diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/357-s3_bucket-use-head.yml b/changelogs/fragments/357-s3_bucket-use-head.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..78cb20e7bf8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/357-s3_bucket-use-head.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+minor_changes:
+- s3_bucket - updated to use HeadBucket instead of ListBucket when testing for bucket existence (https://github.com/ansible-collections/amazon.aws/pull/357).
diff --git a/plugins/modules/s3_bucket.py b/plugins/modules/s3_bucket.py
index 591551ac5fc..302e856246f 100644
--- a/plugins/modules/s3_bucket.py
+++ b/plugins/modules/s3_bucket.py
@@ -509,10 +509,12 @@ def create_or_update_bucket(s3_client, module, location):
 
 
 def bucket_exists(s3_client, bucket_name):
-    # head_bucket appeared to be really inconsistent, so we use list_buckets instead,
-    # and loop over all the buckets, even if we know it's less performant :(
-    all_buckets = s3_client.list_buckets(Bucket=bucket_name)['Buckets']
-    return any(bucket['Name'] == bucket_name for bucket in all_buckets)
+    try:
+        s3_client.head_bucket(Bucket=bucket_name)
+        bucket_exists = True
+    except is_boto3_error_code('404'):
+        bucket_exists = False
+    return bucket_exists
 
 
 @AWSRetry.exponential_backoff(max_delay=120)