenade blasts and they can even survive taking a dip in molten steel (unlike Terminators). It takes a RPG used in Final Battle to actually kill them, though in Resident Evil: Damnation Super Tyrants knock missiles away like softballs and Leon has to use a tank cannon (and some Lickers) to take one out. Mr X from the remake of Resident Evil 2 is the pinnacle of this. No amount of bullets can even knock him out; at most he'll just stumble for a few seconds. The only way to get him off your back for any length of time is to progress the story. Mr X does ultimately get killed by an anti-tank RPG, but on the hardest difficulty, Mr X can tank one shot requiring a second.
    • Although he can just Dodge the Bullet with his Super-Speed, Albert Wesker is durable enough to survive fire rounds as you will discover in Resident Evil 5 when you actually shoot him though enough rounds and headshots (especially with the sniper rifle) can stagger him... but won't kill him. It gets more crazy as Wesker survives a goddamn RPG missile exploding in his face and is only incapacitated. It takes a boiling volcano and two rockets to make sure he is Killed Off for Real.
    • Lord Osmund Saddler also demonstrates this towards the end of Resident Evil 4. Ada Wong unloads an entire machine gun magazine into his chest, but Saddler is barely fazed by this. He simply moves all the bullets through his body and out of his hand no worse for wear. This is also present in gameplay, as shooting him too much during his Separate Ways boss fight will result in him firing the bullets out of his fingers and back at you.
    • Jack and Magritte Baker as well as Mia are immune to bullets thanks to The Virus giving them a strong Healing Factor. Jack, for instance, puts a gun barrel inside his mouth and pulls the trigger just to demonstrate his Nigh-Invulnerability to the player. He gets up to chase you down only a minute later.
  • Return to Castle Wolfenstein features a nearly identical subversion to the Buffy one. In the game's opening cutscene, it's shown that the Sealed Evil in a Can had to be sealed because none could kill him — but that was in 943, and the game takes place in 1943. Killing him is much more possible when he's confronted with an improbably vast arsenal of real and fictional World War II-era weaponry, as it turns out.
  • The defensive upgrades available to the Boss in Saints Row: The Third gradually make you more resistant to bullets, falling, vehicle hits, fire, and explosions, with the final upgrade in each list granting complete immunity. The only damage types that don't have defensive upgrades are melee attacks and exploding vehicles you're driving.
  • Most bosses in the Serious Sam series are immune to regular bullets, forcing the player to break out the rocket launcher or laser gun. Sam 3 adds a few normal enemies that also require explosives to kill — fortunately, at least one type is usually encountered around the same time the player finds crates of infinite C4 charges.
  • All Shin Megami Tensei games with a Gun element have demons that resist, nullify, reflect, or are healed by gun damage, though with it being fairly rare. Later games tend to let humans have access to these types of abilities as well, though in Digital Devil Saga humans are weak to gun damage, no exceptions. It is also worth to mention that in Shin Megami Tensei V, there is a part in which demons, when brought to a corporeal form, are stated to be unaffected by the weapons of the military, which includes anti-tank weaponry, with some fans stating that it didn't affect them because of their intangibility, and with others saying that the reason on why the protagonists of many of the franchise's games can affect demons with weapons is due to the in-universe ability known as "Observation" or "Cognition", as well as the fact that demons attack in a spiritual way, and since the protagonists are able to affect them, all of their attacks should attack at that level as well.
    • In the first Persona, all Zombie-type enemies are completely immune to gunfire. Worse, some enemies reflect bullets.
  • In an early cutscene in Sonic Adventure, we find that Chaos, even in his weakest form, seems immune to bullets. Of course, this may be because they were shooting center mass, where there's nothing but water to hit. One wonders what would've happened if they had tried to shoot 'im in the head. They should have just chucked a hedgehog at him... because that works, apparently.
  • The first Syphon Filter has Girdeux and Rhoemer. The former is justified by having full body armor (except for his flamethrower tank), but the latter has no visible armor(Mission Control says he has some sort of "advanced polymer armor" undergarment, but that doesn't explain his immunity to headshots). The second game has the fully-armored Emergency Defense Squad soldiers who can only be killed by explosions, and Chance, the Final Boss, who has advanced explosion-resistant armor and must be defeated via Helicopter Blender. In the third game, Rhoemer returns in a flashback with the same advanced armor as Chance.
  • Team Fortress 2:
    • The Medic's Ubercharge, which grants total invulnerability to everything except a select few environmental hazards for eight seconds to whoever he's healing at the moment.
    • The Scout's Bonk! Atomic Punch causes him to vibrate so quickly that bullets pass right through him for a few seconds. He's not immune to the kinetic force, however, and many an inexperienced scout has found himself pinned to a wall thirty feet in the air by a sentry until his invulnerability wears off.
  • Bryan Fury from Tekken cannot be harmed by bullets, and can even survive explosions without so much as a scratch on him. This is less because he already died once (though he did) and more because he was revived as a cyborg. Of course, he can be brought down in hand-to-hand combat like any other character.
    • Some characters don't even need to be a Cyborg or Demon to be bulletproof as Heihatchi Mishima gloriously displays by catching Lars's bullet with his teeth.
  • Tomb Raider likes to have boss fights whose bosses are immune to bullets:
    • Tomb Raider II has Marco Bartoli transform into a dragon and attacks Lara. He can soak up a ton of bullets and even numerous grenade launcher shots. Marco does eventually fall when shot enough times, but only removing the Dagger of Xian from his stomach will truly kill him. Failing to get the dagger out in time will have Marco revive back to full strength, effectively restarting the fight.
    • Tomb Raider III has two bosses who are immune to Lara's weaponry. Sofia, a CEO of a cosmetics company who is over 100 years old, is immune to bullets and explosives due to one of the meteorite artifacts she possesses. The only way she can be killed is by forcing her to climb up the building she is on when Lara also climbs up and then shooting an electrical box so that the floor Sofia stands on becomes electrified, thus electrocuting her to death. Dr. Willard uses the power of all four artifacts to unlock a pool of green liquid that he throws himself into to transform into a mutated giant spider. Like with Marco, Dr. Willard can be put down with enough bullets, but it only temporarily incapacitates him and barely gives you enough time to retrieve one of the artifacts in the room. Once Lara gets all four artifacts, the mutated doctor loses his immunity to bullets and can be killed.
    • Set in Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation is immune to all of Lara's weaponry, but it's justified since he's a god. Lara can only avoid his attacks as long as she can until she reaches the upper chamber and seals him away.
    • The final level in Tomb Raider Chronicles has two cyborgs that are immune to bullets, but can be destroyed by other methods. The first cyborg Lara encounters has to be shot at enough times until it loses enough of its skin and suit to reveal its robotic skeleton underneath, then flood the room with water so it gets electrocuted and shorts out. The second cyborg has to be lured into a specific room and have it be trapped it there while having Lara fill said room with poisonous gas so she can destroy it.
  • In Until Dawn, the Wendigos as the Stranger explains have extremely tough skin, so much so that bullets can't kill them. Shotguns, as Chris and Mike show, can knock them back but won't actually injure them. The only surefire way to kill them is to burn them alive, but since killing a Wendigo releases its spirit (allowing it possesses someone else) the Stranger advises against it. The survivors are given no choice, however.
  • In Warlock: Master of the Arcane (a sequel/spinoff to the Majesty games), Skeletons (of which several variants now exist) are highly resistant to projectile-damage as before, and there are a variety of spells and skills that can give the same effect to other units — most notably the Wind Shield, which in some cases can also be extended to all the units around you. However, the Ghosts raise the bar significantly by being COMPLETELY immune to both projectiles AND melee-attacks, what with being immaterial and all... and since they're dead, they're also immune to Death-type magic, leaving you with a relatively short list of damage-forms that'll actually work on them. Too bad they're also really weak.
  • The Lobstermen in X-COM: Terror from the Deep are virtually immune to most projectile weapons, taking only 50% damage from sonic weapons and less from all others (basic guns do 20% of their normal damage, and Gauss guns do 30%). The only thing the Lobstermen are fully vulnerable to is stun weapons (100% damage) and bladed melee weapons (200% damage). They also functionally ignore explosions (40% normal damage), and are immune to natural alien weaponry, like the Deep One's acid spit.
  • In X-Men: The Ravages of Apocalypse, Archangel appears as one of the cloned X-Men and is immune to rockets, using his metallic wings to shield himself from them.

    Visual Novels 
  • Bullets and even missiles or tank shells just bounce right off the dragon in Dra+Koi. They have no effect whatsoever because only a Hero can slay a dragon.
  • In Nasuverse works like Fate/stay night, it is briefly mentioned in supplemental material that Servants cannot be harmed at all by non-magical attacks, so guns, unless they are supernatural in nature, have no effect on them. In one scene in Fate/Zero, Kiritsugu Emiya has his sniper rifle trained on Lancer, but decides not to fire because it wouldn't do anything and would just give away his position. The same work then presents the aversion when Berserker gets his hands on some ordinary machine guns and, since one his abilities turns whatever he grabs into a low-ranking Noble Phantasm, he forces Saber to start running while he blasts away.

    Web Animation 
  • DSBT InsaniT: ???'s Guardromon Mooks are immune to bullets, being robots and all.
  • In If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device: Bro Trip 40000 Episode 3, a Commissar keeps trying to execute the Semi-Divine Primarch Corvus Corax (who's currently in indentured service and being mistaken for an Ogryn). Corvus doesn't object because he's angsty and always saying he wants to die, but the Commissar can't find big enough guns to make a dent on him. At least the Comissar is trying bigger weapons every time instead of just Shooting Superman, although he still treats Corvus's bullet immunity like it's just insubordination.
  • Minilife TV: In "The X-Team Attacks", one member of the X-Team learns the hard way that Slar the crocodile is bulletproof when he tries to shoot him with a machine gun.
  • God told Roger, The Nostalgia Critic's guardian angel, that nothing could kill an angel. In an aversion it turns out bullets work well enough.
  • Averted/Inverted in Red vs. Blue. Due to the show's massively comedic violence, the characters can withstand all manner of physical punishment (including super-powered punches, 800-foot falls, and being smashed in the crotch with a concrete divider) with only mild-to-moderate discomfort. Bullets, however, are one of the few things that can reliably and seriously injure a character. Even the Freelancer Super Soldiers can be seriously harmed by just a couple bullet hits, since they don't have energy shields like SPARTANs do.

    Webcomics 
  • In FreakAngels they find out that their superpowers can help them survive any death; this is discovered after a few bullets to the head.
    • "Jack's alive."
    • "He can't be ... I shot him through the brain. I stood over him and fired into his head."
    • "Yes, and he's apparently unhappy about that."
  • Girl Genius: Martellus' spark hounds are pointless to shoot at and near unkillable for the average person, luckily they exist in a World of Badass but they still end up killing a lot of sympathetic characters.
  • Grrl Power: Peggy, The Team Normal, gets around this to an extent by bringing an anti-material rifle (the kind of gun used for sniping tanks) and knocking out enemy supers with it.
    Harem: I was wondering how you were going to use that in a non-lethal engagement.
    Peggy: There are a lot of super powers that make bullets mostly just annoying.
  • In Homestuck, Jade's "dog" Becquerel plays fetch with bullets.
    • And now a bunch of the enemies have the same ability. Oh, Crap!.
      • Neither Becquerel nor the enemies are actually immune to bullets. Bec can simply manipulate the momentum of objects as they travel through space and teleport them. The enemies can just teleport.
    • We learn that Gamzee possesses this ability after he takes a few hundred machine gun bullets in the torso. According to Wordof God, he's virtually indestructible.
      • It's worth noting that he isn't bulletproof in a way that the bullets bounce off of him, but rather just continues to survive no matter how many times he's shot or wounded.
  • Kill Six Billion Demons: Angels and devils are both immune to bullets: Devils are made up of the chaotic Hot Black Flame and their Healing Factor lets them recover instantly from bullet holes, while angels are full-fledged Energy Beings in Containment Clothing armour: Putting holes in their armour doesn't harm the angel at all. Bullets made from Puresilver will do the trick, however, by blocking the Atum that flows through their bodies. This usually causes devils' body parts to explode violently on impact and angels to lose connection with their armour, rendering them inert.
  • Parodied in Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, comic for 2003-01-22: Sure, Superman is immune to bullets, but what about a knife?
  • The title character of Schlock Mercenary, being a carbosilicate amorph, is not affected by bullets; they harmlessly pass through him (it does tend to piss him off though). The other mercenaries in the company wear "low-profile" power-armor (resembling cloth Star Trek uniforms) which completely protects them from small arms fire (provided they have deployed their retractable helmet to avoid head shots) but offers only limited protection against large caliber, especially powerful, or energy-based weapons.
  • Sleepless Domain: The monsters that attack the city by night are immune to conventional weaponry. The only ones with the power to harm these monsters are the magical girls tasked with defending the city.
  • Sluggy Freelance:
    • Cloney the cloned alien has such a thick shell that it blocks not only bullets but also the heavier weaponry carried by Riff.
    • In "KITTEN II", people are using guns on the Satan-spawned kittens not to hurt them but to toss them away briefly.
  • In Trevor (2020), Trevor comes out of heavy gunfire no worse for wear, thanks to his insane Healing Factor.

    Web Original 
  • Deviant: Played with. Cass, the protagonist, gets shot by Godsend during the first arc, but manages to — somehow — power through it. This resilience is noted by several characters, as a Deviant being able to tank something like this is fairly rare. The only other example shown in-story so far is Tsunami, who is very much an outlier.
  • Shadow Hawk from Epic Tales is immune to bullets. And everything else. Now, if only the writer would take better advantage of this, and put him in all sorts of deadly situations.
  • New York Magician: A lot of the magical denizens of the city can stand up to even Michel's Desert Eagle. So he sometimes has to get...creative.
  • Prolecto has Succubi who can heal so quickly, that bullets become meaningless. In a subversion, this DOES mean that a sufficient quantity of bullets can be used to STUN them.
  • The Demons in The Salvation War could soak up a lot of small arms fire. Their thick skin could take up over a clip of 5.56×45mm NATO rounds, meaning that infantry had little protection on their own against the Baldericks. The solution? Use bigger bullets.
  • SCP Foundation:
    • SCP-093 ("Red Sea Object"). The six-story tall half-giants that haunt SCP-093's world are not affected by bullets from pistols and automatic weapons.
    • SCP-096 ("The Shy Guy"). SCP-096 was shot in the leg and head by a modified XM 500 anti-materiel rifle but wasn't even slowed down. Even if shot with thousands of rounds of ammo or hit with an anti-tank launcher, it will keep on attacking.
    • SCP-354 ("The Red Pool"). At least three of the monsters that have come out of SCP-354 have been effectively immune to bullets, including SCP-354-2 ("virtually bulletproof"), SCP-354-4 ("Gunfire caused very little physical harm and was highly ineffective") and SCP-354-16 ("Gunfire proved mostly ineffective against its hide.").
    • SCP-772 ("Giant Parasitoid Wasps"). The Apocalyptic Log of the scientist that discovered them and the Foundation's report say that SCP-772 is not harmed by bullets.
    • SCP-855 ("The Film Hall"). While the Hall was in Horror Film mode, a killer from a Slasher Movie emerged and attacked the guards, who reported that bullets had little effect on him.
    • SCP-896 ("Online Role Playing Game"). One of the test subjects had his Stamina (constitution, resistance to injury, etc.) statistic increased so high that he became immune to bullets from standard issue firearms.
    • SCP-974 ("Treehouse Predator"). Combat between Foundation troops and SCP-974 has shown that it isn't affected by small arms fire.
    • SCP-1111 ("The White Dog"). When Foundation personnel shot at the white dog their bullets passed right through it due to its Intangibility.
    • SCP-1160 ("Effective Containment"). SCP-1160 cannot be damaged by any form of conventional firearm.
    • SCP-1308 ("Hungarian Floater"). The Special Containment Procedures for SCP-1308 say that gunfire is of limited effectiveness against it due to lack of discernible vital organs.
    • SCP-1381 ("Cats' Cabinet"). When a big cat (lion, tiger, etc.) enters the Cabinet, sometime later cat-like creatures called SCP-1381-01 emerge from it. SCP-1381-01 are unharmed by bullets.
    • SCP-1447 ("Tulpa"). SCP-1447-1 (the Tulpa) is nearly immune to bullets from standard-issue sidearms.
    • SCP-1678 ("UnLondon"). SCP-1678-A ("Bobbies") are dismembered and crudely re-assembled human corpses. They are immune to standard firearms but can be affected by large-caliber bullets.
    • SCP-1936 ("Daleport"). One of the Daleport creatures is a sheet of mobile skin in the shape of a fractal. A number of Foundation personnel and robots armed with firearms opened fire on it with little or no effect.
    • SCP-2610 ("Procreation"). SCP-2610-E are mutated human beings who are effectively immune to small arms fire.
    • SCP-2709 ("Can Anyone Hear You Scream?"). SCP-2709-1 is a gigantic ant lion (insect) with inch-thick chitin skin armor, which causes bullets to be ineffective against it.
    • SCP-2863 ("がしゃどくろ"). SCP-2863 are giant skeletons that bite off people's heads and drink their blood. Conventional weaponry (such as firearms) has no effect on them.
    • SCP-2970 ("Holy Misplacement"). SCP-2970 is a human being who was given magical artificial implants to improve his capabilities. When he broke containment and escaped from site 30, bullets fired at him were deflected before hitting him.
    • SCP-2975 ("Another Sun"). Another Sun is a Tale associated with SCP-2975. After Mobile Task Force Sigma-3 enters a crevasse and is transported to another world, they see gigantic wolf-like beings as tall as a skyscraper. When they fire on one such being, it has no effect at all.
  • The Slender Man. He's also immune to cars.

    Western Animation 
  • Part of the Cartoon Physics trope in numerous Warner Bros and M-G-M cartoons. Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Wile E. Coyote, and even Bugs Bunny himself have at various times been shot point-blank with a gun, and invariably suffer nothing more than slight bewilderment and Ash Face.
    • In the Daffy Duck cartoon The Stupor Salesman there is actually an explanation: he is wearing a bulletproof vest.
  • Stan Smith of American Dad! was once denied a second chance at life, and then pulled a gun on a court full of angels. They all laughed and said an earthly gun can't hurt them, so Stan punches out a bailiff and takes his heaven gun, which can kill anything (one may seriously question why they have those).
  • Captain Hero, the expy of Superman, from Drawn Together is, but that doesn't stop him from using a Human Shield.
  • Played for Laughs in an episode of Family Guy. When Death sprains his ankle and is laid up, he can't do his job. Peter, being Peter, goes to the bar and deliberately pisses off some bikers. He gets shot many times, but doesn't die. Eventually this culminates in a Matrix-style John Woo shootout where everyone gets shot constantly (we see bloody bullet holes) but nobody dies.
  • Played for Laughs in an episode of Futurama, when a robot owes money to the Robot Mafia. They shoot until he is filled with holes, then the don says "Let that be a warning to you."
    • In one of the movies, the Don Bot catches his wife cheating on him with Bender. Both are shot with machine guns and buried in the desert. Bender later explains that the Don Bot did this twice as a warning.
    • A planet of robots has a B-grade monster movie where the monster is a human who is "impervious to their most powerful magnetic rays", yet can be brought down by a simple sharpened stick.
  • G.I. Joe: Renegades features the Bio-Vipers, which except for a massive explosion or some industrial weed-killer, are nearly indestructible.
  • Jonny Quest episode "The Curse of Anubis". When Dr. Kareem is attacked by the mummy, he fires multiple gunshots into it but it is completely unaffected.
  • Played with in Justice League Unlimited, during the time travel episode where Wonder Woman, Batman, and Green Lantern travel to the old west. They are ambushed by thugs who shoot at them, and Wonder Woman remarks "those are the slowest bullets I've ever seen" while effortlessly fending them off with her bracelets.
  • The Powerpuff Girls are immune to bullets.
    Blossom: [as bank robbers' bullets are bouncing off of her and her sisters] Why do they always wanna do it the hard way?
  • The Simpsons:
    • In "Bart the General", Bart's nightmare about a giant Nelson has the former shooting at the latter with a Tommy gun, only for every bullet to bounce off. Once the clip runs dry, he throws it at Nelson, who catches and eats it.
    • In the "Treehouse of Horror XIV" segment "Reaper Madness", after Homer kills Death, we see Fat Tony and his goons trying to shoot Frankie the Squealer, but he keeps on living.
      Mafia thug: Frankie the Squealer, why won't you DIE?!
      Frankie: If I knew, I'd tell you, I swear! [they keep shooting] Better call my wife, tell her I'll be late. [takes out mobile while still being shot]
  • Lampshaded in Star Wars: The Clone Wars when one of the clone troopers assigned to guard the captured Zillo Beast questioned the point when its scales were impervious to even lightsabers, which are known for their ability to penetrate nearly anything.
  • Star Wars Rebels:
    • "The Honorable Ones": Bahryn, a frozen moon of Geonosis, is home to giant lizards called bonzami, which are only irritated by blaster fire. Kallus finally manages to kill one of them by shooting it in the mouth.
    • "The Mystery of Chopper Base": The planet Atollon, where Phoenix Squadron has set up a new base, is home to Giant Spiders called krykna which are resilient to everything from hand blasters to the Ghost's cannons. They're vulnerable only to getting shot in the eye, lightsabers and grenades.
    • The Imperial sentry droids first seen in "The Wynkahthu Job" are extremely resilient. Presumably, they're not lightsaber-proof, but that was never tested on-screen.
  • Star Wars Resistance: In "Signal from Sector Six", the giant Kowakian ape-lizard Kaz and Poe encounter on a derelict freighter is only minimally affected at best by blaster fire.
  • The "Tyrannosaurus" from the 1940s Superman cartoon "The Arctic Giant", created twelve years before Godzilla.

    Real Life 
  • A positively eerie Real Life example is George Washington. According to certain tales one of the Indian chiefs was convinced the man was picked by Heaven itself for its tasks precisely because no bullet ever fired at him ever seemed to leave more than a hole in his clothes.
    • Legend holds that Grigori Rasputin, trope namer of Rasputinian Death, survived being shot multiple times (as well as poisoned) before finally being drowned. In truth, the subsequent autopsy showed that a bullet to the head did kill him; the tales of Rasputin's apparent invulnerability are now attributed to fanciful exaggeration and the sheer incompetence of his assassins.
    • Blackbeard soaked up a lot of punishment before he dropped, too.
    • Keith Richards, of the Rolling Stones, cannot be killed by conventional weapons.
    • Perhaps more so than Washington was Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson, who suffered many a bullet wound from all the duels he participated in (mostly over his wife's honor), but never had them removed. Legend was Jackson had so many bullets in his body that he rattled as he walked.
      • He dug one bullet out of himself during a boring Cabinet meeting and promptly sent it to the man who put it in him saying "You can have this back."
      • He was just too savvy for his era. Lead musket balls, as very slow-flying ammo, might have done horrible, but not life-threatening wounds, while the attempt to remove them with dirty instruments of the time would lead to septicemia and death. By leaving the bullets in the body, Jackson did the most reasonable thing to protect his own life.
      • Bullets learned about Jackson's invulnerability and decided against challenging him, unfortunately for would-be assassin Richard Lawrence, whose guns both failed, earning him a Cane Fu beatdown from Jackson that only stopped when Jackson's own staff physically restrained him.
    • The Indian chief Crazy Horse (one of the chiefs responsible for the downfall of Custer, the other two being Sitting Bull and Gall) was of the belief that he was magically immune to bullets, apparently because he had miraculously avoided being hit by them when everyone around him was shot on various occasions. To be sure, he never was shot — he died by being stabbed.
    • Wyatt Earp: for all the gun fights he had been in, he still walked away without a scratch. Most infamous were the OK Corral Shootout where he was the only participant to walk away unwounded, and a shootout with Curly Bill and other Cowboys at the Iron Springs watering hole where Curly shot at near point blank range and missed while Wyatt walked up and killed Curly with a shotgun blast, and shot two more Cowboys. Wyatt walked away from that fight with 7 bullet holes in his overcoat and one in the heel of his boot, but no wounds. This is what they say in Tombstone when that scene plays out:
    Texas Jack: You ever seen somethin' like that before?
    Turkey Creek Jack Johnson: Hell, I never even heard of something like that. Never!
    Sherman McMaster: Where is he?
    Doc Holiday: Down by the creek. Walkin' on water.
    • In his fatal shootout with the FBI, Baby Face Nelson not only withstood 17 close-range bullet wounds (from a Thompson submachine gun and a shotgun) without flinching but managed to kill both of his assailants before fleeing the scene with his wife and partner.
    • In Seven Pillars of Wisdom T.E. Lawrence recounts the Arab chieftain Auda abu Tayi being grazed by a dozen Turkish bullets, with his binoculars smashed and robes perforated, without serious injury. Auda additionally claimed to have been wounded 23 times in battle.
    • Jean Lannes, one of Napoleon's Marshals, could actually be shot, but it didn't keep him down for long. He was not the most wounded officer of that time (he wasn't even shot five times in the chest in the course of his career like, say, Nicolas Oudinot), but he was the only one with a reputation for having bones so hard that bullets bounced right off them. He did die young, but it was of gangrene after a cannonball tore through his legs.
    • Sabu once took down a shooter at a party. It turned out in rushing the man he was shot point blank in the head and the bullet shattered on impact, though the debris would stay under his skin for years, so not totally immune.
    • Emmett Dalton, of the Dalton Gang. In 1892, he and four other gang members, including two of his brothers, attempted to rob two banks in Coffeyville, Kansas. All four of his comrades were killed in the ensuing shootout. Emmett sustained 23 gunshot wounds and continued to live until 1937.
  • The frigate USS Constitution (the oldest commissioned warship still afloat) gained her nickname "Old Ironsides" during the War of 1812, as her tough live oak construction meant that enemy cannon fire would sometimes bounce off her hull.
  • Pretty much all modern armored vehicles are at the very least immune to attack from small arms. A few lighter vehicles are even capable of resisting mines and anti-tank rockets, though anything that isn't a tank is going to be taken apart by high velocity armor-piercing ammunition. In the case of main battle tanks, they're practically invulnerable to any anti-tank weapon that isn't current generation. The famed RPG-7 tends to have about the same effect on modern tanks as a pigeon, as proven in one case where a British Challenger 2 MBT took around seventy rockets and still managed to keep going. American M1 Abrams MBTs have been able to take multiple hits from their own gun in a number of friendly fire cases and are so difficult to destroy by their crews that it will often require the insides to be stuffed full of C4 to blow them apart.
    • In case you're wondering, having their shells explode while inside them isn't enough to do an Abrams in, It'll just get turned into a fireball shooting upwards and out of the tank — without harming anyone/anything inside.
  • Speaking of modern armor, there's also body armor too — there's this video showing a soldier in Iraq who gets sniped centre of mass, only to get up again. Cue freaked-out insurgents.
    • Even better, the soldier they shot was an army medic, who proceeded to treat one of the insurgents for bullet wounds after the squad hunted them down.
    • While it won't make you IMMUNE to bullets, modern body armor is still a lot better than it's given credit for. Some heavier suits are incredibly resistant to rifle fire, and even "standard" military issue armor can keep its user alive and even combat ready after several hits from a modern rifle.
    • It only takes about 6 or 7 millimeters - that is, 1/4 inch - of AR-500 steel to be basically immune to standard ball rifle ammunition.note  Even the thinnest armor panels of the lightest armored vehicles tend to match or exceed that (with the additional benefit of angling).
  • The eponymous Boxers of the Boxer Rebellion thought they were immune to bullets due to practicing a form of "Iron Shirt" qigong that is supposed to harden the body against most forms of physical attack. They were not.
    • Similarly, some more fanatical militiamen (including Child Soldiers) in West Africa believe they become immune to bullets if they take certain medicines before battle.
    • Harder drugs can cause one to behave as if immune to bullets. Of course, when the drugs wear off, you're gonna be feeling those wounds.
  • Selecting the proper caliber of gun is extremely important depending on the type of target. The lightest caliber bullets are only effective for target practice or extremely close range. Some of the most tragic police shootouts have occurred because law enforcement had underpowered weapons against criminals with body armor. For example, the North Hollywood shootout of 1997, where heavily armed and armored bank robbers robbed a Bank of America in North Hollywood, California. The police found their service pistols and shotguns weren't penetrating their body armor. By the time both robbers had been killed (one by self-inflicted gunshot, the other bled to death), the police had fired over 650 rounds and the robbers themselves had been hit ten times.
    • Even more incredible were the perps in the 1986 FBI Miami Shootout. Between the two of them, they took 18 bullets to finally die (Michael Platt 12, William Matix 6). Of the 6 shots Matix took, 5 were to his head and neck, with the first two serving to do little more than knock him out temporarily. Platt meanwhile, took half a dozen shots to his chest, and although the first would have been lethal by itself, it took a point blank shot into his sternum that severed his spine to finally stop him. And unlike the two North Hollywood robbers, neither Platt nor Matix wore body armor, or had drugs in their system.
  • A weird version of this trope popped up in at least one case of small-scale African warfare, when fighters armed with assault rifles could be seen wearing brightly-colored inflatable armbands ("floaties"), long blonde wigs, dresses, and other bizarre clothing items while participating in heavy streetfighting, with bullets zipping around them and all. Supposedly they believe that certain items grant their wearers magical powers, making them immune to being hit, etc. What more likely happens is that the enemy is too confused by the display to shoot.
  • The Philippines had the Juramentados, anti-foreign Moro rebels that would subject themselves to a ritual of shaving, prayer and binding before launching themselves in suicidal attacks against foreign soldiers and policemen, with the ritual bindings acting as a torniquet and keeping them from bleeding out before killing a number of enemies. The tactic was devastating during Spanish occupation and during World War II against the Japanese occupation, as both used underpowered handgun rounds to arm the officers and Filipino policemen targeted by the Juramentados, but against the Americans the only result was them bringing back the Colt Peacemaker, that could drop them in one shot even with the bindings, as a stopgap measure for the development of the .38 Special (in its early black powder version already more powerful than the round it replaced) and the .45 ACP.


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Kamen Rider Blade

Blade withstands Trial E's gunfire with no trouble.

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Main / ImmuneToBullets

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