Thirty-five years after "Die Hard" hit theaters, the Bruce Willis vehicle maintains its rep as a chef-d'oeuvre due to its perennial relevance. The creaky debate concerning whether it's a holiday movie guarantees it'll resurface at Christmastime; in fact, the miracle at Nakatomi Plaza probably turns up on more people's midwinter viewing lists than whatever happened on 34th Street.
If that's true, one should also credit the John McTiernan-directed classic's considerable influence on 1990s action cinema. For a little while every other action movie boiled down to "Die Hard In/On a (Fill in the Blank)." That decade was a bonanza for "Die Hard on a Plane" movies, a list that includes 1992's "Passenger 57," 1996's "Executive Decision," and the 1997 double serving of "Con Air" with Nicolas Cage and "Air Force One" starring Harrison Ford.
