Though Die Hard is a fast-paced action movie series that involves terrorists and mercenaries, John McClane has a surprising number of kills across the franchise. The Die Hard movies came out between 1988 and 2013, following a police detective named John McClane (Bruce Willis) who continually gets roped into stopping crises and terrorist attacks. The movie holds an R-rating due to the amount of violence and graphic action sequences. This includes Die Hard’s iconic Hans Grueber death scene, which still holds up two and a half decades later.
Shockingly, Grueber’s ultimate demise wasn’t directly caused by John McClane, changing the usual action formula of the protagonist killing the antagonist. This is representative of the overall film series, which includes a variety of different methods of death. This narrative choice positively benefits the film’s visuals and overall story. It does raise the question, though, of how many onscreen kills John McClane makes throughout the movies.
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John McClane Kills 73 People In The Die Hard Movies
Action heroes tend to have high body counts, and John McClane is no exception when looking at the collective numbers. Despite this, John McClane has a shockingly low number of on-screen kills when looking at each film individually. The lowest number comes from the first Die Hard with only 10 kills. Interestingly, the highest number happens in Die Hard 2, in which McClane kills 24 people. The number becomes consistent after this, with 13 kills in each movie. This equals out to 73 total kills by John McClane in the Die Hard movies.
While this number seems large at first, it’s much lower than other action movie heroes with high kill counts, like John Wick or Blade. McClane’s number also gets smaller when considering the fact that nine deaths occurred all at once with the explosion at the end of Die Hard 2. This difference in kill counts signals that John McClane is distinctly different from other protagonists in the genre. The Die Hard character refrains from deadly force whenever possible, harming and maiming people instead. He doesn’t seem to revel in the pain he’s causing others, even if he has a strong sense of justice that drives him.
10 Harsh Realities Of Rewatching The Die Hard Movies
The Die Hard movies comprise one of the greatest and most influential action franchises in history. At the same time, it’s far from being perfect.
John McClane’s Kill Count Per Minute
Though he constantly faces enemies, John McClane doesn’t kill many people during the series. Across the whole franchise, the protagonist averages one kill every eight minutes and 22 seconds. The individual movies’ kill counts break down to the following statistics:
- Die Hard – one kill every 13 minutes and 12 seconds (across 132 minutes)
- Die Hard 2 – one kill every 5 minutes and 10 seconds (across 124 minutes)
- Die Hard with a Vengeance – one kill every 9 minutes and 51 seconds (across 128 minutes)
- Live Free or Die Hard – one kill every 9 minutes and 55 seconds (across 129 minutes)
- A Good Day to Die Hard – one kill every 7 minutes and 28 seconds (across 97 minutes)
There’s a narrative benefit to keeping the deaths per minute limited throughout Die Hard. By spreading the kills out, the films give each death more of a dramatic impact. John McClane’s catchphrase and witty jokes wouldn’t be as funny if they happened every single minute of the movie. Future action films may want to follow the lead of Die Hard because sometimes less is more when it comes to the hero slaughtering bad guys.
