One of the most enduring, influential action movie franchises of all time is Die Hard. Launched in 1988, the film series made star Bruce Willis one of the biggest, most iconic actors in the world and spawned countless imitators while the main film series thrilled millions worldwide. Following the release of the fifth movie in 2013, the future of the franchise is currently, but the series remains a perennial favorite for fans.

Here is the definitive ranking of the Die Hard movies, averaging professional critics' scores on review aggregate sites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, with police detective John McClane's adventures ranked from lowest score to highest.

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A Good Day to Die Hard - 22

John McClane with his son in A Good Day To Die Hard

It's widely agreed that the fifth and most recent Die Hard film, 2013's A Good Day to Die Hard, is the worst in the entire franchise. John McClane travels to Russia to rescue his son Jack after discovering the young man now works undercover for the CIA. After freeing his son, the McClanes quickly find themselves in the middle of a global terrorist ring and decide to do some father-son bonding with guns blazing.

Critics lambasted the 2013 sequel for completely dismissing the everyman quality to McClane along with the decision to make his son a secret agent. The action was derided as formulaic and the plot is considered contrived. The film is regarded as more of a generic Bruce Willis action movie than a proper installment to the Die Hard series.

Die Hard with a Vengeance - 58.5

John with Zeus Carver

The original film's director, John McTiernan, returned for the 1995 sequel Die Hard with a Vengeance, reuniting Willis with his Pulp Fiction co-star Samuel L. Jackson for the third installment in the series. With his personal life in shambles, McClane has hit rock bottom just as Simon Gruber, the brother of his old nemesis Hans, has come to New York City looking for revenge against the hero cop.

While the highest-earning movie of 1995, earning $366.1 million worldwide, critics were more lukewarm towards the film. The action sequences and Willis' on-screen pairing with Jackson were widely praised, but some critics found the movie to be a bit more unfocused than its predecessors and were divided on its climactic showdown.

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Die Hard 2 - 68

Following up from the runaway success of the original movie, 1990's Die Hard 2 was directed by Renny Harlin and marketed under the somewhat infamous tagline "Die Harder." Two years after the Nakatomi Tower incident, McClane and his wife Holly Gennero McClane find themselves caught in another Christmastime crisis as terrorists seize control of Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

While critics praised the sequel's action, reviewers criticized the film for being more grating and inane than the original film. Willis' first return as McClane was well regarded but critics felt that, overall, the film tried just a bit too hard to live up to the bar set by its predecessor.

Live Free or Die Hard - 75.5

After twelve years away, Die Hard returned to the big screen for its bombastic fourth installment in 2007, Live Free or Die Hard. Tasked by the FBI to bring in a local hacker, McClane's routine trip to Washington, D.C. quickly goes off the rails when cyberterrorists target the national infrastructure on Independence Day weekend, eventually drawing McClane's estranged daughter Lucy into their plot.

While fans were wary of the film being the first installment in the franchise to be rated PG-13, critics praised the movie for its unabashedly over-the-top action and entertainingly wacky set pieces anchored by Willis' steely return to the role that made him an international superstar.

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Die Hard - 83

As the film that started it all, the original 1988 Die Hard is still regarded as the best movie in the entire franchise and one of the greatest action movies ever made. New York City Police Detective John McClane travels to Los Angeles to visit his estranged wife Holly at her new job, only for the office Christmas party to go haywire when terrorists take control of the building. Trapped and alone, McClane is forced to use his wits to stay one step ahead of the villains to survive and save the day.

Nominated for four Academy Awards and inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2017, Die Hard is regarded as a landmark movie for the action genre. Willis and co-star Alan Rickman were singled out as especially effective in their roles and the film itself remains the bar against which all subsequent action movies are judged.

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