Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? The Bruce Willis action movie classic is a regular watch around this time of year, since it’s set during Christmas (the movie starts on Christmas Eve, with Willis’ character John McClane landing in LA to spend Christmas with his estranged wife). But its status as an official Christmas movie has been hotly debated for decades. Well, there’s one high-profile actor who thinks Die Hard is very much NOT a Christmas movie — and he should know, as the star of Home Alone.
Macaulay Culkin played Kevin McCallister in two of the best Christmas movies ever made: Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, so you’d think he’d know a thing or two about what makes a Christmas movie a Christmas movie. And for him, Die Hard doesn’t fit the bill.
“No it’s not. It’s based around Christmas. Don’t fight — fight me on the moon!” Culkin insisted during an interview with Mythical Kitchen. “It’s based around Christmas, but if it was also St. Patrick’s Day, it would still be… it would work. But you couldn’t do like a Memorial Day Home Alone. Nah, it doesn’t work that way.”
He added: “Listen, I’m kind of the godfather of Christmas nowadays. Yes, my opinion has some sway in this argument.”
This isn’t the first time Culkin has expressed his views on Die Hard’s status. Last month, Culkin was actually booed by an audience for saying it wasn’t. Speaking at A Nostalgic Night with Macaulay Culkin to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Home Alone, the 45-year-old actor said: “I know. Some of you guys want to fight me, I’ll meet you at the loading dock, but it’s just a movie that’s set at Christmas. If you set it at St. Patrick’s Day, the exact same movie. But you set Home Alone at St. Patrick’s Day…”
Culkin, who stars in Fallout Season 2 on Prime Video, has certainly raised a few eyebrows with his comments, but it’s worth remembering that in 2017, Steven E. de Souza, who wrote Die Hard, took to social media to joke that Die Hard is in fact a Christmas movie “because the studio rejected the Purim draft.”
And when one social media user asked how Die Hard could be considered a Christmas movie when it came out in the summer of 1988, de Souza replied to point out that Miracle on 34th Street, perhaps the definitive Christmas movie, came out in the summer of 1947.
— Steven E. de Souza (@StevenEdeSouza) December 27, 2017
de Souza added. “Plus a woman about to give birth features prominently.”
Speaking to People in 2024, A Christmas Story star Peter Billingsley said Die Hard cinematographer, Jan de Bont, offered one reason why Die Hard is a Christmas movie:
“I think what sold [de Bont] is I said, ‘That relationship between John McClane and his estranged wife, they’re fractured, but by the end, they learn to forgive each other. There’s hope, there’s joy, and they’re going to go and have a great Christmas morning with their kids.
“Not to mention there’s Christmas songs, and they have the snow falling. In my opinion it is a Christmas movie.”
Director John McTiernan has also weighed in, telling the American Film Institute in 2020: “We hadn’t intended it to be a Christmas movie, but the joy that came from it is what turned it into a Christmas movie.”
Perhaps the final word should go to Bruce Willis himself. In Comedy Central’s 2018 Roast of Bruce Willis, the star joked: “I did this roast for one reason and for one reason only, to settle something once and for all. Now, please listen very carefully: Die Hard is not a Christmas movie! It’s a goddamn Bruce Willis movie.”
But what do you think? Give our poll, below, asking this most important of Christmas questions a go, then take to the comments to offer your expanded thoughts!
Photo by 20th Century-Fox/Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
