Bruce Willis was always at his most fascinating when he was that rare everyman action star who seemed forever vulnerable to the copious bullets and explosions. Die Hard, John McTiernan's actioner about terrorists taking over an LA office building on Christmas Eve, is the film that first introduced the world to Willis as a believable, relatable action leading man. The residual cred from this film is one of the key reasons Willis is still a major star now. Die Hard remains the defining action movie of the 1980s, and its influence reaches far and wide - you can see where numerous movies have since tried to ape the film and, for the large part, failed to top it. Whole set-pieces are to this day lifted from the film, while the entire concept of good guys vs bad guys trapped in a single location has been done dozens of times over. McTiernan's movie is still the original and best, though, and you can thank the director for both making a star of villainous favourite Alan Rickman (here making his movie debut, aged 42) and for grounding action cinema back in reality.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
