Action · Thriller
American
1988 · Directed by John McTiernan · 132 min
On Christmas Eve, a New York police detective arrives in Los Angeles to see his estranged wife at her company's holiday party in a new skyscraper. Armed men take over the building, and he is the one person they have not accounted for. A tense, wry action thriller set almost entirely in one tower.
Why it matters in cinema history
A defining film of the Hollywood action blockbuster, it turned the genre away from the invincible commando of the mid-1980s toward an ordinary, fallible hero in a contained setting.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a geography lesson: the film keeps showing you where everyone is, and that clarity is what makes the tension work.
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