Die Hard (1988)

Directed by John McTiernan
Starring: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman

What's the greatest Christmas movie ever made? Some might argue the sadistically funny "Bad Santa." Others might say Tim Allen's "Santa Clause." Still others might say "Frosty the Snowman." Unfortunately for all of these people, they're all wrong. The hands-down, no-questions-asked best Christmas movie of all time has to be the 1988 classic "Die Hard." The only other film that may challenge this holiday benchmark's Christmas cheer and excellence is the film's follow up "Die Hard 2: Die Harder." But let's not get into that argument.

"Die Hard" is the archetype for the terrorist-versus-American action thriller: German (or from some other Eastern European country) terrorists, muscle-bound hero and enough one-liners and continuity errors to fill a novel. Bruce Willis plays the down-and-out New York police officer John McClane, who has flown to Los Angeles to be with his estranged wife Holly Gennero McClane (Bonnie Bedelia) during her company's annual Christmas party. Shortly after McClane arrives at the party, it's taken over by a dozen gun-toting "terrorists." And after they take control of the building and take the guests hostage, McClane breaks away to wreak havoc on their well-laid plans of thievery.

Let's not forget what makes "Die Hard" what it is: the edge-of-your-seat fight scenes and egregiously over-the-top explosions. Bruce Willis can fight. And he can fight well. Throughout the movie, his character encounters a number of different battles (one-on-one, two-on-one, three-on-one, etc.). Amazingly, he makes it out of all of them. But what's different about McClane is the amount of damage he takes during the fights. He gets shot, blown up, hit with flash bangs, showered in glass and beaten to a pulp. And he shows his wounds. Where many American heroes will take a deep cut on the shoulder and be done with it, McClane is on the brink of death more than once due to sheer blood loss.

Interestingly, and one of the things that makes McClane a believable character and "Die Hard" slightly more realistic, is the fact that McClane is not the super-confident, attractive, bachelor hero everyone's grown accustomed to. He's a middle-aged New York cop - although he totally has that scruffy-hunk thing going on - with a wife (estranged as she may be) and two kids. There's a love interest but no damsel in distress as Holly Gennero is as sharp and searing as her husband. And McClane often doubts his own ability to survive the night, telling L.A. officer Sgt. Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson of "Family Matters" fame) to tell his wife he's sorry for destroying their marriage.

But all of that's not to say McClane doesn't have his cocky swagger to him. Before the onslaught of terrorists, he gives one of the greatest lines in all action films: "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker." He's also not averse to goading head terrorist Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire") over their CB radios. And he's sure as hell not afraid to drop a completely clich