On Christmas Eve, New York cop John McClane arrives at the Nakatomi Plaza skyscraper in Los Angeles hoping to reconcile with his estranged wife Holly, only to find the building seized by a gang of armed thieves led by the urbane Hans Gruber, who is after $640 million in bearer bonds from the vault. Barefoot and outgunned, McClane spends the night picking them off one by one while the LAPD and FBI manage to make things steadily worse.
