Too many people ask the question - Is Die Hard a Christmas film?
The main character is visiting his family on christmas eve, The ENTIRE film takes places during the Christmas holiday (Even the most chistmas-y film in A Wonderful life doesn't have an entirely Christmas holiday timeline), how can it NOT be classified as a Christmas film?
Now that we got the stupid question out of the way, lets ask a better one -
Is there a better Christmas film than Die Hard?
There are lots of debatable Christmas films like Harry Potter, Edward Scissorhands, Gremlins, Trading Places, Lethal Weapon, Batman Returns and Die Hard. The debatable films I feel are the films that hold up the most and are more rewatchable (you can watch them any time of the year) than the obvious Christmas films like - A Wonderful Life, Home Alone, Elf, Miracle On 34th Street, Love Actually, Grinch etc.
Do people actually watch these films any other time of the year than christmas? Elf I think MIGHT be the only one that people would watch in the summer for example.
Meanwhile the debatable ones are still being replayed to this day all year round. I think that says everything.
In my opinion, to be a Christmas film it's timeline should be mostly (75%) set in the Christmas holidays, so we can exclude Harry Potter from the detate. Edward Scissorhands just misses out as the second half of the film is in December which isn't enough for me.
Lethal Weapon is a good film but it's nowhere near as rewatchable as Die Hard and it's just a lesser version of it in every aspect. I like Gremlins too, it's one of my childhood films but it relies on nostalgia too much (Like E.T.).
That just leaves Batman Returns and Trading Places. Trading Places is funny even though some of the jokes are a bit outdated now. Some parts in Batman returns are a little silly and the fight scenes don't hold up...but apart from that I do really like these two films. They just aren't on same level as Die Hard (Very few films are). It's more iconic and more ambitious. It's just simply a better crafted, all round film.
Those films and Die hard make up my top 3 Christmas films.
That's not the end though there's another question to ask, lets ask the REAL question - Will there EVER be a better Christmas film than Die Hard?
Maybe, maybe not. I can't say no because who knows what will come out in the future. It does seem hard to believe that one could be made. Die Hard blew everyone's mind in '88. I will say this - If there ever will be one, it will blow everyone's minds like Die Hard did and it'll spawn a massive franchise. We have some of the greatest Directors that has ever lived still alive in Martin Scorsese, Quintin Tarantino, Chris Nolan and the best of the last 10 years in Robert Eggers and Denis Villeneuve. If any of these guys make a Christmas blockbuster, you better believe it will at least be compaired to the king.
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