Despite our differences in social upbringing, nationality, language, religion, etc... We all agree in 1 thing, that Die Hard is a Christmas Movie, right?
Yippee Kay Yay... (The only movie that doesn't depresses me in Xmas)
My dad was arguing that it wasn't because being set at Christmas isn't enough, and said a bunch of things typical of a Christmas movie to have; while I countered with a list of things that happen in Die Hard that met his criteria.
"Someone needs to receive a gift."
"McClane was gifted a machine gun."
"There needs to be a miracle."
"It's a miracle John survived."
"It needs to capture the feeling of Christmas."
"Have you never spent time with your relatives at Christmas? It feels just like being held hostage at Nakatomi Plaza."
subtract chrismas from the plot: you have no chrismas party filling a finished floor of the office tower with future hostages; you have no cross-county traveling hero to save-the-day. becomes a six page script and an easy in-and-out for snape and co.
I mean if a movie like It's A Wonderful Life can be a Christmas movie, despite most of it not having anything to do with Christmas, then so can Die Hard.
No, we agree that “Die Hard is a Christmas movie” is a fun proposition to entertain, either because it’s edgy and freaks the mundanes with its audacious disregard for cherished norms, or (more recently) because it’s a fun meme, with own line of commercially available ugly Christmas sweaters and knowingly ironic greeting cards. Though the meme eventually will become so overexposed that quoting from Die Hard on Christmas will become as basic and mid as dressing up in a Santa costume and drunkenly making an arse of yourself with several hundred similarly attired dudes.
This is such an exhausting topic. Anyone saying it isn't a Christmas movie either hasn't seen it recently enough to remember it or they're being contraian. It takes place during Christmas, a Christmas party even. It has Christmas music woven into the soundtrack. The b plot is the main character fixing his marriage (a common theme of Christmas movies is fixing families).
To be honest, I sort of would view people arguing that it isn't a Christmas movie like people arguing Red One isn't a Christmas movie because it is primarily an action movie. Red One is more obvious due to the marketing and the fact it's literally about saving Santa after he is kidnapped, but it's still very moreso an action movie than other similar titles (The Santa Clause also has a kidnapped Santa subplot and a team of elite elves rescue him, but it is much more minor).
I think its important to establish why it's a Christmas movie. I consider it one not just because it's Christmas time in the movie but because it's heavily Christmas themed the entire movie. For this exact same reason I think other movies also fall into this category like gremlins and terrifier 3.
To me, Die Hard is a Christmas movie because it is set on Christmas Eve. I don't think it technically counts as a Christmas movie, but that just makes me consider it a Christmas movie even harder
Diehard is 100% a Christmas movie, however, Die Hard 2 which also takes place at Christmas time, is NOT a Christmas movie, as the fact that it's Christmas is coincidental and not at all integral to the plot.
I don't wanna be the party pooper here, but Die Hard is a specifically American Christmas Movie. I'm not saying that other people can't or shouldn't enjoy it as a Christmas Movie if so inclined.
But as a German what we "traditionally" watch as Christmas Movies/Shows is something completely different (though also varying greatly from region to region and family to family.
I for one still enjoy "Weihnachten bei den Hoppenstedts" a lot my father mostly insists on seeing "Familie Heinz Becker feiert Weihnachten".
A movie a lot of people consider to be a Christmas Movie as far as I can tell is "Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel".
Again I'm not saying that people can't consider "American" Christmas Movies as their own or make them their traditions a friend of mine insists that "In Bruges" is the ultimate Christmas Movie. I just think saying "We all agree" is making it to simple
Edit: Read some more comments and maybe I misunderstood the premise. I'm not saying "Die Hard is not a Christmas Movie" what I'm trying to say is "Christmas Movies are what people make their Christmas Movie regardless of if they are Christmas-y" if I started watching Shrek at every Christmas it would be my Christmas Movie. But I feel what OP wanted to say was "There are Movies that are considered Christmas Movies because of the content and Die Hard should be considered one of them".
Every scene in this movie is a work of art. It's so rare for a movie to check as many boxes as this one does so perfectly. it has humor, a love story, action, Alan Rickman, a heist, and most of all Christmas!
Happy holidays everyone! Hoping you can all get together and have a few laughs with your loved ones.
There is definitely a demand for such movies on Christmas, otherwise a movie like Fatman wouldn't have been produced. It's a Christmas movie with Die Hard elements.
If the only thing a Christmas movie takes is being set on or around Christmas, Batman Returns and Eyes Wide Shut are Christmas movies. Oppenheimer has a Christmas scene, is that a Christmas movie too? Clearly there's a line somewhere.
I’m going to argue that Die Hard is NOT a Christmas movie. It’s simply a movie where the events within it, happen to take place around Christmas time.
Die Hard is to Christmas movies what Top Gun is to romance movies, or what Casablanca is to war movies. Just because it contains a thing, doesn’t mean it’s about said thing.