A UK survey found 44% of Britons don’t see Die Hard as Christmas but who cares/ Image: X
The first time anyone watches the 1988 classic that would go on to become a franchise, what strikes you immediately is how naturally it sits in the season, how unmistakably Christmas it feels from the very start. A New York cop in a crumpled white vest flies to Los Angeles to patch things up with his estranged wife at her office Christmas party. The building is draped in fairy lights. The soundtrack leans on seasonal standards. The wife’s name is Holly, because of course it is. By the time the end credits roll to “Let It Snow”, you can see why, over the years, many people quietly slipped Die Hard into the same December rotation as Home Alone and It’s a Wonderful Life. It makes instinctive sense as a Christmas film. And every December, people end up arguing over it the way they argue over tree lights or gift-wrapping technique, a seasonal back-and-forth that has become part of Christmas itself. Still, when formally asked, the British public came down on the side of “no.” According to a new survey, Die Hard is officially “not” a Christmas movie. That verdict tells us less about the film itself and more about how narrowly many people still define what a Christmas movie is allowed to be.
What the surveys actually say
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) asked 2,000 people in the UK a very simple question: is Die Hard a Christmas film? Forty-four per cent said no. Thirty-eight per cent disagreed and said yes. Five per cent went further and named it their favourite Christmas film of all. Seventeen per cent weren’t quite sure how to classify it at all. At the same time, the survey also crowned the country’s festive comfort picks. Home Alone came out on top as the UK’s favourite Christmas film, with 20% of the vote. Love Actually followed on 9%, It’s a Wonderful Life on 8%, and Elf on 7%. Those choices line up neatly with the BBFC’s own interpretation of the results: David Austin, the organisation’s chief executive, pointed out that “heartwarming, family-friendly stories” still sit at the centre of the nation’s Christmas viewing traditions. The research backs that up. When respondents were asked what they wanted from the “perfect” Christmas film, a heartwarming story led at 33%, followed by family friendliness at 15% and humour at 13%. Only 2% of people actively sought out a tear-jerker. There’s also a strong ritual element around where and how people watch. Eighteen per cent said that going to the cinema over Christmas is a family tradition. A third of those prefer to go before Christmas Eve, while around a fifth favour Boxing Day. Over 40% feel the beginning of December is the right time to start festive films; a smaller but committed group admit they watch them all year round. In other words, if you think Christmas films should be cosy, reassuring, and safe for a multi-generational sofa, the top-line numbers make sense. Home Alone checks all those boxes. Love Actually and It’s a Wonderful Life do too. Die Hard does not, at least not at first glance. The survey isn’t really answering the question “Is Die Hard a Christmas film?” so much as “Does Die Hard match the dominant British fantasy of what Christmas is supposed to feel like?” That’s a different question, and it’s where this neatly packaged verdict starts to fray.
Even the people involved don’t agree
If you look beyond the poll and ask the people who helped make or embody these films, the picture becomes even messier. Take the cast and creatives. Bruce Willis, who built his career on John McClane’s grime-streaked bravado, used a Comedy Central roast in 2018 to stamp his own line in the snow: “Die Hard is not a Christmas movie, it’s a goddamn Bruce Willis movie.” It’s a good joke, and it fits the persona, but it’s not exactly a neutral ruling. Screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, who wrote Die Hard and its sequel alongside other ‘80s and ‘90s action landmarks such as 48 Hrs. and Commando, has publicly taken the opposite view. In 2017 he said flatly that yes, Die Hard is a Christmas film. Director John McTiernan has also spoken about not originally intending to make a Christmas movie, but later being delighted that audiences adopted it as one. The people who built the film can’t even agree on what they made. Then there’s Macaulay Culkin, avatar of a different Christmas canon. During an event for Home Alone’s 35th anniversary, he listed his favourite festive films and then threw in a grenade: “Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie.” The audience booed. He pushed back: if you set Die Hard at St Patrick’s Day, he argued, you’d have essentially the same film; try doing that with Home Alone and it falls apart. He’s not wrong about his own film. Home Alone is inseparable from stockings, travel chaos, and Santa stand-ins. But his logic about Die Hard is shakier. No Christmas party, no cross-country reconciliation attempt, no Holly, no children waiting at home, no seasonal soundtrack. The plot scaffolding would have to be rebuilt. What we’re seeing is that there is no single authority here, not the actor, not the writer, not the director, not the BBFC, not even the nostalgic child star. Each has a stance, but none of them get final say. Because the argument was never really about the film’s original intention, it became about what audiences have turned the film into over time: a Christmas fixture shaped by years of ritual rewatching.
Why the British poll doesn’t set the global verdict
Die Hard is now, undeniably, a film that millions choose to watch at Christmas, primarily in the US, yes, but the habit didn’t stay there. Once December programming cycles kicked in, anyone with access to international channels began seeing it slotted into holiday schedules, often back-to-back and they don’t do that because a poll told them to, or because Bruce Willis gave them permission. They do it because, over years of repetition, it has slid into their personal seasonal canon. It sits on the shelf with the obvious titles, not as irony, but as a genuine December mood. Cultural tradition isn’t litigated by statistics, it’s shaped by how people actually watch films in their homes. We don’t judge Home Alone by the BBFC survey. We don’t judge It’s A Wonderful Life by a contemporary Reddit poll. We don’t strip Love Actually of its Christmas credentials just because Andrew Lincoln shows up with cue cards in a way that would be questionable today.And the truth is that not everyone wants their Christmas films to look like a department-store advert. Some families drink cocoa and cry to Jimmy Stewart. Some laugh as Kevin McCallister electrocutes burglars. Some want jingle bells and cosy fireplaces. And yes, some want Alan Rickman falling off a skyscraper in slow motion with holiday orchestration swelling in the background. Not everyone’s festive ritual needs to be soft-edged and sentimental. Some people want a little chaos, a little spectacle, a high-rise heist, a strained marriage, a barefoot hero crossing broken glass, all while outside the city plays at being festive. The emotional axis of Die Hard is as Christmas as anything: someone trying to get home, trying to mend something, trying not to disappoint the people they love. And you can see how deeply it has settled into the season in the merchandise alonem Christmas jumpers, coffee mugs, and novelty gifts happily printed with lines like “Merry Christmas, Hans,” a phrase fans collectively absorbed into the film’s mythology even though it never appears in the movie. It feels like something McClane would say, and that’s enough.So when a survey of 2,000 people declares that Die Hard is “not” a Christmas film, it’s capturing a majority preference, not handing down a cultural verdict. It reflects what many Britons believe Christmas should feel like, heartwarming, family-safe, frictionless, and on that axis, of course it loses to Home Alone. But the fact that 38% defend it, and 5% name it their favourite festive film, tells its own story: for a significant minority, Christmas has room for catharsis as well as comfort. It can hold both tinsel and TNT.In the end, Die Hard is a Christmas film for the least academic reason possible: a large number of people have decided to treat it as one. They watch it every December. They quote it around the dinner table. They press play when the tree is lit. That’s how traditions form, not by decree, but by repetition. If Christmas can accommodate Jimmy Stewart praying in despair, and Macaulay Culkin cackling at intruders, it can certainly handle John McClane crawling through an air vent. And on the evidence of how people actually live with it, Die Hard isn’t just a movie set at Christmas, it has become a Christmas movie, intention be damned.And ultimately, yippee-ki-yay is just as valid a seasonal refrain as “Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.” Go to Source
