Why Die Hard Is The Greatest Christmas Movie Of All Time, No Exceptions

Die Hard Christmas

We all have our Christmas movie traditions. I like to enjoy a few choice flicks in the weeks leading up to Xmas, like Home Alone, The Holiday and Love Actually. Elf is wonderful. Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life make me sob. But every Christmas Eve, it’s family tradition for me and my loved ones to sit back and enjoy the festive masterpiece that is Die Hard.

It’s a divisive Christmas film, I don’t deny that. In fact, just this year debate was still raging as to whether it could even be classed as a Christmas movie at all. And, my friends, it absolutely can. In fact, it has more of the festive trademarks than some of the aggressively Christmas made-for-TV shit shows we’ve seen in recent times.

Please put on your Chesty Bonds singlet, sweep back your receding hairline and stick with me while I make a very long-winded point.

It’s set at Christmas

Okay, that one seems basic but some “Christmas” movies only barely seem to tick that one off the list. But Die Hard is Christmas as fuck. It’s got presents, baubles, tinsel, stressed holiday travellers, a cocaine-fuelled office Xmas party, and all of the underlying parental tension that this time of year brings.

who’s got the bags m8s

The Christmas spirit is strong

Not only do we have a time period and set decoration that involves Christmas, but the festive spirit runs through the Die Hard plotline as well. When NYPD cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) finds himself tangled up in some terrorism fuckery at his estranged wife’s office building, he could easily just shimmy down the elevator shaft and get the hell outta there. But this holiday hero knows he has to save Christmas for his lady and all the innocent people held hostage in the building.

And you know McClane must secretly dig this time of year, because even while he’s busy saving the day he finds time to bring a festive touch to the occasion, such as with this elaborately decorated terrorist corpse.

“Ho, ho…ho.”

It’s basically Home Alone on steroids

The aforementioned Home Alone is a brilliant Xmas movie, and Kevin McAllister (Macaulay Culkin) is basically a younger version of McClane. (Why no one thought to cash in and make a crossover film, I’ll never know.) Kev uses ingenious methods to get the bad men out of his house, which is exactly what our grown-up hero does on a much bigger scale, with a group of badass terrorists and an office building. Just tell me that “Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal” isn’t a watered-down version of the most iconic line in Die Hard.

It brings people together

Die Hard sees all sorts of people teaming up, like McClane and his new LAPD pal Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson) whose hug at the end brings a tear to my eye every damn time. There’s Argyle (De’voreaux White), the hilarious limo driver who also pitches in to help save the day.

But it’s McClane and his wife Holly’s (Bonnie Bedelia) relationship that just makes this movie so god damn CHRISTMAS. The classic tale of a formerly loving, now distant couple now brought together by the festive season has been done approximately 600,000 times before in Xmas movies. But has it been done with this much blood, carnage and biceps? No. No it hasn’t.

He’s a true Christmas hero

Like The Grinch before him, I get the feeling McClane kinda hates Christmas at this point in his life, just because he is separated from his wife who he clearly loves very much and never sees his cute lil’ kids. But as he fights the terrorists, I truly believe he learns the true meaning of Christmas once again, and through his adventures, we do too. It’s all about family, and being together, and let’s get mushy for a second: love. Even when there’s guns and blood and a scary German guy threatening to blow everything up, there’s still room for little old love.

When this movie ends and McClane and his wife and his kid’s Xmas teddy bear (which he carted all the way from NYC because he is a Good Dad) drive off in the limo to the strains of ‘Let It Snow’, I always think to myself:

Did John McClane save Christmas… or did Christmas save him?

Thanks for listening, and happy trails.

Die Hard is now streaming on Prime Video.

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