All hail the Holy Grail of action cinema, screening here in glorious 70mm for the first time in Ireland in over two decades. After all the sequels, homages, pastiches and innumerable rip-offs, John McTiernan’s original feels fresher than ever.

Bruce Willis – an underrated actor to this day, say we – cemented his movie star credentials with a defining performance as ordinary-guy-in-extraordinary-circumstances John McClane, trapped in a high-rise LA skyscraper as a gang of international criminals (led by Alan Rickman, in a memorable big screen debut) holds its employees, amongst them McClane’s estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia), to ransom. Did we mention that it’s Christmas? The ace in the hole here is McTiernan, a director who knows how to frame and shoot an awesome action sequence, unlike the ‘chaos cinema’ principle that drives today’s overwrought entries. The fifth entry in the Die Hardseries goes into production soon, with Dundalk’s own John Moore at the helm (Notes by Derek O’Connor.)

Tickets: €12 (standard)/€10 (IFI Members/concessions)

Showing as part of a Bang for your Buck: Action Movies 101 season throughout May.