One in five US adults think it is, though
Here's how 20th Century Fox describes its 1988 film Die Hard: "A New York City cop faces overwhelming odds when his Christmas visit to California is interrupted by a terrorist invasion of his estranged wife's office building."
Although Rotten Tomatoes places the action thriller at #7 on its list of the 25 Best Christmas Movies Of All Time, and the UK film magazine Empire has argued that it's "the greatest Christmas movie ever made," the majority of Americans (56%) do not consider Die Hard a Christmas movie, according to a recent poll conducted by YouGov Omnibus. Only one in five (19%) members of the public do.
That said, men (24%) are more likely to consider it a Christmas movie than women (15%), as are US adults aged 25-34 (26%) compared to those aged 18-24 (16%). At the same time, nearly one-third (31%) of young people aged 18-24 say they're not familiar with Die Hard.
One possible reason that most Americans don't deem Die Hard a Christmas flick – despite the fact that it occurs on Christmas Eve and contains a dead terrorist wearing a red Santa hat with the phrase "HO-HO-HO" scrawled across his chest – is that 57% of US adults feel a Christmas movie must be about the holiday itself, as opposed to just taking place during the holiday season.
To many, then, it seems the depiction of a bloody, barefooted man running around a Los Angeles skyscraper taking out bad guys doesn't quite capture the essence of Christmas.
Image: 20th Century Fox
