On a snowy Christmas Eve in the nation's capital, a team of terrorists has seized a major International Airport, and now holds thousands of holiday travellers hostage. The terrorists, a renegade band of crack military commandos led by a murderous rogue officer (William Sadler), have come to rescue a drug lord from justice. They've prepared for every contingency, except one: John McClane, an off-duty cop seized by a feeling of deadly de-ja-vu.

Bruce Willis returns as the heroic cop who battles not only terrorists, but also an incompetent airport police chief (Dennis Franz), the hard-headed commander (John Amos) of the army's anti-terrorist squad and a deadly winter snowstorm. The runways are littered with death and destruction, and McClane is in a race against time. His wife (Bonnie Bedelia) is trapped on one of the planes circling somewhere overhead, desperately low on fuel.

It's all-out war, a heartstopping, jet-propelled journey through excitement and terror. Fasten your seatbelts!