‘Die Hard’ Is Not A Christmas Movie: Don’t @ Me

Die Hard is a movie set at Christmas. It is not a Christmas movie. The fact that this is a “Don’t @ Me” opinion completely boggles my mind. Every year I am flummoxed when I hear “You know, actually, Die Hard is a Christmas movie” said as if some perception-shattering truth was just revealed. No, rando that I’m overhearing on the street, you are not the first person to say that, the person you’re telling has heard this claim many times before, and you are still wrong!

I know I sound harsh, and harshness is not the reason for the season (the reasons for the season are capitalism, melancholy, selflessness, love, nostalgia, and anxiety). Let me make this point clear up top: if you watch Die Hard at Christmas every year, if it is your family’s tradition, then God bless you, everyone. And I mean that sincerely, not in the “Bless your heart” way, which all us Southerners know is the most biting of put downs. I mean it: I do believe that any movie can have a special resonance at a time of year, especially if it has become a part of a tradition–because I f’ing love traditions. My family would eat at Red Lobster every Christmas Eve, and Red Lobster has nothing to do with the most wonderful time of the year. I am 100% on board with people watching Die Hard at Christmas and celebrating what is without a doubt the greatest action movie ever (because it is).

Here’s where I get my harsh on: when y’all write “Best Christmas Movies Of All Time” lists and then drop Die Hard in at the top spot. At. The. Top. Spot. That makes me go full Grinch, and no amount of arguing will ever make my heart grow three sizes. That’s why you shouldn’t @ me, because I’ve been @’ed about this every year for a decade and I have heard all the arguments. None of them change the fact that Die Hard is a movie that’s set at Christmas and not a Christmas movie.

So what makes a Christmas movie a Christmas movie? Sure, let’s get into it:

1. The movie is set at Christmas.
2. The movie deals predominantly, hell, exclusively with Christmas themes.
3. If you remove Christmas and its associated paraphernalia from the film, it looks spottier than Swiss cheese.
4. Christmas is a primary part of the film’s marketing, because Christmas is integral to the plot.
5. It was released in theaters during the Christmas movie season (meaning November or December).

And what makes a movie a movie set at Christmas?

1. It is set at Christmas.

Okay, cool! We’ve got that sorted out. So how do all those iconic Christmas movies add up?

Elf is set at Christmas. It’s about a North Pole elf trying to convince his grinchy biological father to have some Christmas cheer. Without Christmas, Elf would basically be The Jerk–so a totally different movie. There is no Elf without Santa, and Christmas carols literally supercharge the third act. Since the film stars Will Ferrell in a Christmas elf costume, everything associated with the film looks like a Christmas card. And it hit theaters on November 7, 2003.

A Christmas Story is set at Christmas. The movie is all about the wondrous greed kids feel during the build-up to Christmas morning. I guess the film could be about Ralphie wanting a BB gun for his birthday, but so much of the film is about the traditions associated with the holiday (visiting Santa, buying a tree). The film is called A Christmas Story, so it’s front-and-center. And it hit theaters on November 18, 1983.

Home Alone is set at Christmas. The movie deals with family stress around the holidays (with a heavy dose of cartoonish torture). You could remove Christmas from the film, as the third (forgettable) entry did, but I argue that Home Alone works because it takes the time of year most associated with family and cuts them out. The images of Kevin decorating a tree alone, shopping alone, going through all of those family rituals alone mean so much more because it’s set at Christmas and not just a Tuesday. Christmas was a heavy part of the film’s marketing, and it hit theaters on November 16, 1990.

Love Actually is set at Christmas. The movie…well, it covers a lot of ground and all of it is familiar romcom territory. But Christmas permeates the film and gives it a seasonal spin. Obviously it was marketed as a Christmas movie, and it hit theaters on November 6, 2003.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is set at Christmas. It also deals with seasonal stress, family problems, and pangs of nostalgia (Clark in the attic watching home movies wrecks me every year). Nothing in this movie would work without Christmas, from the opening scene of uprooting a Christmas tree to the closing shot of Clark’s seen-from-space light display. It’s called Christmas Vacation, so duh. And it hit theaters on December 1, 1989.

So Die Hard? Die Hard is set at Christmas. Die Hard deals with family, sorta, but it’s main theme is being the greatest action movie of all time. Christmas can be swapped out for literally any holiday (“now I have a bow and arrow” scrawled on a sweatshirt if it’s set on Valentine’s Day). All you need is a reason for John McClane (Bruce Willis) to be in town (kid’s birthday, graduation, work trip, vacation, etc.) and a group of people to be taken hostage. Christmas is so inconsequential because Shane Black sets all of his movies at Christmas. It’s a detail, a recurring theme, but never the film’s main thing. That’s why Christmas was not at all a part of the film’s marketing, nor is it present in any of the film’s promotional materials. Look at these official Die Hard promo stills. Does this look like a Christmas movie?

And the kicker: Die Hard hit theaters on July 15, 1988. July! I mean, I could make a “Christmas in July” joke, but we can all agree that that is just a concept cooked up to give local talk shows things to talk about during the summer.

I get that my metrics aren’t perfect. Christmas classics like It’s A Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street don’t exactly meet all of the criteria. Miracle was released in May 1947 only because the studio head thought that people only watched movies in the summer! Still, both of them check off way more of the Christmas boxes than Die Hard, yet people still insist that Die Hard is a better Christmas movie than both of them! Boggled, flummoxed, perplexed.

Saying Die Hard is a great Christmas movie is like if I said Star Wars was great historical fiction, or that Saving Private Ryan was a solid beach movie, or that Jurassic Park was the best vacation movie of all time. Technically, all of those films are in those genres, but no one would ever seriously make those claims. And just because we watch a movie at a certain time of the year doesn’t make it inherently representative of that time of year. I watched The Ten Commandments every Easter but it is definitely not an Easter movie, and I watch Star Wars every Christmas but I would never dream of putting it at the top of my favorite Christmas movie list. Hell, I first watched the original Planet of the Apes at Thanksgiving and ever since, in my head, I think of it as a Thanksgiving movie–but I know that that’s ridiculous! Planet of the Apes is a movie about all of 2017, not just Thanksgiving!

The reason this irks me every year is because instead of talking about the films that really celebrate Christmas as the joyful, complex, emotionally draining, and beautiful holiday it is, complete with all the music and rituals that make the season bright, Die Hard and “actually it is a holiday movie” just sucks up all the oxygen. We could be talking about how the original songs in Muppet Christmas Carol should be standards by this point, or the biting cultural commentary in Scrooged, or how Ernest Saves Christmas does not hold up at all. But instead, Die Hard. Every year. It’s like if you wanted to talk about sports movies, and I kept bringing up The Dark Knight Rises because Bane blows up a football stadium.

So while I fully support people watching Die Hard at Christmas (or any time because, again, greatest action movie ever), I do not support it being in the same category with films that actually dive fully into the holly jolly mess that is Christmas, my favorite time of the year. It’s a movie set at Christmas, not a Christmas movie. And those are two distinct categories, not to be confused.

And good lord, yes, obviously this goes for Die Hard 2, Batman Returns, Lethal Weapon, and Iron Man 3. I shouldn’t even have to say that!

Where to watch Die Hard