Eight Irrefutable Reasons ‘Die Hard’ is Undeniably a Christmas Film

I can’t believe this is still a question

I thought the subject was closed two years ago. In December 2021, Fanfare editor Eric Pierce wrote an article claiming that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie; three days later I wrote a rebuttal that should have settled the matter once and for all. Apparently, it did not.

I can only assume that the reason the debate continues is that two years ago I had only 2K followers, and when you remove the bots and my ridiculous Indonesian fan club that claps but never reads (I’m not even sure any of them speak English) probably fewer than 20 people saw the reasons I gave as irrefutable proof of the film’s Christmas classic status.

It’s 24 months later, and though Eric and a few others still maintain their stubborn stance, I have more followers to whom I can spread the Truth. In addition, I have discovered even more reasons one of the greatest action-adventure films of all time belongs alongside It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street in your Christmas movie rotation. Some of these showed up in the original piece, but most of you never saw those either.

1. A Christmas Setting. It should go without saying that a Christmas movie has to take place at Christmas, and the entirety of Die Hard takes place on Christmas Eve. Compare that with an acknowledged Christmas classic, White Christmas, in which only the opening and final scenes are set during the holidays.

2. The Music. You can’t have a Christmas film without Christmas music; the songs can be traditional or modern, but they have to be there. In Die Hard we have both, from “Jingle Bells” to “Winter Wonderland” to Run-DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis.” In fact, Die Hard has four Christmas songs (five if you count “Ode to Joy”), while It’s a Wonderful Life contains only two, yet no one questions It’s a Wonderful Life’s status as the greatest Christmas film ever.

3. The Office Christmas Party. The main action in Die Hard takes place during an office Christmas party, something that literally cannot happen any other time of year. The office Christmas party is also a key plot point in Love Actually, a Christmas film no one debates but probably should (I wrote about why here). While it is one tradition we’d all probably like to see fade into oblivion so we never have another drunken office hookup we’ll regret later, Die Hard deserves the same respect for this that Love Actually receives.

4. Santa. Santa tends to make some type of appearance in all the great holiday films, from Miracle on 34th Street to Elf. He shows up in Die Hard as well, though it is true that their Kris Kringle is a dead terrorist dressed in Santa garb in an elevator. It still counts.

5. Family. The very best Christmas films are all about family, no matter how dysfunctional that family may be. Home Alone, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and The Godfather (yes, Simon Dillon, I will forever stand by the assertion that this is a Christmas movie) all center around family. The same is true with Die Hard, where John McClane goes to extraordinary lengths to save his estranged wife (who in another nod to Christmas is named Holly). You might brave a crowded airport or snow-covered roads to get to your loved ones at Christmas, but until you’ve run barefoot across broken glass and smoked a gaggle of terrorists, you’re an amateur.

6. A Memorable Villain. You may not have ever considered it, but all great Christmas movies have a great villain. Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern in Home Alone, and Lucy Van Pelt in A Charlie Brown Christmas, to name just a few. In Die Hard, we get Alan Rickman’s first film role as the German terrorist/robber Hans Gruber, a decade before he became Severus Snape. He even has a Christmas quote: “It’s Christmas, Theo, it’s the time of miracles.”

7. The Die Hard “Hans Gruber Falling Off of Nakatomi Plaza” Advent Calendar. That’s right, Die Hard has its own Advent calendar now, and they don’t do one of those for a non-Christmas action movie. After all, Lethal Weapon doesn’t have one, and it’s also set at Christmas (though to be fair, it meets all of the other requirements except the office Christmas party; maybe Lethal Weapon actually is a Christmas movie).

8. Only 26% of Americans think Die Hard is a Christmas film. I realize that at first glance, the result of a recent Yahoo/YouGov poll showing 50% of people think it is not a Christmas film seems to bolster Eric’s argument. However, I believe that it is the strongest point of all the ones I have listed in favor of its Christmas status. Think about it for a minute; in the past decade (at least), when have Americans been right about anything? Case closed.

Now that I have surely convinced Eric (and you, dear reader) on this Christmas question, I can start working on convincing him that Iron Man 3 is also a Christmas classic. Yippee Ki-Yay, and God bless us every one.

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