DIE HARD is perhaps one of, if not the most, critically lauded action films. Made during a glut of intense shoot-em-up action vehicles ranging from the excellent FIRST BLOOD (1982) to the considerably less excellent DEADLY PREY (1987), DIE HARD broke from the pack by being an incredibly compelling scrappy and tense action thriller. At a time when the dominant approach to action films was spectacle and scale, DIE HARD differentiated itself by being relatively low-key and deriving Hitchcockian suspense from intimate moments and normal situations.