Every year, I receive messages and see numerous posts debating whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Every year, I respond with the same messages and the strong conviction that it is indeed so.

This year, I thought it’s better to just write it down.

Content Credentials: Image Generated with AI (Microsoft Designer) ∙ 27 December 2023 at 11:55 pm

Let’s start by looking at the plots for the first two movies:

• Die Hard 1: Man at a Christmas dinner function at his wife’s company has an engaging conversation with an intruder, resulting in him trying to save her from unwanted harm while their kids are approached by a TV crew to wish their parents well.

• Die Hard 2: Man arrives at the airport to pick up his wife on Christmas and discovers a lighting problem and helps the airport authorities with providing landing lights for his wife’s plane to land safely.

What seems clear is that the themes of family, festivity, celebrations, intruders, conflict and reunion are same as in a movie like Home Alone, including at least one reference to ordering a pizza in both sets of movies. If Home Alone is a Christmas movie, so are the Die Hard movies. That said, the Die Hard franchise probably has more fireworks.

Well, that’s what I believe even if Bruce Willis disagrees – anyway, enjoy the movie if you are watching it again.