“Merry Christmas, motherfucker!” Why Die Hard Is the Best Christmas Movie Ever
By: Ben Van Alboom
Tags: Film, Christmas Movies, Movies, Christmas, Die Hard

My wife: “Love Actually!”

Me: “Die Hard!”

My wife: “Okay, we’ll watch Die Hard first, then Love Actually.”

Me: “That’s not gonna work, because Die Hard 2 is the second-best Christmas movie ever, and if you watch the first one, you have to watch the second.”

Yes, it’s that time of the year! This month, you’ll be flooded with It’s a Wonderful Life, Home Alone, The Holiday, White Christmas, Scrooged, Love Actually and — these days as big a Christmas holiday tradition as The Sound of Music, which isn’t even a Christmas movie — Die Hard.

And no, I’m not going to debate this: John McTiernan’s 1988 masterpiece Die Hard is THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIE EVER. On the one hand, because it’s the best film of the above-mentioned — only Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life can compare, and maybe also Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, but for some reason, that one is almost always scandalously overlooked during the holiday season. On the other hand, because McTiernan’s action movie classic bathes in Christmas Spirit — with capital letters.

The film opens with a Christmas (!) party in LA — a more notable Jewish stronghold than Bethlehem — which is quickly disrupted by Aryan scoundrels — Hans Gruber might as well have been called Pontius Pilate. On top of that, Bruce Willis plays a man who travels an impressive distance to bring his family to safety on Christmas (!) Eve. His name: John McClane, though he might as well have been called Joseph.

Admittedly, in the year one B.C., the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem might have been a bit more burdensome than the one from New York to LA in 1988. Unless, of course, you have a fear of flying. Like John. Coincidence? Obviously not. John’s suffering at the beginning of the film is an apparent reference to what Joseph had to endure.

Oh, and before anyone says John’s better half Holly — Holly, people. HOLLY! — isn’t expecting: true, but at her company’s Christmas party, there is a pregnant woman about to — almost as hard as the bad guys’ blocks of C-4 — pop. Coincidence? Yeah, right.

Of course, it’s also no coincidence that Alan Rickman, like some incarnate Grinch, is keen to ruin Christmas for everyone, and that no gangsta rapper has ever managed to make “ho ho ho” sound more threatening than Rickman’s character in Die Hard. And while we’re on the subject, the rap song McClane’s limo driver is listening to? ‘Christmas in Hollis’ by Run-DMC — possibly the best Christmas song ever! (Other Christmas songs in the movie: ‘Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!’, ‘Winter Wonderland’ and — rubbing it in — “Jingle Bells”).

Still not convinced? Well, then, you extremely stubborn blockhead! Bruce Willis says ‘Jesus Christ’ at least a hundred times in the movie — usually with ‘fucking’ in between, but still — and you can hardly count the times when people wish each other a merry Christmas. And just like in A Christmas Carol, everything in Die Hard revolves around altruism, redemption, and miracles. Unless you know of anyone else who survived a bungee jump with a fire hose from an altitude of 500 feet? (Seriously, if the copyright hadn’t already expired, McTiernan would’ve had to hand over half the box office to Charles Dickens’s heirs).

And just like the original nativity story, the movie seems to end well — even though it starts to snow, and the last time that happened in LA was in 1962! — when in reality, it’s the beginning of a whole lot of misery. In the case of Jesus: the Catholic Church. In the case of John McClane: Die Hard with a Vengeance, Live Free or Die Hard and — the Crusades were more justifiable — A Good Day to Die Hard.

Enjoyed this article? Fantastic! Feel free to buy me a coffee. 😘