John McClane Sr. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Die Hard franchise, based on Joe Leland from Roderick Thorp's action novel Nothing Lasts Forever.

John McClane was originally based on the fictional character Detective Joe Leland from Roderick Thorp's bestselling 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever.

Die Hard villain Hans Gruber describes him as "just another American.... who thinks he's John Wayne,"[2] to which McClane replies that he "was always partial to Roy Rogers.

[5] McClane is consistently portrayed as a reluctant hero who, with little or no assistance from others, is required against his wishes to thwart the elaborate plans of a group of like-minded villains because no one else is in a position to do so.

At the beginning of the first film, New York City Police Department Detective John McClane is seen traveling to Los Angeles to attend a Christmas Eve party at Nakatomi Plaza, the workplace of his recently separated wife Holly Gennero (Bonnie Bedelia); she and their two children, Lucy and John Jr., live in Los Angeles.

Shortly after McClane arrives at the party, Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), a recently excommunicated member of a radical West German political movement, initiates his plan to steal $640 million worth of bearer bonds stored in the Nakatomi Corporation's vault.

Gruber and a legion of mostly European henchmen under his command take hostage the Nakatomi Corporation employees and Holly in a bid to conceal the theft under the guise of a failed terrorist act.

Dialogue in the second film reveals that he was featured in People Magazine, did a spot on Nightline, and was referred to (by Colonel Stuart) as "the policeman hero who saved the Nakatomi hostages" along with a local news crew.

In Die Hard 2, on Christmas Eve, mercenaries seize control of Dulles International Airport 25 miles west of Washington, D.C.

McClane discovers a conspiracy between the mercenaries and an active military unit to rescue a notorious dictator from being imprisoned for crimes against humanity.

While the police frantically search local schools to locate the alleged bomb, Simon raids the gold bullion held in the underground vault of the Reserve and flees towards the Canada–US border.

Terrorists, led by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), are conducting a fire sale to bidders, taking out the nation's infrastructure: power plants, traffic lights, transportation, and financial markets.

McClane has been divorced from Holly for ten years, and is not speaking to his daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is kidnapped by Gabriel as leverage.

McClane adopts the phrase in the first film, Die Hard, when villain Hans Gruber calls him a cowboy and asks if he thinks he stands a chance.

In the fifth film, A Good Day to Die Hard, McClane says the catchphrase before driving a truck out of an airborne helicopter in the final confrontation in Chernobyl.

[8] In April 2009, Entertainment Weekly ranked John McClane sixth in list of the top twenty "All-Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture", describing "Bruce Willis' wisecracking, terrorist-foiling New York cop" character as "the anti-Bond".

The magazine called the characters portrayed by Keanu Reeves in Speed, Wesley Snipes in Passenger 57, and Jean-Claude Van Damme in Sudden Death as "copycat descendants" of John McClane.