Did you think we were done with the ‘Is Die Hard a Christmas movie’ debate once Bruce Willis declared it wasn’t back in 2018? You’d be sorely mistaken if you did, as the debate has persisted since then, though don’t ask Die Hard director John McTiernan to take a side on it. Now New Girl star Zooey Deschanel, who has her own her own Christmas movie cred from Elf, has thrown in her two cents on this topic, and I agree with the point she makes.
What Zooey Deschanel Said About Die Hard
Deschanel, who can now be seen performing opposite Daredevil: Born Again’s Charlie Cox in the 2025 movie releaseMerv (which can be streamed with a Prime Video subscription) gave her Die Hard take while speaking with People. She’s in the camp of people who believes it is a Christmas movie, saying:
It is. It takes place on Christmas. And maybe it’s not like Elf or something, where there’s a magical creature or a magical person or whatever at the center of the film — so it doesn’t have that, like, super Christmas forward element — but it has Christmas in the background.
That’s an astute observation, and one that comes right before we’re about to hit Christmas. My feelings about Die Hard as a Christmas movie are complicated, but let me get into why I overall side with Zooey Deschanel on this.
Why Zooey Deschanel Has The Right Die Hard Take
Here’s the thing: contrary to CinemaBlend’s selection of the best Christmas movies of all time, I don’t think Die Hard should rank high on that list. My primary criteria for judging these types of movies is how much their premises focus on the actual holiday and infuse viewers with the Christmas spirit. Die Hard, while a great watch and certainly deserving of being called one of the best action movies of all time, falls short in these fields.
That being said, I do agree with Zooey Deschanel that Die Hard does qualify as a Christmas movie, at least technically speaking. Hans Gruber (who some might argue is the actual hero of the movie) and his men take over Nakatomi Plaza while a party is being held on Christmas Eve, and John McClane makes a handful of Christmas references while taking out Gruber’s men. This isn’t the same thing as a movie like Iron Man 3, where events are taking place during Christmas, but the holiday itself doesn’t directly factor into the story.
Zooey Deschanel’s opinion won’t do anything to end the Die Hard debate, but it’s still nice to hear where she stands on it. And just like Macaulay Culkin used his Home Alone stardom to argue against Die Hard being a Christmas movie while recently appearing on Mythical Kitchen, the actress is better positioned to offer an opinion on this subject. As mentioned earlier, she starred opposite Will Ferrell in Elf as Jovie, Buddy’s love interest.
If you’re in the mood to stream either Elf or Die Hard now, they can be respectively streamed with an HBO Max subscription and a Hulu subscription. Otherwise, you can look forward to seeing Zooey Deschanel next in the upcoming comedy Trash Mountain, which began filming in October, but doesn’t have a release date yet.
