In just a few weeks, a new Die Hard movie is going to come out. If I can call myself "The Michael Jordan of Watching Die Hard Movies," and I think we all agree that I can, I'd like to give some advice to the fifth installment of the most important movie franchise of my career (I likely never would have written for this site if it hadn't been for Live Free or Die Hard, the inspiration for my very first Cracked article). The franchise is important to me; I know what makes a good or bad Die Hard, and I can either write this article about it or scream about it on street corners (or both).

Because the intention of this guide is to build a good Die Hard movie, and because "good" is subjective, I'm going to get us all on the same page, or more specifically, get you on my page, so you understand where each Die Hard film ranks.

Die Hard: A perfect movie.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder: A crappy Die Hard.

Die Hard With a Vengeance: A pretty great Die Hard.

Live Free or Die Hard: A fine movie, but not at all a Die Hard.

I'll be saying things like "All of the better Die Hard movies had [XYZ]" a bunch, so now you know that when I say "better Die Hards," I mean Die Hard and Die Hard With a Vengeance. A lot of people rank Die Harder over Vengeance, but I think we can all agree that those people are wrong.

[Also, before getting into the article, I will say that the single most important rule about Die Harding is that John McClane needs to be an average cop out of his element, and not a super cop. This idea is so clear and so widely accepted that I didn't think it needed its own entry, but I'm so pedantic and thorough that I couldn't write this article without at least mentioning it. Moving on.]

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