Anchored by Bruce Willis’ iconic performance as John McClane, the A Good Day to Die Hard.
None of the Die Hard sequels warrant as many rewatches as the 1988 original, but some of them can be enjoyed over and over again. Die Hard 2 holds up to fewer revisits than its larger-scale follow-ups (and its much more original predecessor), and A Good Day to Die Hard is difficult to sit through on the first viewing.
A Good Day To Die Hard (2013)
The Die Hard series came to an unceremonious end with its fifth installment, A Good Day to Die Hard. The biggest problem with this movie is that it’s just a generic action thriller; it doesn’t have any of the signature Die Hard flair. McClane isn’t reluctant to spring into action – he heads right into it.
Willis is game, but A Good Day to Die Hard woefully mischaracterizes McClane as a gun-toting maniac. He’s no longer the relatable everyman that audiences fell in love with in 1988. The CGI-laden action scenes are wildly illogical and largely incomprehensible. This movie barely holds up to a single viewing, let alone rewatches.
Die Hard 2 (1990)
The first Die Hard sequel, sometimes dubbed Die Harder, is too close to the first movie to stand on its own. Once again, McClane is caught in the middle of a terrorist siege, and once again, he takes them on singlehandedly to save his estranged wife. The script for Die Hard 2 simply switches out a skyscraper for an airport. McClane even points out how derivative the sequel is: “How could the same s**t happen to the same guy twice?”
Still, Willis brings his A-game to the role and the movie has some thrilling action sequences. Die Hard 2 is built around a great twist reveal. Around the midpoint of the movie, McClane realizes his backup is in cahoots with the bad guys, drastically raising the stakes.
Live Free Or Die Hard (2007)
The fourth Die Hard movie, Live Free or Die Hard, is much larger in scale than the average Die Hard movie. The action sequences come thick and fast, even if the script has a few stretches in logic (the cyberterrorist villain can effortlessly hack into any computer in America). McClane is unrealistically invincible in this movie – he survives jumping a police car into a helicopter and getting chased by a fighter jet – but he’s still the reluctant, put-upon hero from the original movie.
Just as he’s about to go home and get some much-needed sleep, McClane is sent to pick up a local hacker, only to find himself, yet again, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bruce Willis shares great chemistry with Justin Long as they drive across America and bicker across the generational gap. With only a couple of lulls along the way, Live Free or Die Hard is an edge-of-your-seat thrill-ride from start to finish.
Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995)
John McTiernan, the director of the first Die Hard movie, returned to helm easily the best sequel of the franchise, Die Hard with a Vengeance, in 1995. With this threequel, McTiernan finally broke the franchise’s formula and tried out a new narrative framework outside terrorist takeovers of confined spaces. Die Hard with a Vengeance is more of a “buddy cop” movie that pairs McClane with a deadpan sidekick.
Bruce Willis shares hilarious chemistry with Samuel L. Jackson as his crimefighting cohort, electrician Zeus Carver. Their dynamic is endlessly watchable, and the nail-biting city-wide game of “Simon Says” keeps the plot moving at a rapid pace. Jeremy Irons’ Simon Gruber is the most memorable and sinister Die Hard villain since his brother Hans besieged Nakatomi Plaza.
Die Hard (1988)
The original Die Hard movie is a timeless masterpiece, universally praised by critics as one of the greatest action movies ever made. It’s a Christmas-themed film that can be enjoyed at any time of the year. In the time since Die Hard hit theaters, self-contained stories about underdog protagonists singlehandedly battling a band of terrorists in an armed takeover has become a subgenre of its own: “Die Hard in a...” In a decade of muscle-bound action heroes like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis’ turn as a relatable everyman who cuts his bare feet on broken glass was a breath of fresh air.
The flawed, self-deprecating McClane was a character that everybody could see themselves in (unlike unstoppable killing machines like John Rambo and the T-800). Alan Rickman backs him up with one of the most iconic villain performances in the history of action cinema as unscrupulous German terrorist leader Hans Gruber. The first Die Hard movie has sharp storytelling and captivating characters to bolster its nonstop action-packed spectacle.
