Die Hard

Die Hard is an Academy Award nominated 1988 American action film. It was written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza, stars Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Alan Rickman, Paul Gleason, Reginald VelJohnson and William Atherton, and was directed by John McTiernan. A huge critical and commercial success, Die Hard propelled Willis' film career and established Rickman as a popular portrayer of villains in American film. The film also started the Die Hard series.
The movie is based on a 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp titled Nothing Lasts Forever, itself a sequel to the book The Detective, which was previously made into a 1968 movie starring Frank Sinatra.

Story:

John McClane, a detective with the New York City Police Department, arrives in Los Angeles to attempt a Christmas reunion with his estranged wife Holly. He is taken by limousine driver Argyle to her workplace, the high-rise Nakatomi Plaza. While Argyle waits in the building's parking garage, McClane joins the Nakatomi Christmas party where he finds Holly and they get into an argument over her use of her maiden name Gennero. Holly leaves McClane in a small room near the party.

A gang of men led by German terrorist Hans Gruber invade the building, under the pretense of gaining the release of various terrorist operatives. The party-goers are subdued and it is revealed that the group are actually thieves; they plan to use the false terrorist crisis to cover their looting of $640 million in bearer bonds from the building's vault. Theo, the group's technical mastermind, begins disabling the vault locks, warning Gruber that the final electromagnetic lock is uncrackable.

McClane slips away during the party round-up, and his attempt to summon help brings him into confrontation with gang member Tony. Tony is killed, prompting the man's brother, Karl, to lead a hunt for the police officer through the building. McClane convinces a Los Angeles Police Department radio operator to send a patrol unit to Nakatomi, then secures the attention of responding officer Al Powell by dropping one of the terrorists onto the patrol car's hood. He also takes C4 explosives and detonators off the body of another terrorist.

Fox Plaza in Los Angeles, portrayed in the film as Nakatomi Plaza.The LAPD responds in force, but this only accelerates Gruber's timetable. The LAPD attempts to take over the building by sending a SWAT team and then an armored vehicle, but both are repelled by Gruber's men. When Gruber ignores McClane's request to back down, McClane retaliates by bombing an entire floor of the building with the rest of the C4 in McClane's possession. Holly's coworker Ellis reveals McClane's identity to Gruber and is murdered when McClane does not return the detonators.

While checking on the explosives set beneath the roof, Gruber finds himself in an unplanned face-to-face meeting with McClane and attempts to pass himself off as a hostage. Karl and his men interrupt the conversation and McClane loses the detonators as he flees. As he tends his wounds, Powell tells him via radio how he had shot a youth "armed" with a toy gun and became a desk sergeant afterwards.

The FBI arrives on the scene and orders the building's power cut. This merely deactivates the final lock on the vault, and Gruber "negotiates" with the FBI to release the hostages on the rooftop via helicopter. The FBI agents plan to double cross the "terrorists" with a surprise gunship attack, even if it means losing some of the hostages, but Gruber has wired the top of the building with the C4 and plans to blow it up to cover his escape.

Just as McClane discovers the primed C4, he is attacked by Karl. After a vicious battle, McClane leaves him for dead. Outside the building, a TV reporter named Richard Thornburg finds McClane's children and interviews them. Gruber realizes that Holly is McClane's wife and takes her aside as a special hostage. Theo goes to the parking garage to prepare the group's getaway ambulance. Argyle, who has been watching the situation on his limo's TV, rams the vehicle and punches Theo unconscious.

McClane drives the hostages back down to safety, but the FBI fires at him and Gruber proceeds with the C4 detonation. The resulting explosion destroys the FBI helicopter. McClane escapes the blast by jumping over the side of the building with a fire hose tied around his waist.
McClane confronts Gruber as Gruber holds Holly at gunpoint. McClane tricks Gruber with a false surrender and shoots him, knocking the man out a shattered window and dropping him thirty stories to his death. As McClane and his wife leave the building, Karl reappears one last time, only to be gunned down by Powell. Thornburg approaches the couple for an interview, but Holly punches him in the face and couple departs the scene in Argyle's battered limo.