As yesterday was the first of December, the question most media outlets and film fans ask, is that age old question is Die Hard a Christmas film.
Personally, I didn’t know there were rules as to what contributes a Christmas film, do they really need to be about family and feature Santa; reindeer; elves and the like?
Definitely would not seem the case as the highest grossing Christmas film of all time* is an animated film about a green monster!
The said Green monster being The Grinch, although for clarity we much prefer the live action version with Jim Carrey which places at 4th place.
Home alone and its sequel take places 2 and 3, in fact with another Jim Carrey film, the animated version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ at 5, Santa led films don’t even make the top five.
The Polar Express is probably the closest to tradition of presents and Santa, romcoms also feature, with both Love Actually and The Holiday making the top 10.
So, the question is ‘Die Hard’ a Christmas film is really up to you!
Personally, it features a Christmas party, has Christmas music featured and has Christmas items such as Santa hat on a terrorist and even wrapping tape at the end so yes to us it is.
But of course, it is also one of the greatest action films of all time, so we certainly wouldn’t restrict it to watching at Christmas, yet as much as we love The Grinch it is unlikely that we would watch that any time of the year.
On this basis though, we can also make an argument that Die Hard 2 a Christmas movie as again it is set in the festive season, at an airport, plus it has plenty of snow, unlike the original =)
More recently a new type of Christmas film is getting popular, and that is a Christmas horror, our first experience was probably Gremlins, but so many now to choose from, the likes of Black Christmas; Rare Exports; Silent Night, Deadly Night; Better Watch Out; and our personal favorite being Krampus.
In fact, with the snow, you could even argue John Carpenter’s epic, The Thing is a Christmas movie!
For the record our top four set at but not traditional Christmas movies would be:
1: Die Hard – Truly an action classic
2: Lethal Weapon – Again Christmas sequences yet full of action
3: Jaws: The Revenge – We love all four Jaws movies, and the fourth being set over the festive period means we can watch out guilty pleasure every year, although not as many times as the original throughout it though!
- The Long Kiss Goodnight is again an action film set at the festive period, yet it failed to do well at the box office, and many may have missed this classic, directed by Renny Harlin, who also gave us the aforementioned Die Hard 2.
So many other action films can be pushed into the category of Christmas movie, most notably Shane Black’s great Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the first outing for Rambo in First Blood due to Christmas items on display.
So, if you want a film to be a Christmas film then to you it is a Christmas film, do we really need to argue about these things.
In fact, probably the toughest argument is Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, a Halloween or Christmas film, we love it so we just watch it on both occasions, why decide?
What are your favourite films that over the years now get argued can be classified as Christmas movies?
- Source: IMDB *
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