That’s right, I’m saying it, loudly and proudly, since John McTiernan’s 1988 action classic isn’t just set at Christmastime—it embodies the very spirit of the holiday.

| Dec 5, 2022

It's a glorious scene-stealer for Alan Rickman, though it's a credit to Willis's cheeky charisma that his scene is not in fact stolen.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 29, 2018

Die Hard is film's equivalent of a terrorist attack on your senses, but Willis' intensity and presence push it into guilty pleasure territory.

| Apr 27, 2018

There are good performances from everyone in this long, often funny, very violent but exciting melodrama.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 28, 2015

Yippee-ki-yay, action fans.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 28, 2014

Willis gleefully strips down the action movie to a pretend game for children who like to fire guns and shoot bad guys. Machismo may never be the same.

| Jul 9, 2013

Die Hard is an action picture with a capital A. In fact, you might as well go ahead and capitalize the whole darn word.

| Jul 9, 2013

As a grand flourish of cinematic technique, it is awesome; as a human drama, it is disgusting and silly, a mindless depiction of carnage on an epic scale.

| Jul 9, 2013

The very pinnacle of the '80s action movie, and if it's not the greatest action movie ever made, then it's damn close.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 9, 2013

McTiernan, who directed last summer's Predator, composes the action cleanly and logically, making good use of Jackson DeGovia's elaborate post-modernist set-the building becomes something of a character in itself.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 9, 2013

In the first half of Director John McTiernan's movie, Willis wears an undershirt. In the second half he gets rid of it. And that's pretty much it for his performance.

| Dec 5, 2008

Die Hard is as high tech, rock hard and souped up as an action film can be.

| Nov 27, 2007

A serviceable if rather overextended and overblown adventure thriller.

| Nov 27, 2007

A hi-tech thriller with a human heart.

| Jan 26, 2006

An explosion-movie classic.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 16, 2004

The scenes move with such relentless energy and smashing special-effects extravagance that Die Hard turns out to be everything action-genre fans, and Bruce Willis's relieved investors, might have hoped for.

| May 20, 2003

Bruce Willis discovered his movie legs in this superb action movie.

| Jun 30, 2002

For an evening of edge-of-your-seat entertainment, you’d be hard pressed to do much better.

| Original Score: A- | May 8, 2002

The granddaddy of a whole genre of action films still remains sharp, tough, and exciting.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 17, 2001

It gets your heart pounding, then makes you hate yourself for it.

| Jan 1, 2000