10 Greatest "Die Hard On A...." Movies

10. Passenger 57: Die Hard On A Plane

The "Die Hard on a Plane" schtick has been done on several occasions. Con Air varies enough from the formula to discount it from this list, while a certain film set aboard a very specific Presidential plane may well appears later on. It therefore came down to a straight shoot out between Executive Decision and this 1992 Wesley Snipes vehicle.

Thanks to Snipes' entertaining bravado and Bruce Payne's solid work as Charles Rane, aka "The Rane of Terror", Passenger 57 just about edges it. Rane is an international terrorist being escorted to LA aboard a passenger jet in order to stand trial. In retrospect, that was a needlessly risky move from the authorities, but so be it.

After men in Rane's employ kill his handlers and take control of the plane, it's up to former cop John Cutter (Snipes) to weed out the bad guys and retake the aircraft. Brief at just 84 minutes long, Passenger 57 restricts the action to an extremely confined space and while the script is fairly iffy for the most part, Payne's unsettling performance as a psychopathic terrorist (the worst kind there is) just about makes up for it.