Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? decades moviegoers debate. Movie featuring off-duty police officer John McClane who attends his estranged wife’s company party overtaken by European terrorists sparks fan debate. A survey by Yahoo/YouGov yields interesting results: 50% say it isn’t a Christmas movie, 26% say it is, and 23% aren’t sure.
Far more Americans agree that Home Alone and A Christmas Story are holiday classics and go-tos. 34% regularly rewatch Home Alone and 33% revisit A Christmas Story. At the bottom of the list is Die Hard, with only 14% of respondents planning to watch it this season.
There are two defining factors to determine if a movie is a Christmas one: if watching it at any other time feels weird, and if the movie still makes sense when Christmas is removed. Die Hard takes place on Christmas Eve and includes 21 Christmas references, three Christmas songs, and plenty of holiday-themed Easter eggs.
Despite these elements, it’s not clear-cut. The cinematographer doesn’t believe it’s a Christmas film, but the film’s director and fans have embraced it as one. The star, Bruce Willis, has made his position clear, addressing it at his Comedy Central roast in 2018. This data was based on a nationally representative sample of 1,675 U.S. adults interviewed online from Nov. 9-13, 2023. The survey’s margin of error is approximately 2.8%.
