Die Hard is the one of the most “Christmasy” movies
…or at least an analysis says so.
There have been, at various times, widespread discussion across the interwebs about the accuracy of calling Die Hard a Christmas movie. Interestingly enough, those on both sides of the debate are <ahem> die hards in their beliefs.
Don’t believe me? Here are two quick examples:
The argument in favor tends to be “it happens at Christmas”.
The argument against: “it happens to happen at Christmas”.
In other words Christmas is not necessary to the story. That’s clearly not, to many people, the most important factor.
The standard reasoning has been gone over many times, so to look into this more closely, let us start by identifying a few generally accepted Christmas movies:
Christmas Vacation
A favorite in my family, the story of the Griswold family Christmas has entertained for years. It is clearly a Christmas movie (it’s in the name for goodness sake), though the story of family coming to visit could be (and has been) done for many times of year.
Timeline is tough but based on the Chicago parade seen in one scene, the movie runs from late November to Christmas day.
A Christmas Story
Another modern classic, this movie holds a cult following and still inspires shirts, mugs, and replicas of that odd lamp. All but the lamp are focused on Christmas or one boy’s hunt for a gift that might just shoot his eye out. This one centers so much around the “Red Ryder carbine action two hundred shot range-model air rifle” that Ralphie wants for Christmas it would be hard to do this at another time.
Occurs over a few weeks prior to December 25th
Home Alone
How about this one? The timeless story of a boy left behind while his family goes on a Christmas trip, and his battle against a pair of ridiculously determined robbers trying to get into the house. This one doesn’t really require Christmas for the story either.
Occurs over December 23rd — December 25th
It’s a Wonderful Life
Wikipedia (I know, but still) calls this movie “one of the most acclaimed films ever made”. When I Google “top Christmas movies”, it is actually the first one that appears. People love the story, and the lesson. The story of “magical being shows my alternative past/present/or future” has also been done repeatedly, and every year on the Hallmark channel.
Occurs on Christmas Eve, but the inclusion of a series of flashbacks takes the story to many other time frames.
There’s a ton more that we could include (Elf, Polar Express, any “Santa” movie, the Nightmare before Christmas), but these are clearly some of the top Christmas movies.
So how about Die Hard?
Die Hard
The Plot section on Wikipedia (I said I know already) starts with “On Christmas Eve”. The movie starts with a Christmas party and proceeds through John McClane kicking butt for another hour or so. Action movie plot could be (and has been) done at any time of year.
Occurs on Christmas Eve exclusively, maybe dropping into Christmas itself.
Now let’s define “Christmas movie”. We could say it has to do with Christmas references, Christmas themes, but is a Christmas-themed movie that takes place during July really a Christmas movie? Maybe, but let’s keep it simple. A Christmas movie occurs on or near Christmas. Proximity to Christmas could be used as a measure.
Given proximity to the actual holiday as a standard, how do the movies stack up? This is going to be rough and loose, but should paint the picture:
Christmas Vacation — Some 25 days over the course of 97 minutes
A Christmas Story — Several weeks leading up to Christmas— 94 minutes
Home Alone — Three days, mostly on Christmas — 102 minutes
It’s a Wonderful Life — Christmas day with many flashbacks — 130 Minutes
Die Hard — Christmas Eve — 132 minutes
What does this tell us? Of the movies we are benchmarking against, two spend only a fraction of their run time on Christmas or Christmas Eve and the one that is entirely on Christmas does so with flashbacks to completely unrelated times.
We are left with Home Alone, which is basically Die Hard for kids, complete with armed intruders, fire, guns, and glass in the feet!
What does all this really tell us though? That if you pick the right measures and the right benchmarks you can prove whatever you want. This exercise could easily be done by Christmas themes and go a different direction.
As far as I’m concerned though, it says that Die Hard is a Christmasy holiday action flick. And I’ll take it.
Writer, fitness enthusiast, and unapologetic geek, Matt’s educational background started with a B.S. in Computer Science. He currently works in analysis and database design for a large company and serves as an advisor to the Corsairs group.
Other articles on related topics can be found within our other Medium publications at Corsair’s Publishing.
