History Film / DieHard

** Hans gets in on it when he and Karl shoot out the panes of glass between them so that the barefoot [=McClane=] will have to injure himself to get away.

* BrickJoke: Easy to miss; Powell's leisurely drive towards Nakatomi and noticing nothing amiss makes John complain, "Who is this, Music/StevieWonder?" Soon, when Powell frantically drives to escape the machine-gun fire, when he passes unoticed by the distracted Argyle, it's Wonder's single "Skeletons" blaring in the limo.

** The bad guys are also toting some seriously heavy firepower: when the LAPD rolls up in an armored car, the bad guys shoot ''rockets'' at it. The bad guy with the rocket launcher, Alexander, also uses a [=M60E3=] machine gun to tear up Powell's car when John tries to warn him.

* PreMortemOneLiner: Two, Hans to Takagi ("You're just going to have to kill me--" "Okay.") and John to Hans ("Happy trails, Hans."). The latter is immediately subverted when Hans grabs Holly's wrist as he reels back at the broken window.

* TheChessmaster: Hans set a new standard for intelligent villains when the film first came out. He planned for just about everything, and almost anything that could have been considered a problem was just factored into the overall plan, [[spoiler:such as the FBI responding to a terrorist attack instead of a robbery]]. John [=McClane=] was pretty much the only thing he hadn't planned on.

* LimaSyndrome: ''Faked'' by Hans Gruber: He takes the time to listen to Holly when she acts as liaison for the rest of the hostages, and tries to make them as comfortable as possible, providing a sofa for a pregnant woman and so forth. Since he's planning on blowing them all up, this is apparently just an attempt to keep them quiet and obedient, and maybe trigger some StockholmSyndrome, if possible.

* KentBrockmanNews: One of the news anchors speculates that the hostages have developed "Helsinki Syndrome, named after Helsinki, Sweden," and the other corrects him -- [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Helsinki's in Finland]].[[note]]They're talking about StockholmSyndrome.[[/note]] Then the cut back to Nakatomi Plaza shows quite clearly that they're talking out of their asses.

* GlobalIgnorance: The psychiatrist interviewed on the news brings up his book on "[[StockholmSyndrome Helsinki Syndrome]]". The newsreader cuts in to clarify that Helsinki is in Sweden, and is quickly corrected -- "Finland."

** A BlackComedy scene later when the psychologist predicts on TV that the hostages are currently going through stage where [[StockholmSyndrome "a strange sort of trust and bond develops" between them and the terrorists]], and the scene cuts to the office building where the villains drag Ellis' body out and the hostages are heard wailing in the background.

** His ''first'' step is to CutPhoneLines, [[ClosedCircle trap everyone in the building]], and pretend everything's normal. This works out ''damned'' well and would have succeeded if [=McClane=] had been any less direct than ''throwing a dead body out a window'' and firing at a police car to attract attention.

* RightForTheWrongReasons: Robinson tosses out the possibility that the man Powell's been talking to on the radio ([=McClane=]) is the one who shot up his cruiser. He's correct, but not because John's a nutcase, but because he was desperately trying to get the police to take the hostage situation seriously.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Robinson is not wrong when he speculates that the guy Al is talking to on the radio could be the guy who shot up his car; after throwing the body onto it, it was John who fired at the car in order to alert Al to the seriousness of the situation.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: "Glass? Who gives a shit about ''glass''?!" [[spoiler:''You'' will, John, after someone shoots out a window and you have to run across it barefoot...]]

* CopKiller: The terrorists slaughter the SWAT team sent to storm the building and later [[spoiler:kill the FBI agents on a helicopter after trying to blow the roof up with all the hostages on it]]. [=McClane=] is distracted by other matters during the second, but he takes the first one hard.

[[caption-width-right:310:The odds are against John [=McClane=]. That's just the way he likes it.]]

** The movie was the TropeCodifier for AnAsskickingChristmas and remains one of the most well-known examples for this trope. However, unlike many of its imitators, there's a good reason why the movie takes place during Christmas. Hans Gruber knows that Nakatomi Plaza's CEO is hosting a Christmas party for his employees on Christmas Eve, so he decides to attack during the party because everybody who attends will be on Nakatomi Plaza's 30th floor, giving the terrorists an easy way to take everybody hostage.

* DidIMentionItsChristmas: The holiday has some plot relevance: It's why John is visiting his estranged wife in the first place, and the Nakatomi employees are partying in a mostly empty building.

** The only reason John is able to escape the initial takeover of the party is the searching unit sweeping through the offices are distracted by a [[FanserviceExtra topless woman]] being pulled away in mid-coitus with another office worker, allowing John to slip away to the stairwell unnoticed.

** Although the villains often pepper their dialogue with German, almost all plot-critical information is communicated through English, for no adequately explained reason aside from the audience's benefit (although some of them, notably Theo and Ulli, and quite possibly Marco as well, are clearly not of German ancestry). It becomes particularly glaring when they persist in speaking English when using walkie-talkies even when they know John can hear everything they're saying.

* TheLawOfConservationOfDetail: The screenplay is littered with minute details that play a significant role in the plot. The advice given to John by the man sitting next to him on the plane, Argyle driving him straight to the Nakatomi building so no unnecessary outside characters are introduced, the watch given to his wife as a reward for her hard work, her using her maiden name rather than her married name so John's estrangement to her is established, aforementioned maiden name and the family picture she puts face down after the discussion about it would mean that Gruber would not realize she is John's wife immediately, the laughing man and woman who break into Holly's office for sex (they go into the next office, and when the screaming topless lady is dragged out, the terrorists are distracted just long enough for John to make his initial escape), and even the nationality of the wife's nanny play into the plot.

* TakingTheKids: Holly leaves for California due to a great career opportunity and takes the children with her, much to John [=McClane=]'s dismay. They argue about her having done this and her going back to her maiden name.

--->'''Special Agent Johnson:''' Just like fuckin' Saigon, hey, Slick?\\

** His ''first'' step is to CutPhoneLines, [[ClosedCircle trap everyone in the building]], and pretend everything's normal. This works out ''damned'' well and would have succeeded if [=McClane=] had been any less direct than ''throwing a dead body out a window''.

** Although the villains often pepper their dialogue with German, almost all plot-critical information is communicated through English, for no adequately explained reason aside from the audience's benefit. It becomes particularly glaring when they persist in speaking English when using walkie-talkies even when they know John can hear everything they're saying.

* PreMortemOneLiner: Two, Hans to Takagi ("You're just going to have to kill me--" "Okay.") and John to Hans ("Happy trails, Hans."). The latter is immediately subverted when Hans grabs Holly's wrist as he reels back to the open window.

--->'''Hans:''' Mrs. [=McClane=]?

* DistantReactionShot: When Hans detonates the roof of the Nakatomi and John just ''barely'' manages to save himself by jumping off it via a fire hose he uses as a makeshift rope. One of the camera cuts shows the building from several miles away and the very visible explosion coming from it.

* FakingTheDead: Hans ultimately plan surrounded this and blowing out the roof with all the hostages. With all the chaos, damage, and bodies to shift through, nobody will believe they actually got away.

Though it's set at Christmas, it was never intended to be a [[ChristmasTropes Christmas movie.]] It was released in July as a popcorn action movie. In a similar vein, no one really expected it to be a gamechanger. The 80s was dominated by giant musclemen like Creator/SylvesterStallone and Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger. The balding guy from ''Series/{{Moonlighting}}''? A middle-aged divorced schlub who looked like it? A frickin comedy guy? Starring opposite a Shakespear villain? When every other action movie was pitting absolute muscle against absolute muscle... ''Die Hard'' redefined the genre and gave us TheEveryman with a $4 haircut in the center of the action. ''Die Hard'' did for action films what ''Film/FortyEightHrs'' did for the buddy cop film.

* BuddyCopShow: John and Al bond over the course of the movie. Al realizes right away that John is a cop. John apologizes for not realizing that [[AccidentalChildKillerBackstory Al's ridiing a desk for a good reason.]] Argyle gets to join the show as John's plucky sidekick.

* RidingIntoTheSunset: Referenced by Hans Gruber when he makes his comment about John Wayne and Grace Kelly (see PopculturalOsmosisFailure above).

** The crooks are out to steal hundreds of millions of dollars in "Bearer Bonds", financial vouchers issued in the period redeemable for cash (eventually banned because of their use in money laundering and drug dealing).\

* HollywoodPoliceDrivingAcademy: Al's driving abilities are called into question by John. To be fair, though, Al doesn't ''completely'' trash his police car, and much of the damage it sustains is done under fire and just after a body has been dropped on it.

* WhyWeAreBummedCommunismFell: Hans is a German terrorist... a DefectorFromDecadence, someone who used to believe in Communism and now just wants to steal all the wealth the Imperial Core possesses. He lists off a bunch of terrorist groups as potential beneficiaries, but he spells out it's all about him.
-->''''Karl:''' [mouthing] Golden Dawn?\\
'''Hans:''' [whispering] I read about them in Time.
* WickedCultured: Hans Gruber. Classical education, dontcha know. He's also dressed very well and chats cleverly about high fashion. Having Bethoven's "Ode to Joy" as a motif, Music/MichaelKamen called him a lineal descendant of the bad guys in ''Film/AClockworkOrange''.

-->''''Karl:''' Golden Dawn?\\
'''Hans:''' I read about them in Forbes.