"Welcome to the party pal!" Welcome indeed, for the tower-based entry on our list that everyone knows best. Bruce Willis was a mugging TV star before he made Die Hard in 1988. Luckily for him the lead role of John McClane had been turned down more times than a hotel bedspread. The decision made his Hollywood career. Action-meister John McTiernan put Willis in the vest, for a riotous, skyscraper-set romp that pitched New York's finest McClane in a floor by floor clash of the titans, the latter element more than ably represented by the late Alan Rickman as bearded über-villain Hans Gruber. The pace could have been much slower if the studio's approach to Frank Sinatra had been accepted. The elderly performer was asked due to contractual reasons - source novel Nothing Lasts Forever being the follow up to The Detective, whose movie adaptation gave the crooner one of his defining roles.