Die Hard
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This Die Hard movie trivia quiz has 173 free questions with answers and covers the 1988 original from every angle: the plot at Nakatomi Plaza, the cast, and the making-of stories, from Frank Sinatra's right of first refusal and Bruce Willis's Moonlighting schedule to Alan Rickman's early drop off the platform, the Fox Plaza location, Michael Kamen's use of Beethoven and the four Oscar nominations. About ten questions then follow John McClane through Die Hard 2, With a Vengeance, Live Free or Die Hard and A Good Day to Die Hard. The first questions are easy enough for anyone who has seen the film once. The rest get progressively harder and finish with production details only serious fans will know, so it works as a solo challenge or as a ready-made round for a Christmas movie night. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 173 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is John McClane's profession at the beginning of 'Die Hard'?
NYPD Detective
NYPD Detective John McClane is a continent away from his beat, so when gunmen seize the tower he fights them with no backup, no jurisdiction and no shoes.
Q 02In Die Hard, a fellow passenger tells McClane to cure jet lag by going barefoot and doing what?
Making fists with his toes
Making fists with his toes on the carpet is the tip, and McClane is trying it in an office washroom when the gunmen arrive, which is why he fights the whole night barefoot.
Q 03How does McClane first try to summon help after the gunmen seize the tower in Die Hard?
Pulling a fire alarm
Pulling a fire alarm brings engines racing toward the tower, but a gunman posing as the lobby guard reports a false alarm and they turn back; worse, the alarm tells Hans someone is loose.
Q 04Who portrays the main antagonist, Hans Gruber, in 'Die Hard'?
Alan Rickman
Alan Rickman had never made a feature film; the scene where Hans poses as a hostage was added after a writer overheard him trying out an American accent on the crew.
Q 05In Die Hard, what does McClane learn when he looks up his wife on the lobby directory?
She uses her maiden name
She uses her maiden name, Gennaro, at Nakatomi; McClane takes it badly, and the couple's reunion upstairs turns straight into an argument about it.
Q 06In Die Hard, what $640 million haul is Hans Gruber's gang really after in the Nakatomi vault while posing as terrorists?
Bearer bonds
Bearer bonds are the prize, and the vault's last lock opens only when the FBI cuts the building's power, exactly as Hans had planned.
Q 07In which U.S. city does Die Hard's skyscraper siege take place?
Los Angeles
Los Angeles glitters behind the party-floor set, but that view is paint: a 380-foot backdrop with built-in lights that mimic traffic and shift from dusk to night.
Q 08In Die Hard, which conqueror does Hans Gruber describe weeping because he had no more worlds left to conquer?
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great is his example, offered as one of the benefits of a classical education; in fact Hans is misquoting Plutarch, so the boast undercuts itself.
Q 09Who is the limousine driver who drops John McClane at the tower and later aids him?
Argyle
Argyle waits in the garage with the limo all night, at first oblivious, then stops the gang's getaway by ramming their escape vehicle and knocking out its driver, Theo, with one punch.
Q 10Die Hard was adapted from which 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp?
Nothing Lasts Forever
Nothing Lasts Forever, Thorp's 1979 sequel to The Detective, supplied the plot; its hero is an ageing retired cop, rewritten as the much younger John McClane.
Q 11Which singer-actor did the studio contractually have to offer the role of John McClane to first?
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra had played the hero of Thorp's earlier novel in 1968's The Detective, so Fox was contractually bound to offer him the sequel; in his seventies, he declined.
Q 12Arnold Schwarzenegger turned down Die Hard to make which 1988 comedy instead?
Twins
Twins, the 1988 comedy pairing him with Danny DeVito, is what Schwarzenegger made instead; he wanted to branch out from muscle-bound action roles.
Q 13Bruce Willis was only free to make Die Hard because production paused on which TV series he starred in?
Moonlighting
Moonlighting went on an eleven-week hiatus when co-star Cybill Shepherd became pregnant, and Willis used the gap to shoot Die Hard.
Q 21Which hip-hop holiday track plays in the limo as McClane rides to the tower in Die Hard?
Christmas in Hollis
Christmas in Hollis by Run-DMC was barely a year old; when McClane asks for some Christmas music, his driver shoots back that this is Christmas music.
Q 22Die Hard's last ambush by Karl is scored with a James Horner cue borrowed from which 1986 film?
Aliens
Aliens: McTiernan preferred the Horner cue he had used as a temp track to the music Michael Kamen wrote for Karl's return, so the borrowed piece stayed in the finished film.
Q 23Which stunt did Willis film on his first day on Die Hard?
Leaping off the roof tied to a fire hose
Q 14Bruce Willis's controversial fee for Die Hard, huge for a TV actor at the time, was how much?
$5 million
$5 million was a fee reserved for Hollywood's top stars, not a TV actor; an unsure Fox put the tower, not his face, on its first posters.
Q 15Hans Gruber's actor won the part after playing the seducer Valmont in which Broadway production?
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Les Liaisons Dangereuses showed the film-makers their Hans in its Valmont; on set, though, he flinched whenever he fired a gun, so McTiernan had to cut away from his face.
Q 16Which real Century City skyscraper, still under construction, played the tower in Die Hard?
Fox Plaza
Fox Plaza, 20th Century Fox's new Century City headquarters, was still being finished during the 1987–88 shoot, so its bare upper floors appear on screen as construction levels.
Q 17Die Hard was famously pitched to the studio as 'Rambo in' what?
An office building
'Rambo in an office building' was the pitch; director John McTiernan took it on condition that the film would have 'some joy' rather than grim terrorism.
Q 18In Jeb Stuart's early Die Hard script, John McClane shared which surname with a great director of Westerns?
Ford
Ford, as in John Ford, was dropped in deference to the late director; Stuart then chose McClane as a 'good strong Scottish name'.
Q 19McClane's 'Yippee-ki-yay' catchphrase was inspired by which singing cowboy star's sign-off?
Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers is the cowboy McClane says he was always partial to when Hans mocks him as a would-be John Wayne; the catchphrase that follows borrows the singing star's own 'yippee-ki-yay'.
Q 20Which classical piece did composer Michael Kamen initially object to McTiernan using in Die Hard?
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was McTiernan's idea, borrowed from A Clockwork Orange; over Kamen's objection, its 'Ode to Joy' was woven through the score as the villains' theme.
Leaping off the roof tied to a fire hose came first; the real jump was from a parking-garage ledge, and the blast threw Willis to the very edge of his airbag.
Q 24How did the crew capture Hans Gruber's genuinely shocked face as he falls in Die Hard?
Let go of him early
Let go of him early: the actor was promised a drop on the count of three and released sooner, and the alarm on his face in that first take is what the film uses.
Q 25Reginald VelJohnson's turn as Sergeant Al Powell in Die Hard led to a starring role in which sitcom?
Family Matters
Family Matters came calling after one of its producers saw Die Hard and asked VelJohnson to audition; he spent nine seasons as another kindly cop, Chicago's Carl Winslow.
Q 26Die Hard's hostage floor was built around a recreation of which famous Frank Lloyd Wright house?
Fallingwater
Fallingwater, Wright's Pennsylvania house over a waterfall, was recreated on the party floor; production designer Jackson De Govia said it stood for Japanese firms buying up American assets in the 1980s.
Q 27In Die Hard, which line does hacker Theo crow as his crew ambushes the SWAT team?
The quarterback is toast
The quarterback is toast was an ad-lib by Clarence Gilyard, whose Theo calls the ambush like a sports broadcast; McTiernan let the cast improvise, and the line stayed in.
Q 28An early Nakatomi logo for Die Hard was scrapped because it looked too much like what?
A swastika
A swastika is what the first Nakatomi logo resembled, so it was scrapped; the replacement was styled after a samurai warrior's helmet.
Q 29Die Hard is set at Christmas, but in which season did it actually open in American cinemas?
Summer
Summer: Fox opened it in just 21 cinemas on July 15, 1988, and word of mouth made it a must-see before it went nationwide a week later.
Q 30Die Hard's four Oscar nominations were all for technical craft; which of these was one of them?
Best Visual Effects
Best Visual Effects was one of them: Richard Edlund's team had built a computer-driven focus system just to film Hans's fall. Die Hard won none of its four.