ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — Looking for the perfect movie to pair up with your Fourth of July celebrations? We’ve compiled a list of some less obvious films that aren’t necessarily patriotic, but take place on the holiday.
There are plenty of patriotic films that are the usual go-tos for a holiday watch, including Top Gun (1986) or Top Gun: Maverick (2021), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Patton (1970), Glory (1989), Rocky IV (1985), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), The Right Stuff (1985), or Gettysburg (1993).
But the films in our list use the Fourth of July holiday as a setting or a plot point, including:
“If you yell barracuda, everyone goes ‘huh? what?’ But you yell shark, we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July,” says the mayor of Jaws (1975), declining to close the Amity Island beaches on the holiday weekend, which leads to a tragic death.
“Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!” proclaims President Whitmore (Bill Pullman) at the conclusion of his rousing speech in Independence Day (1994), the big-scale alien invasion blockbuster.
In Live Free or Die Hard (2007), it’s up to Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) to stop terrorists who conduct a cyber attack on the United States over the Fourth of July holiday.
Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise) is literally Born on the Fourth of July (1989) in Oliver Stone’s biographical anti-war drama.
In The Sandlot (1993), the neighborhood kids invite the new kid, Smalls, to play baseball by the light of the holiday fireworks in one of the movie’s most memorable scenes.
On July 4th, 1978, a 12-year-old boy is abducted by aliens and returns, unaged, eight years later in Disney’s sci-fi adventure Flight of the Navigator (1986).
“Do you want to party?” A zombie apocalypse threatens the town of Louisville, Kentucky in The Return of the Living Dead (1985), with the events of the film beginning at 5:30 p.m. EDT on July 3rd, 1984, and climaxing at 5:01 a.m. on the Fourth of July.
Did you know that both I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998) take place over the Independence Day holiday?
While you may think of The Shining (1980) as a winter movie, let’s not forget that the spirit of Jack Torrence appears to have attended a Fourth of July ball at the Overlook Hotel in 1921, as evidenced by the film’s closing shot.
In Uncle Sam (1996), an undead American soldier returns to his hometown and goes on a murderous rampage during the Independence Day celebrations.
Diana Prince (Gal Godot) is reunited with her resurrected boyfriend Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) and the two lovebirds take in Washington D.C.’s fireworks display from her invisible jet in Wonder Woman 1984 (2020).
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