Top 10 July 4th Movies for America’s 250th Anniversary

SERGEANT YORK stars Gary Cooper in a movie based on the true story of a conscientious objector who became the greatest American hero in World War I. SERGEANT YORK is a profoundly Christian movie, with a brilliant performance by Gary Cooper. It powerfully explores the role Christians should play in times of war.

The classic 1939 movie DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK is a tremendous movie about the American Revolution as experienced on the frontier. It has a profoundly Christian worldview, but there’s plenty of war violence and some comical scenes of drunkenness.

YOUNG WASHINGTON is a superb movie about the early life and career of future American President, George Washington, as he fights the British class system to achieve his ambition to be a respected officer in the British army but discovers during three famous battles that there’s more to becoming a true leader of men than just pursuing personal wealth and recognition. YOUNG WASHINGTON has many intense but not gory scenes of war, but it’s one of the best, most gripping biographical and historical war movies ever made and shows just the right amount of patriotic feeling for one of the most remarkable and admired men in history, whose character and values truly set him apart from his contemporaries.

YANKEE DOODLE DANDY stars James Cagney in one of his signature roles as George M. Cohan, the patriotic musical playwright of the first half of the 20th Century, who loved his country and loved his family, a beloved group of performers known as the Four Cohans. YANKEE DOODLE DANDY is a stirring, endearing celebration of American patriotism and family in tandem with musical whimsy that will warm the viewers spirit.

Ron Maxwell's epic film GETTYSBURG, based on Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel THE KILLER ANGELS, dramatically depicts the three most courageous days in American history when North and South were arrayed against each other in the decisive battle fought on the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania plains. GETTYSBURG is a magnificent movie that should be viewed by every American.

JOHNNY TREMAIN is a classic Walt Disney historical drama movie about how the title character changes from an overconfident, selfish silversmith’s apprentice into a principled American patriot ready to lay down his life in the Revolutionary War. JOHNNY TREMAIN is a quintessential historical Walt Disney movie from the 1950s featuring patriotism, positive Christian themes, Bible quotes, prayer, a musical number, and battle scenes with no blood.

THE PATRIOT stars Mel Gibson as a family man who wrestles with his desire for revenge and the just cause of the American War for Independence in the late 1700s. The violent battle scenes may concern older moviegoers, while younger moviegoers might chafe at the soul-searching, but at the heart of this movie is faith.

TOP GUN: MAVERICK is a great sequel to the popular 1986 hit starring Tom Cruise, where Tom’s character, an expert Navy fighter pilot named Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, is demoted and ordered to train a group of elite Navy pilots for a deadly mission to take out a uranium enrichment facility in a foreign country. TOP GUN: MAVERICK is a terrific movie, with emotionally powerful scenes, exciting action and a strong Pro-American, patriotic, morally uplifting worldview, but it’s marred by too many obscenities and three strong profanities.

REAGAN stars Dennis Quaid as the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. It covers Reagan’s life from his childhood to his death, with a strong focus throughout the movie on his life-long fight against communism, from his battle in the Screen Actors Guild against communist infiltration in the Hollywood unions in the late 1940s to his battle against the Soviet Union’s communist tyranny in Germany and Eastern Europe. Dennis Quaid gives a bravura performance in REAGAN as the beloved President, union leader and movie star, and the movie’s focus on Reagan’s fight against communism gives a strong narrative structure to the movie’s stirring story of faith and patriotism.

HACKSAW RIDGE is a great, emotive, powerful, touching Christian war movie about Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a courageous conscientious objector who serves as an unarmed medic during the brutal battle of Okinawa in World War II. Brilliantly directed by Mel Gibson, HACKSAW RIDGE is a captivating, emotional movie about uncompromising faith and miraculous courage. It will make you laugh and cry, but strong caution is advised because of bloody violence and some foul language.