With Christmas approaching fast, many of us will be heading home to celebrate the holidays with some of the best, oftentimes most annoying people around: family. Of course, you can be sure December 25th will be a day of arguments at the dinner table for many. We’re going into an election year, so political debates are inevitable, and other family members will challenge your lifestyle choices.
But there’s one question that’s divided families every Christmas for the past 30 years: is Die Hard a Christmas movie or not? Many have always considered the Bruce Willis classic a Christmas film, while others forget that Christmas is a part of the film’s plot! While we do have our own opinions on the subject, we’re not here to tell you what we think. Instead, we’re going to present the facts from both sides and let you do the talking this holiday season.
Is: It Takes Place During Christmas Eve
The first piece of evidence that’s often used to justify the claim that Die Hard is a Christmas movie is quite simple: the film takes place during a Christmas party on Christmas Eve. Bruce Willis’s character, John McClane, must save his wife Holly and her coworkers after they’ve been held up inside of the Nakatomi Corporation’s office by a group of terrorists during a Christmas party.
Though the plot sounds more like a standard action movie than a Christmas movie, the fact of the matter is that Christmas is an important part of this film’s setting. Aside from the occasional holiday pun interweaved into the narrative, it’s this Christmas party that motivates McClane to fly out to Los Angeles to make things right with his wife. The party is also a convenient way to have all of these corporate businessmen and women in the same location, giving Hans Gruber access to a huge pool of hostages. If this were a Halloween or Labor Day Party, we know for a fact that fewer workers would be in attendance.
Isn’t: It’s Too Violent
When you think of traditional Christmas films and television specials, what comes to mind? We bet it’s the usual family-friendly stuff, like Elf, A Christmas Story, and even cartoon classics like Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas. What do all of these Christmas staples have in common that Die Hard doesn’t? For one, none of these specials include the intense violence and gore depicted in Die Hard, the main reason for the film’s R rating. And, no. Just because Ralphie shoots his eye out with a BB Gun in A Christmas Story doesn’t mean that film should be rated R as well.
Is: Christmas songs are a part of its soundtrack
A stellar soundtrack can either make or break a movie. Imagine your favorite film to date. Now imagine it without any music at all. You’re left with a blander version of the film you’ve loved for years, right? As expected of any Christmas movie, Die Hard’s soundtrack is chocked full of remixes of Christmas classics like Winter Wonderland and Jingle Bells, along with Run DMC’s Christmas In Hollis and the original version of Let It Snow, Let It Snow.
You can actually buy a 30th Anniversary Remastered 3-CD Soundtrack set, which will let you spread your own holiday cheer as you force everyone that happens to drive next to you to understand that your favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard, no matter what they say!
Isn’t: Lacks Traditional Christmas Motifs
As we stated before, there’s a ton of films that, to audiences who celebrate Christmas, are easily recognizable as Christmas films due to common motifs present throughout these films. The most common are Santa Claus, reindeer, elves, snowmen, and even shopping malls. Die Hard has none of these. Sure, there’s a Christmas tree at the holiday party and it takes place on Christmas Eve, but we can’t recall ever seeing snow in the film at all! We just get a shower of burnt office papers at the end!
Is: Has A Warm Ending
Despite lacking the standard motifs of a Christmas film, Die Hard’s ending actually gets it just right. Christmas movies are supposed to have that feel-good ending that succinctly wraps up its plot.
McClane, who flew out to Los Angeles for the sole purpose of reconciling with his wife, manages to do just that after becoming her knight in shining armor. Sergeant Al Powell, the LAPD officer who talked McClane through his predicament also got a satisfactory conclusion, transformed from a disgraced cop to a hero (with some good aim, we might add). It could’ve been a lot less violent, but at least we managed to get a happy ending after all!
Isn’t: Santa Doesn’t Make An Appearance
Most Christmas movies feature some form of Santa Claus, even if it’s just an imposter at the mall. In Die Hard, this isn’t the case. McClane may not weigh 300 pounds and slide down chimneys, but he does crawl through air ducts and kill terrorists.
Some fans would be tempted to settle on this as an accurate comparison of McClane to Santa, but, if we’re being honest, these men aren’t performing similar miracles. The fact that the film doesn’t center around Santa in the slightest makes it harder to believe that it’s actually a Christmas film. To top it all off, it was released in the middle of July, anyway!
Is: McClane Performs Christmas Miracles
A “Christmas miracle” is an extraordinary, seemingly impossible event that occurs only around Christmastime. If you count Die Hard as a Christmas film, McClane himself not only becomes a Christmas miracle for the hostages, but it’s the result of a continuous string of Christmas miracles that allow him to survive this ordeal. If he didn’t need to wash up in the private restroom separate from the other party guests, he would’ve been made a hostage himself. If he wasn’t the type of cop to always carry a gun on him, he would’ve had no weapon to fight the terrorists after escaping their clutches.
Throughout the entire movie, he was up against unbelievable odds, and yet he managed to elude them at every step of the way despite frequent scuffles and firefights. How can you not consider this all one big miracle?
Isn’t: The Holiday Isn’t Central To The Movie
We already acknowledged the fact that if this story were to take place during the night of the Nakatomi Corporation’s Halloween party, or Thanksgiving potluck, Gruber wouldn’t have gotten as many hostages. People are just more likely to show up to a Christmas party that promises some good eye-rolling eggnog, gift exchanges, and, if you’re a friend of Harry Ellis’s, cocaine that’s as white as snow.
Regardless, Gruber would’ve gotten some hostages, and the president of the corporation, Joe Tagaki, would’ve still been present either way. We’d even argue that one could describe the core plot of this movie without really mentioning Christmas at all!
Is: Screenwriter Steven E. de Souza Confirmed It!
After being prodded for years, one of the film’s screenwriters, Steven E. de Souza, finally decided to speak his peace in the days leading up to the 2017 Christmas holiday after countless fans flooded his Twitter. He responded by saying that Die Hard actually is a Christmas film, so, shouldn’t the argument stop there?
Isn’t: Bruce Willis Denied It!
We’re glad you asked! Apparently, Bruce Willis disagrees with Souza. During last year’s Comedy Central Roast of Bruce Willis, Willis ended a speech by proclaiming that “Die Hard is not a Christmas movie! It’s a g—–n Bruce Willis movie!” Sure, he could’ve been joking, but he’s never stepped up to refute this claim he made last year.
We’ve given you the facts! Keep this article in your back pocket, and, if all else fails, just yell “Yippee Ki-Yay!” We’re almost certain the debate will be canceled right then and there.
