Can Die Hard – the 1988 action movie starring Bruce Willis as an NYPD detective hoping to reconcile with his estranged wife on Christmas Eve – be called a Christmas film? The annual debate had officially reached my street WhatsApp group when a happily married couple decided to launch a poll. With 18 votes against four, the result from my road was a landslide “yes”. One neighbour even shared a picture of their Die Hard tree baubles to prove the point.

But an official poll by the British Board of Film Classification has now asserted the contrary – with 44% deciding that Die Hard should not be designated a Christmas movie, against 38% in favour. To some, even with the odd tinsel-strewn tree thrown in, the gun fights, violence and hostage-taking just don’t feel festive. For an admirable 5% of respondents, it remains their favourite Christmas film of all time.

The case against it seems to simmer down to the fact that Christmas is only used as a backdrop, not in order to reify some core message about togetherness, renewal or hope. The postwar era saw a boom in such Christmas films. Take festive classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), in which a man’s suicide attempt is........

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