Peter James Mann
🎵 I wanna get free! I wanna get free! 🎵
This July 4th may be weird for you or your family. It’s been a while since everyone hung out and some might feel more off-center than they were before. Social isolation and the Internet can do that to people.
So it’s important to be both patriotic, but generic, and not too one way or the other on literally anything played at the party. Most parties will go four hours or less, so one or two of these might be enough! Each represents a different piece of the American Cinema Landscape for you and your family to enjoy while you eat meat and blow crap up.
Best Americana Film: Top Gun
This is actually a good all-round pick to start this list. Amazing cinematography, check. A 1980s soundtrack that sounds like a Now That’s What I Call Music CD, check. Fighter planes, check. Gore (surprise!), check. Toxic masculinity that gives way to genuine respect, check. Val F******G Kilmer, check. Volleyball, double check. People can even ironically make fun of the movie the whole time like Mystery Science Theater 3000 and have an amazing time. It’s literally got it all.
Remember, this was the film that made VHS a thing in people’s homes. Before this, it was for rich people. Everyone had Top Gun on VHS the way you remember always seeing The Matrix on DVD at someone’s house in the early 2000s. So this also happens to be a big piece of American Film History.
This one is maybe not best with the young kids though. Oh, I got one for kids!
Best Kids Movie: An American Tail
This one probably is single-handedly responsible for most people in the 34-42 age range wanting to immigrate to America. It is, at its very core, an immigrant story during the height of travel to New York City. It has a classic animation style most kids might not be used to seeing with the plethora of CGI offerings nowadays.
Like most children’s movies, this one starts out with heartache and separation from the family unit. Unfortunately for this mouse, he was separated and stranded in 1885 New York City during a shipwreck.
The plot revolves around our little hero, with other immigrant animals that have found their way to NYC, trying to find his parents. It’s sweet, it’s funny, it’s charming, and it’s got a heartwarming ending.
It might also spark a little feeling of joy from watching complete strangers get together to help out a lost kid.
Oh, you wanted to just…blow stuff up…I mean I was thinking a drama but—
Best Explosions: Independence Day
We can’t have any list of July 4th films without Independence Day – it’s literally its namesake. This film also suggests that conspiracy theorists were right all along and the only solutions are explosions and computer magic. I know that feels like the plot of a Michael Bay movie, but it’s actually Roland Emmerich. He also directed 2012. This guy really loves to make big-badda-booms.
Plot is super simple: various characters from different walks of life have to band together to save the planet on July 4th. Because America’s Independence is really the world’s Independence Day because we always save the world. We’re the good guys in every movie! Haven’t you seen Rambo III?
It has great talent for its day, featuring blockbuster names of the 1990s like Will Smith, a steaming-hot Jeff Goldblum, the uncle from Christmas Vacation, Bill Pullman and Vivica A. Fox. Wait, how did the uncle from Christmas Vacation get here? Is it because it’s the same character?
The aliens and their ship designs are also extremely unique. I don’t think I’ve ever seen ships like the ones in Independence Day in anything else. And those aliens were genuinely nightmare fuel. I mean, did you see that gif?! They looked like Cthulu and a Xenomorph Queen consulted Hasbro. My mom bought me one of the alien figures, I don’t even know why. I’m not even sure it was appropriate.
Best Sports Movie: The Sandlot
This is a close second for the number one pick on this list, especially because so many people can relate to this film. This isn’t an Independence Day movie like, well, Independence Day or 1776 or even Hamilton. This is the summer A Christmas Story.
A new kid in town makes friends with the local kids at the sandlot as we come along for the summer that would go on to define his childhood and maybe the rest of his life. It’s a movie that I wished I listened to more when I was younger, or at least understood or appreciated better.
It’s a love letter to summer, to being young, to growing up, to finding what you love and others that love it to, and it can be a real tearjerker in the best ways. And that dog was my Jaws, but with jowls. And drool. Ew.
You can fight me all day long about Miracle or Rocky IV being the better July 4th Sports Films, but I don’t know if you could point to any scenes or messages that rock you as hard as The Sandlot can. I mean I could do this all day. Speaking of doing this all day…
Honorable Mentions:
Hamilton
It’s the only musical I’m willing to put on this list.
Air Force One
“Get off my plane!”
Live Free or Die Hard
“Get off my country!”
Any Fast and the Furious film
The comeback kid of Action Movie franchises.
Rocky IV
“Living in America” sequence starring James Brown is epic. And there’s a robot!
Without further ado! The winner is…
Gold Medal: Captain America: The First Avenger
This feels right to me, I hope it feels right to you. A scrawny guy from Queens does everything he can to join the war effort during World War II, only to become the best candidate for the Super Soldier program. Steve Rogers, in a fateful moment, becomes Captain America.
This movie has American values, reasons for why we fought, the dangers of craving power, the dangers of super soldiers and eugenics, and what it means to be a hero all in a comic book movie that most people can enjoy.
There are moments where you have to go along for the ride of the origin movie format, or scenes that are included for this thing to set up another movie. But there are also moments that show why Robert Downey Jr. and company fought so hard to have Chris Evans play Steve Rogers.
It checks a lot of boxes for categories as well: war movie, World War II movie, action movie, superhero movie, and, more specifically, an MCU title (so you know the kids will watch it). The hero wears the stars and stripes for Franklin’s sake!
So this July 4th, crack open a cola, eat some food and watch a movie. You deserve it. It’s been a while.
