HOLLYWOOD—I seriously cannot understand why we are still having this debate in 2025, nearly 37 years after the movie was released. We are still chatting about rather “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie or not. A column like this has been written before by a colleague of mine, and I am in complete agreement: “Die Hard” is indeed a Christmas movie.
It may not be your cup of tea of the “feels and warmth of Christmas you expect,” but it has the Christmas vibe all throughout the movie. So where do we even begin this debate? What constitutes a Christmas movie? I think everyone tends to think a Christmas movie has to be too wholesome and full of Santa Claus, family angst and snow. Sorry, but I disagree. This might sound crazy, but I’ve NOT seen a ton of Christmas flicks that are deemed classics. I never saw “A Christmas Story” or “Elf” or plenty of other classics for the Golden Years of cinema.
When I think of Christmas you know what comes to mind instantly and quickly, “Home Alone,” “Home Alone 2” and “Die Hard.” They are movies I grew up watching as a kid and movies as an adult that I still watch and find thoroughly entertaining. “Die Hard” in particular. Why? It is one of those rare movies I can watch on repeat, and I never get bored. It’s like me watching John Carpenter’s 1978 classic “Halloween” during the Halloween season. That is how I perceive “Die Hard.”
It is my Christmas movie. You have a fantastic hero in Bruce Willis as John McClane and an excellent villain in Hans Gruber portrayed by Alan Rickman. The two characters volley off one another building fantastic tension that ultimately splits when we reach that iconic climax where that infamous line is uttered a second time.
What is it not to love about the story? A cop comes to visit his estranged wife on Christmas Eve hoping to reconcile but instead stumbles upon a group of terrorists that holds his wife and her co-workers on Christmas Eve and he’s totally outnumbered. It’s a Christmas movie that abandons all the expectations.
You have violence, you have blood, you have gunfire, you have explosions, you have deaths and you have profanity. “Die Hard” changed your idea of what a typical Christmas movie should be, which is what makes it such an iconic movie to begin with. The dialogue is clever, the characters are fascinating, the action is over-the-top in the best way, and you have an ending that is so satisfying I cannot put into words its perfection.
“Die Hard” is indeed a Christmas movie so for those who refuse to acknowledge its importance, name me a better action flick that checks off all the boxes of what Christmas is about with a twist. I’m waiting, let’s just say it: you can’t.
