Independence Day Movies
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- DirectorPhilip KaufmanStarsSam ShepardScott GlennEd HarrisThe U.S. space program's development from the breaking of the sound barrier to selection of the Mercury 7 astronauts, from a group of test pilots with a more seat-of-the-pants approach than the program's more cautious engineers preferred.#25 - Chuck Yeager and the Mercury Seven astronauts literally strap themselves to engines in the hopes of doing what's never been done before, and summing up the American spirit in a single line: The best and finest of a man can still be brought out.
- DirectorRon MaxwellStarsTom BerengerMartin SheenStephen LangIn 1863, the Northern and Southern forces fight at Gettysburg in the decisive battle of the American Civil War.#24 - A precision military document filmed on sacred ground, Gettysburg venerates the motives and ideals of both North and South as the two crusades collide on the hilly farms of central Pennsylvania. American history as tragedy and triumph.
- DirectorMichael CurtizStarsJames CagneyJoan LeslieWalter HustonThe life of the renowned musical composer, playwright, actor, dancer, and singer George M. Cohan.#23 - As Over There composer George M. Cohan, James Cagney tap-dances through life in a musical biopic brimming with pageantry and Americana. Released during World War II, the film capitalizes on Cohan's rags-to-riches life and his songs' ability to boost morale with their embodiment of the American spirit.
- DirectorRidley ScottStarsDemi MooreViggo MortensenAnne BancroftLt. Jordan, a US Navy topographic analyst, joins the US Navy Special Warfare Group and struggles to prove her worth in a unit dominated by men. But a cynical woman Texan senator has sold her out.#22 - In Ridley Scott's kick-ass action-drama, a military wonder woman (Demi Moore) endures discrimination, misogyny, and brutal macho hazing en route to shaving her head (on camera!) and becoming an elite Navy unit's first female trooper. Top that, Rosie the Riveter.
- DirectorIvan ReitmanStarsBill MurrayJohn CandyHarold RamisTwo friends who are dissatisfied with their jobs decide to join the army for a bit of fun.#19 - Stripes isn't exactly the best recruitment video for the U.S. military. After Bill Murray's unemployed wiseacre, John Winger, joins up, he swiftly butts heads with his Army superiors, especially no-nonsense Sergeant Hulka (Warren Oates). But there's something very American about Winger's anti-authoritarian streak, as well as his ability to improvise a mission to save his unit. It's enough to make you cry. Almost like Old Yeller.
- DirectorPeter BergStarsMark WahlbergTaylor KitschEmile HirschMarcus Luttrell and his team set out on a mission to capture or kill notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shah, in late June 2005. Marcus and his team are left to fight for their lives in one of the most valiant efforts of modern warfare.#18 - Peter Berg's harrowing action drama, based on an ill-fated 2005 Navy SEAL mission to take out a Taliban leader in Afghanistan, is both a testament to the horrors of war and a tribute to the courage of 21st-century warriors.
- DirectorHoward ZieffStarsGoldie HawnEileen BrennanArmand AssanteA sheltered young high-society woman joins the United States Army on a whim and finds herself in a trickier situation than she ever expected.#17 - Judy Benjamin's American dream is simple: a house, a husband, a nice dining-room set. But when her dearly beloved (Albert Brooks) dies on their wedding night, she accidentally-on-purpose joins the Army...and finds that fatigue is more than just another word for uniforms. The hell of basic training—and her subsequent transformation from human Pomeranian to battle-ready private—isn't just good patriotism, it's a comedic revelation. (And guess what? It turns out camo is totally her color.)
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsDaniel Day-LewisSally FieldDavid StrathairnAs the Civil War rages on, U.S President Abraham Lincoln struggles with continuing carnage on the battlefield as he fights with many inside his own cabinet on his decision to emancipate the slaves.#16 - Of course, Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a paragon of American ideals. But in Steven Spielberg's elegant biopic, he's deceptively so. Honest Abe is forced to scheme, relying on grit and cunning to win the votes to abolish slavery.
- DirectorRoland EmmerichStarsWill SmithBill PullmanJeff GoldblumThe aliens are coming and their goal is to invade and destroy Earth. Fighting superior technology, mankind's best weapon is the will to survive.#13 - Roland Emmerich's blockbuster may revel in aliens blowing up the White House, but when Bill Pullman's American president urges mankind to unite in the fight for survival, it's one of the most heart-swelling movie speeches ever. Plus, there's that scene of Will Smith punching an alien in the face! America!
- DirectorFrank CapraStarsJames StewartJean ArthurClaude RainsA naive youth leader is appointed to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. His idealistic plans promptly collide with corruption at home and subterfuge from his hero in Washington, but he tries to forge ahead despite attacks on his character.#12 - The depiction of corruption may look quaint by 2017 standards, but in Frank Capra's idealistic film, beleaguered senator Jefferson Smith proves that one man's strong moral compass (and one marathon filibuster) can reclaim the promise of America from the nefarious Beltway machine. Great principles don't get lost, Smith says. They're right here. You just have to see them again.
- DirectorRob ReinerStarsMichael DouglasAnnette BeningMartin SheenA widowed U.S. President running for reelection and an environmental lobbyist fall in love. It's all above-board, but "politics is perception," and sparks fly anyway.#11 - Aaron Sorkin scripted this West Wing romance that celebrates the nobility of the American Experiment while constantly testing the integrity of its participants. After bookish President Andrew Shepherd's enemies target his environmental-lobbyist girlfriend, POTUS takes to the podium, laying out the rules and stakes of modern American democracy: America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight, he thunders, while defending the honor of the two ladies he adores most: his love and liberty.
- DirectorWolfgang PetersenStarsHarrison FordGary OldmanGlenn CloseCommunist radicals hijack Air Force One with the U.S. President and his family on board. The Vice President negotiates from Washington D.C., while the President, a veteran, fights to rescue the hostages on board.#10 - A president who doesn't like Russian warmongers but enjoys spending time with his wife and young child? Here's a wish-fulfillment political fantasy, with Harrison Ford as a bipartisan bad-ass every American can agree on.
- DirectorTony ScottStarsTom CruiseTim RobbinsKelly McGillisAs students at the United States Navy's elite fighter weapons school compete to be best in the class, one daring young pilot learns a few things from a civilian instructor that are not taught in the classroom.#8 - Thanks to one impossibly cocky fighter pilot named Maverick, Reagan-era America never felt better about itself—or its military might. Tom Cruise was the grinning poster boy of red-white-and-blue individualism (I feel the need...the need for speed), defying his superiors, toying with his rivals, and, of course, getting the girl.
- DirectorTheodore MelfiStarsTaraji P. HensonOctavia SpencerJanelle MonáeThe story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program.#7 - In the dogged space race against the Soviets in the early '60s, three female African-American mathematicians overcame racism and sexism at NASA while helping solve the science that launched American astronauts into history.
- DirectorFranklin J. SchaffnerStarsGeorge C. ScottKarl MaldenStephen YoungThe World War II phase of the career of controversial American general George S. Patton.#5 - There's no question that George Old Blood and Guts Patton had rough edges, but that serrated personality—pumped with ego and ambition—may have been exactly what was necessary to bring down Nazi Germany.
- DirectorGavin O'ConnorStarsKurt RussellPatricia ClarksonNathan WestThe true story of Herb Brooks, the player-turned-coach who led the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team to victory over the seemingly invincible Soviet squad.#4 - Kurt Russell is medal-worthy as ice-in-his-veins coach Herb Brooks, who leads the scrappy U.S. hockey team against the invincible Soviets at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. The U-S-A chant has never been more earnest, or earned.
- DirectorEdward ZwickStarsMatthew BroderickDenzel WashingtonCary ElwesRobert Gould Shaw leads the U.S. Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices from both his own Union Army, and the Confederates.#3 - Lincoln emancipated the slaves, but African-Americans weren't truly free until they won the right to fight for their country. In Edward Zwick's tense Civil War drama about the first all-black Army regiment, freedmen and runaway slaves volunteer to prove to white America and themselves that liberty is worth dying for.
- DirectorRon HowardStarsTom HanksBill PaxtonKevin BaconNASA must devise a strategy to return Apollo 13 to Earth safely after the spacecraft undergoes massive internal damage putting the lives of the three astronauts on board in jeopardy.#2 - An ode to a bygone era of space exploration and American optimism, Ron Howard's riveting nail-biter about the doomed 1970 mission to the moon, starring Tom Hanks as astronaut Jim Lovell and Ed Harris as not-on-my-watch Mission Control director Gene Kranz, reminded Americans what they can accomplish when failure isn't an option. Houston, we have a problem wasn't a cry for help. It was a call to duty.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsTom HanksMatt DamonTom SizemoreFollowing the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.#1 - Steven Spielberg's tribute to the Greatest Generation places you in the boots of the D-Day soldiers who fought and died—and others who lived to wonder in the face of such loss, Why me? The story of Tom Hanks' Captain Miller and his team's efforts to find and retrieve Matt Damon's GI, who has lost all his brothers in other battles, is fictional. But the valor of the real soldiers who carried the banner of American ideals into the firefight is nonetheless reflected in this story. It puts you where they stood. Where they bled. Where they fell. But something good and decent rose from their sacrifice.
- DirectorPeter H. HuntStarsWilliam DanielsHoward Da SilvaKen HowardA musical retelling of the American Revolution's political struggle in the Continental Congress to declare independence.
- DirectorDuane BarnhartStarsKirk CameronTodd AkinSue AllanFollow Kirk Cameron across Europe and the U.S. as he seeks to discover the people, places and principles that made America the freest, most prosperous and generous nation the world has ever known.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsDaniel Day-LewisSally FieldDavid StrathairnAs the Civil War rages on, U.S President Abraham Lincoln struggles with continuing carnage on the battlefield as he fights with many inside his own cabinet on his decision to emancipate the slaves.
- DirectorEdward ZwickStarsMatthew BroderickDenzel WashingtonCary ElwesRobert Gould Shaw leads the U.S. Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices from both his own Union Army, and the Confederates.
- StarsPaul GiamattiLaura LinneyJohn DossettThe life of one of the USA's Founding Fathers, its second President, and his role in the nation's first 50 years.
- DirectorDelbert MannStarsTommy Lee JonesSusan BlakelyChad LoweOn the morning of April 19, 1775, the American Revolution began with the "shot heard 'round the world".
- DirectorChris WeatherheadStarsBettina BeardDelfloria BrownHalle BrownIt is 1775. Henry Felder, a Swiss-German colonist, lives with his family in the British colony of South Carolina. After many years of struggling with corrupt British rulers, Felder is urged by the new patriot governor to write Articles of Separation from the English King. Felder's old Indian fighting comrade forms a Tory militia to assist the Crown as the fight heats up.
- DirectorWilliam A. GrahamStarsBarry BostwickPatty DukeJeffrey JonesThe life of George Washington as the first President of the United States of America and his 8 years running his country. The trials he faces dealing with mobs and riots while keeping the country together.
- StarsBarry BostwickPatty DukeDavid DukesThe early life and career of the American General and President through his participation in the Revolutionary War.
- DirectorKasi LemmonsStarsCynthia ErivoJanelle MonáeLeslie Odom Jr.The extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's escape from slavery and transformation into one of America's greatest heroes, whose courage, ingenuity, and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history.
- DirectorAva DuVernayStarsDavid OyelowoCarmen EjogoOprah WinfreyA chronicle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.
- DirectorRick GreenJoin Christian historian David Barton and former Texas legislator Rick Green as they advocate for the original intent of our founding documents in this one-of-a-kind, 4-DVD set on the meaning and purpose of the Constitution. Go article by article through the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and learn more about executive orders, the Electoral College, the powers of Congress and the president, freedom of religion, and more. Shot on location at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Constitution Alive is a truly unique opportunity to regain an intimate knowledge of the Constitution ever American citizen should have.
- DirectorTom NewmanThroughout history, the global landscape has been marked by instability. Nations on every inhabitable continent have seen governments rise and fall, some over twenty times in the span of a century. Yet America's government endures - and has for over two hundred years. Why is our nation the exception to a worldwide norm? What makes America different? America's founders designed a justice system unlike any the world had ever seen. They valued and protected the rights of the individual, even over government agenda. Where did these principles come from? What influenced their distinct ideas on Civil Justice? Where do they fit in the world today? The Founding Fathers warned future Americans against the dangers of perpetual national debt. Thomas Jefferson once said that America must choose between "economy and liberty" or "profusion and servitude." Is it too late for our nation to heed this economic warning? Does the Bible offer any advice for a broken economy?
- DirectorTom NewmanThis generation of Americans is taught that our government was established as a secular institution. But the founders believed God was a part of everything, including government. So what are we to make the separation of church and state? How should God and government intersect in today's America? The early American pastor had a reputation as a courageous and fearless leader. In that era, silence was not an option and the word of God was boldly proclaimed as the handbook for life, speaking to everything from morals and values, to public policy and current events. What can we learn from these brave leaders? How can Christians today cultivate a courageous church? Our Founders shared a deep sense of responsibility to care for the poor. But unlike many people today, they believed this duty belonged to churches and individuals, rather than government. Today, many Americans relegate the task of caring for the needy to government programs. So whose job should it be to care for the poor? Who does it better? What is the Biblical approach to public aid?
- DirectorDavid BartonDiscover the forgotten and astonishing story of our nation's founding in the American Heritage Series. For centuries, we were taught a providential view of American history that presented our godly heroes and the mortal foundation upon which our nation was built. However, in recent years, a new version of history has assaulted the fiber of our nation, censoring the core values of our past - until today! From separation of church and state to the civil rights movement, from the heroism of our founding fathers to the building of our nation's monument,s this series will inspire every American to reclaim the godly, true story of our nation. Expereince the untold story of our nation's history in the American Heritage series. America: This is your heritage!
- 20136 epsTV-PG8.7 (291)TV Mini SeriesStarsHenry Louis Gates Jr.Vincent BrownBernard E. Powers Jr.Professor Gates describes the history of the African American people by talking to historians, authors, and the people who made history.
- DirectorRobert HarmonStarsJeff DanielsRoger ReesSebastian RochéA dramatization of George Washington's perilous gamble of crossing the Delaware River and attacking the Hessian forces at Trenton.
- DirectorRobert MarkowitzStarsLaurence FishburneAllen PayneMalcolm-Jamal WarnerThe true story of how a group of African-American pilots overcame racist opposition to become one of the finest United States fighter groups in World War II.
- DirectorBrian BarkleyStarsTom KaneThis is the true story of how God's sovereign hand guided the founders of America. It takes you on a journey...from Christopher Columbus to Jamestown...from Valley Forge to the Constitutional Convention...from the Civil War to the Stock Market Crash...from FDR to the present. The result of the journey will give us a better understanding of where America is today, how she arrived here, and where she must turn at this critical hour. For as Thomas Jefferson once asked, "Can the liberties of a nation be secure, when we have removed the conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?"
- DirectorRoland EmmerichStarsMel GibsonHeath LedgerJoely RichardsonPeaceful farmer Benjamin Martin is driven to lead the Colonial Militia during the American Revolution when a sadistic British officer murders his son.
- DirectorPeter CousensStarsCuba Gooding Jr.Sharon LealDavid RascheTwo men separated by 100 years are united in their search for freedom. In 1856, slave Samuel Woodward and his family escape from the Monroe Plantation near Richmond, Virginia. A secret network of ordinary people known as the Underground Railroad guide the family on their journey north to Canada. They are relentlessly pursued by the notorious slave-hunter Plimpton. Hunted like a dog and haunted by the unthinkable suffering he and his forbears have endured, Samuel is forced to decide between revenge or freedom. 100 years earlier in 1748, John Newton the Captain of a slave ship sails from Africa with a cargo of slaves, bound for America. On board is Samuel's great-grandfather, whose survival is tied to the fate of Captain Newton. The voyage changes Newton's life forever and he creates a legacy that will inspire Samuel and the lives of millions for generations to come.
- DirectorRichard IrvingStarsDorian HarewoodGeorg Stanford BrownDebbi MorganThis is the compelling story of Jesse Owens, a man who overcame racial barriers to become one of history's greatest Olympic athletes by disproving Adolf Hitler's theory of Aryan athletic superiority through his success in track and field.
- DirectorJarrod AndersonStarsIsaac Ignacio BennettRandall C. BentonFelipe ChavezPocahontas is the true story of an amazing young woman who became an ambassador between two nations.
- DirectorDiego LunaStarsMichael PeñaAmerica FerreraRosario DawsonA biography of the civil-rights activist and labor organizer Cesar Chavez.
- CreatorStephen FitzmeyerHenry HamptonStarsDavid McCulloughDavid Ogden StiersMichael MurphyA series showcasing documentaries on American history.
- DirectorPaul MillerStarsJason AlexanderKaitlyn Ruth BayneMichael BoltonThis patriotic concert, featuring the cute puppet Elmo of Sesame Street, is performed on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. It's free and open to the public with no tickets required, and families from the surrounding areas (Virginia, Maryland and Washington) attend. The finale includes a beautiful display of fireworks over the Washington Monument and a performance of ever-popular 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky.