Movie · 1990 · Action, Thriller · 2h 4m · R · English
Curator score: 4.2/10 (655.4K ratings)
Die harder.
Overview
One year after his heroics in Los Angeles, John McClane is an off-duty cop who is the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. On a snowy Christmas Eve, as he waits for his wife's plane to land at Washington Dulles International Airport, terrorists take over the air traffic control system in a plot to free a South American army general and drug smuggler being flown into the US to face drug charges. It's now up to McClane to take on the terrorists, while coping with an inept airport police chief, an uncooperative anti-terrorist squad, and the life of his wife and everyone else trapped in planes circling overhead.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.2/10
IMDb: 7.2/10
Letterboxd: 3.34/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 68%
Metacritic: 67
TMDB: 7.0/10
Director
Renny Harlin
Production
Gordon Company, Silver Pictures, 20th Century Fox
Cast
Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, William Sadler, John Amos, Franco Nero, William Atherton, Dennis Franz, Art Evans, Fred Thompson, Tom Bower, Sheila McCarthy, Don Harvey, Reginald VelJohnson, Tony Ganios, Peter Nelson, Robert Patrick, Mick Cunningham, John Leguizamo, Tom Verica, John Costelloe
Curator Review
Verdict
A sturdy, highly watchable sequel that trades the original’s airtight suspense for bigger, noisier set pieces and a more ludicrous premise. It’s not as sharp or iconic as the first film, but it still delivers brisk pacing, snowy holiday atmosphere, and plenty of Bruce Willis wisecracks.
Best for
fans of 90s action movies
viewers who like holiday-set thrillers
people who enjoy airport or siege movies
audiences who prefer fast, crowd-pleasing action over realism
Skip if
you want the original’s precision and tension
you’re bothered by implausible action logic
you dislike sequel escalation and repetition
you prefer grounded, character-driven thrillers
Overview
Die Hard 2 is the kind of sequel that knows exactly what it is: bigger, louder, and a little more ridiculous than the original. Renny Harlin turns Dulles Airport into a snowbound pressure cooker, and the movie keeps finding fresh ways to strand John McClane in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Worth noting
What it loses in elegance, it makes up for in momentum. The airport setting gives the film a neat mechanical structure, and the constant friction between McClane, the bureaucracy around him, and the planes circling overhead keeps the tension moving even when the plot gets far-fetched.
Bottom line
It’s not the definitive McClane movie, but it is a very watchable one. If you’re in the mood for a slick early-90s action sequel with Christmas lights, gunfire, and a hero who survives by irritation as much as skill, this still goes down easy.
Top Letterboxd reviews
alor (4★) · 2492 likes
is it just me or is Die Hard like a more adult version of the Home Alone franchise
adambolt (2.5★) · 1149 likes
John McClane on a John McPlane
Will Menaker (4★) · 1079 likes
The original is a perfect Reagan-era reactionary text: blue collar white guy with some damn balls and common sense saves weak, decadent, sexually licentious West Coast types from terrorism, the news media, and women with careers. Renny Harlin's sequel flips the script by making the terrorist villain Oliver North and a gang of right wing military psychos and their anticommunist, narco-trafficking allies in South America. He also ups the body count by hundreds. Say what you will about Hans Gruber,… more The original is a perfect Reagan-era reactionary text: blue collar white guy with some damn balls and common sense saves weak, decadent, sexually licentious West Coast types from terrorism, the news media, and women with careers. Renny Harlin's sequel flips the script by making the terrorist villain Oliver North and a gang of right wing military psychos and their anticommunist, narco-trafficking allies in South America. He also ups the body count by hundreds. Say what you will about Hans Gruber,… more
Ian West (4★) · 998 likes
About ten years ago or so I was actually stranded at the Dulles international airport on Christmas Eve. To make it even better, I saw Senator Fred Thompson there and was convinced I was living Die Hard 2, absolutely waiting for the crazy military Franco Nero minions to kill us all. Although there wasn’t any naked martial arts practicing William Sadler, I did get drunk at the bar and contiously asked where I could find the Annex Skywalk. They weren’t amused.
Come to think of it (and considering the ‘I’m trapped in a shithole airport on Xmas eve omg nooo’), that was a pretty fun Christmas Eve.
Matt Singer (3.5★) · 780 likes
A movie so ludicrous on its face that the main character has to make a joke about how implausible it is that he might wind up in the middle of another massive hostage situation (with his wife’s life on the line again no less!). And you know what? It kinda gets away with it. I mean, John McClane should never be in a snowmobile chase under any circumstances. But it is always and will always be fun watching John McClane tell off pompous bureaucrats.
(Also, someone tell me where to get John McClane’s shawl collar sweater. I want one. I want one.)