Is "Die Hard" a Christmas Film?

Christmas movies are a time-honored tradition, and you all know the classics. "Miracle on 34th Street." "It's a Wonderful Life." "White Christmas." Multiple versions of "A Christmas Carol." However, one film has skyrocketed in popularity as a Christmas tradition in recent years - "Die Hard." Yes, the Bruce Willis action mainstay takes place over the holidays, and it's impossible to find a discussion of Christmas films these days where somebody doesn't bring it up. In 2010, it was even voted by "Empire" magazine as "The Greatest Christmas Film of All Time."

But is "Die Hard" really a Christmas movie? At first glance, the holiday just seems to be window dressing, the same way it is in movies like "Batman Returns," "Edward Scissorhands," and "Gremlins." "Die Hard" starts out at a Christmas party on Christmas Eve, includes a few carols on the soundtrack, and who could forget Mr. "Now I have a machine gun, HO HO HO" in the Santa hat? But a couple of festive decorations does not a Christmas movie make. Christmas movies should be about Christmas and all the things that traditionally come with Christmas like family bonding, spiritual renewal, goodwill toward your fellow man, and all that mushy stuff. "Die Hard" is a quintessential action movie, and the bits about John McClane reconnecting with his wife being in the spirit of the holidays is kind of a stretch.

I guess you could argue that "Die Hard" counts as part of the grand tradition of dysfunctional holiday movies that highlight the downside of the holiday. "Bad Santa," for instance, attacks the Santa Claus image with everything it's got. Or there's"The Nightmare Before Christmas," where Halloween ghoulies misunderstand Christmas completely. Or the "Home Alone" movie where the whole plot hinges on the family not being together for the holidays. These movies have a lot of fun poking fun at the holidays, though I think it's important to note that all of them end in a fairly traditional manner, with the central themes of hope and togetherness winning out over cynicism. Yes, the "Home Alone" burglars get thoroughly trounced, but then there's the whole subplot with the old man and his granddaughter, and Macaulay Culkin's family does make it home just in time for Christmas. More importantly, these films are still focused on the holiday itself. A movie like "Die Hard" is really only Christmas adjacent.

Then again, maybe I need to go deeper here. Note that that the biggest reason why "Die Hard" is a Christmas movie has to do with producer Joel Silver, who produced a similar action movie that took place during the holidays a year prior: "Lethal Weapon." Over the years we've learned that writer Shane Black loves setting his action films at Christmastime, including "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," and even "Iron Man 3." He recently explained it like this: "“I think it’s a sense of if you’re doing something on an interesting scale that involves an entire universe of characters, one way to unite them is to have them all undergo a common experience. There is something at Christmas that unites everybody, and it just sort of already sets a stage within the stage, that whatever you are, you’re experiencing this world together...It’s a time of reckoning for a lot of people, where you take stock as to where you’ve been, how you got to where you are now, and the lonely people are lonelier at Christmas,”

The story of John McClane can certainly be read as a redemption story. Here's a New York cop who only comes out to Los Angeles during his Christmas vacation to try and mend the rift between him and his wife, and because. It's supposed to be a season of joy and family, but he's only getting the cold shoulder. McClane gets a chance to prove himself though, when Gruber and friends show up to crash the party. Sure, the story wasn't originally Christmas themed at all, and doesn't need all the tinsel and Christmas carols to be effective. "Die Hard 2" also took place over the holidays, but the rest of the sequels dropped the theme, and nobody seemed to mind. Still, the Christmastime atmosphere undeniably does add something to the original film.

So yes, if you do some serious mental gymnastics, "Die Hard" can be counted as a Christmas film, though it's about as far away from a traditional Christmas film as you can get. I guess that's the point, as not everyone enjoys traditional Christmas movies about affirming faith and love and humanity. Some people prefer watching Bruce Willis beat up bad guys and tote around a machine gun no matter what time of the year it is. "Die Hard" is definitely a great Christmas movie for those people who don't usually like Christmas movies, and that's just fine.
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