This year marks the 250th anniversary of the United States of America’s signing of the Declaration of Independence. To mark this milestone, I put together a list of edifying movies that capture the distinctive textures, history, and common-grace goods of this nation.
While a Christian’s highest allegiance is to Christ and his kingdom, appreciating one’s nation is appropriate. As Andrew Walker argues in a thoughtful essay, a nation is a “providential [good] to be stewarded with gratitude,” even while it isn’t ultimate.
“Patriotism” needn’t be a triggering word. To have a healthy love and affinity for the culture, customs, and place of one’s homeland is a natural way we can live with gratitude as well as long for our truer home. Walker writes, “Culture and peoplehood are the tapestry of memory, language, custom, and art through which God has providentially placed us. Delighting in it is part of what it means to give thanks in all things.”
To have a healthy love and affinity for the culture, customs, and place of one’s homeland is a natural way we can live with gratitude as well as long for our truer home.
The movies on this list (most rated PG or PG-13) may seem random, but each represents some aspect of American culture I appreciate. I limited myself to movies from the last 50 years and intentionally picked movies that aren’t the most obvious (excluding, for example, Rocky, Saving Private Ryan, Top Gun, every single Ken Burns documentary)—though I certainly commend many of those.
The films are listed below in order of release year. My aim is to put a few movies on your radar you might not have seen, but that might make for edifying viewing in America’s semiquincentennial year. Enjoy!
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981). Even though little of it takes place in America, this swashbuckling adventure is loud, proud, and patriotic. As played by Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones (could there be a more American name?) is an instant icon of manly erudition and Nazi-fighting valor—a sort of yankee James Bond with a fedora. Evoking this nation’s oscillation between reckless “fortune and glory” ambition and Judeo-Christian moral leadership, Jones is a proxy for America’s sometimes brash but often heroic place in the world. Rated PG. Watch on Paramount+.
Hoosiers (David Anspaugh, 1986). I could have included many distinctly American sports movies on this list (e.g., Rudy, Field of Dreams, Moneyball, Miracle). Hoosiers gets a spot because its setting (1950s rural Indiana high school) and story (scrappy underdog team works hard and reaches the top, against all odds) are simply as American as you can get. Rated PG. Watch for free on YouTube.
A River Runs Through It (Robert Redford, 1992). Directed by one American screen icon (Redford) and starring another (Brad Pitt), A River Runs Through It feels like a tone poem about the Western frontier. Based on Norman Maclean’s semiautobiographical novella—50 years old this year—it’s a story about faith, family, and fly fishing that ponders the very American tension between communal ties and break-free individualism. Rated PG. Rent on Amazon.
The Sandlot (David Mickey Evans, 1993). Every baseball movie is also, in a sense, a movie about America. But few capture Americana better than this nostalgic romp about a neighborhood gang of ballplayers in the summer of 1962. It’s about American childhood and the beauty of a game you can play with buddies in a ramshackle sandlot at 14 and, a decade later, in Dodger Stadium. It’s the American dream. Rated PG. Watch on Disney+.
Sleepless in Seattle (Nora Ephron, 1993). So much about this beloved rom-com feels distinctly American. Maybe it’s the West Coast meets East Coast geography. Maybe it’s the “American icon” pairing of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and the plot’s “second chance at love” thematic optimism. Perhaps it’s the jazz-retro soundtrack or the nostalgic way the film updates a Cary Grant classic, An Affair to Remember (1957). Whatever it is, this movie is an American love story. Rated PG. Rent on Amazon.
Hoop Dreams (Steve James, 1994). Had it been made today, the 171-minute Hoop Dreams likely would have been broken up into limited-series episodes. But don’t be intimidated by this documentary’s length. It’s one of the most insightful and rewarding you’ll ever see—a fascinating, sometimes heartbreaking examination of sports, class, race, and the perennial power of the American Dream. Rated PG-13. Rent on Amazon.
Twister (Jan de Bont, 1996). I grew up on the Oklahoma and Kansas plains, where weather is a major part of cultural identity and a go-to conversation topic (IYKYK). When I saw Twister as a 14-year-old living in Tulsa, it was fun to see such a close-to-home, distinctly American weather phenomenon (tornadoes) rendered in such a quintessentially American way (campy, corny, Hollywoodized). Rated PG-13. Rent on Amazon.
October Sky (Joe Johnston, 1999). In his breakout role, Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Homer Hickam, a West Virginia coal miner’s son who grows up to become a NASA engineer. The film captures an iconic American place (1950s Appalachia), time (Cold War–era space race innovation), and spirit (overcoming long odds to achieve success). It’s an underrated gem from the late ’90s. Rated PG. Rent on Amazon.
Ride with the Devil (Ang Lee, 1999). This list wouldn’t be complete without at least one Civil War movie—and there are many great ones I could have included. But Ang Lee’s lesser-known war epic (starring Tobey Maguire, Jeffrey Wright, and the singer Jewel) is one of my favorites. Focusing on the “border wars” between Kansas (free state) and Missouri (slave state), the film is about growing into maturity—both as individuals on the frontier and collectively as an expanding yet divided nation. Rated R for violence. Rent on Amazon.
Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000). When I think of movie plots that capture the American spirit, David-vs-Goliath dramas come to mind: whistleblowers who take on big tobacco (The Insider) or investigative journalists who expose abuse cover-ups (Spotlight) or take down presidents (All the President’s Men). In America, even the mightiest foes can be slain by individuals willing to speak up. As Erin Brockovich narrates a rags-to-riches story of an unemployed single mom (Julia Roberts in an Oscar-winning role) who exposes a major groundwater contamination cover-up by a corporate giant, the movie feels like the essence of what’s possible in America. Rated R for language. Watch for free on YouTube.
In America (Jim Sheridan, 2002). One of two New York City immigrant movies on this list, In America follows the Irish Sullivan family as they struggle to survive in Hell’s Kitchen. As the family (father, mother, and two young girls) deals with one unexpected setback after another, they lean on each other and the broader community in their bleak tenement. It’s a tearjerker that captures the hope—and sometimes heartbreak—of making a go of it in the “land of opportunity.” Rated PG-13. Watch on Prime Video.
Friday Night Lights (Peter Berg, 2004). Before there was the beloved TV series (which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year), there was the movie version of Buzz Bissinger’s acclaimed book. The film captures the glory and heartbreak of a uniquely American sports culture (high school football). And aided by sepia-toned West Texas landscapes and an iconic Explosions in the Sky soundtrack, the film’s ambience of chastened idealism and fragile community feels classically American. Rated PG-13. Rent on Amazon.
The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005). Few prologues are as memorable as the opening five minutes of The New World, which shows the “first contact” moment in 1607 when English ships arrive in Virginia to meet befuddled Powhatan natives looking on with wonder. Set to the slow-building prelude of Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold, the sequence sets up the film’s lyrical exploration of the cross-cultural collisions—and alchemies—that made America. Rated PG-13. Rent on Amazon.
Cars (John Lasseter, 2006). Automobiles are a big part of American identity: Detroit assembly lines. The freedom of the open road. Highways-spawned suburbia. NASCAR. Oil. Scenic byways. Route 66. Pixar’s Cars celebrates all of this. Set against the John Fordesque Western horizons of Monument Valley, Cars is an ode to the scrappy grit and ambition of America’s driving ethos. (Bonus recommendation: Matthew Crawford’s great book, Why We Drive.) Rated G. Watch on Disney+.
United 93 (Paul Greengrass, 2006). This is an important American film (ironically, directed by a Brit) not only because it captures a significant day in U.S. history (September 11, 2001) but also because it celebrates the best of American character. Thrust into cataclysm on a routine Tuesday flight, United 93’s passengers didn’t sit passively as terrorists took over the plane. They stood up, banded together, and fought to the death to save lives. Greengrass’s real-time, heart-pounding film captures the “let’s roll” heroism of everyday Americans. Rated R for violence. Rent on Amazon.
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007). Based on the 1983 novel by Ron Hansen, this moody meditation is both an homage and a deconstruction of the larger-than-life “American outlaw” mythology. With revisionist-Western vibes that evoke Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, Dominik’s poetic movie—starring Brad Pitt as Jesse James—ponders America’s enduring fascination with rebels, antiheroes, and gangster bravado. Rated R for violence. Rent on Amazon.
True Grit (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2010). This list wouldn’t be complete without a bona fide, traditional Western, as well as a film by the Coen brothers. True Grit checks both boxes. A remake of the 1969 John Wayne classic, the Coens’ film explores classic Western tropes (violence, justice, revenge, chivalry, mortality) with a hymn-centric soundtrack acknowledging the Christian values that—however tenuously—undergird America’s moral foundations, even on the wild frontier. Rated PG-13. Watch on Paramount+.
Mud (Jeff Nichols, 2012). Jeff Nichols is an underrated American director, and several of his films could have made this list (see also Shotgun Stories, Loving, and The Bikeriders). I included Mud for its iconic Southern Gothic ambience and Mark Twain vibes. A sort of modern Huckleberry Finn set on the Mississippi River, Mud explores themes of broken family, redemptive friendship, and boyhood adventures in a thoroughly American setting. Rated PG-13. Watch for free on Tubi.
Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015). Featuring a star-making performance from Irish American actress Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn is both a classic immigration drama and an old-fashioned romance. Ronan plays a young woman in the 1950s, torn between her new life and love in New York City and her family ties in Ireland. As it navigates the tensions of “past vs. future” and “Old World vs. New World,” Brooklyn is a quintessentially American drama. Rated PG-13. Rent on Amazon.
The Rider (Chloé Zhao, 2018). Of the many contemporary Westerns that could have made this list, The Rider is one of my picks because of how beautifully it celebrates and interrogates the cowboy myth. Brilliantly employing nonactors in a semiscripted format (real people playing versions of themselves), the neorealist triumph is a stirring meditation on American resilience in a world of cruelties and hard knocks. Rated PG-13. Rent on Amazon.
Just Mercy (Destin Daniel Cretton, 2019). Racial injustice remains an ugly stain on the American story. But America also has a legal system where the wrongly accused can be exonerated and true justice served. Just Mercy tells the true story of a young lawyer (Michael B. Jordan) who frees a wrongly accused man on death row (Jamie Foxx). The film doesn’t sugarcoat ugly realities about race in America, even as it celebrates the persistent pursuit of justice and equality—which remains an American ideal. Rated PG-13. Rent on Amazon.
First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2020). Set among Oregon Territory fur-trappers in the 1820s, this film follows a Jewish cook and a Chinese immigrant who forge an unlikely friendship as they both seek survival on the Western frontier. What exactly this slow-burn arthouse film is “about” may be frustratingly hard to decipher. Is it about immigrants seeking a better life? Questionable capitalist enterprises? Community vs. rugged individualism? All of the above—which is to say, it’s about America. Rated PG-13. Watch for free on Tubi.
Minari (Lee Isaac Chung, 2020). This beautiful, semiautobiographical film follows a Korean immigrant family who start a new life in Arkansas in the 1980s. Immigration is, of course, a big part of what makes the United States the nation she is (see the motto, E pluribus unum). Minari celebrates this unity of many, alongside other American values like hard work, family, and faith. Rated PG-13. Rent on Amazon.
Train Dreams (Clint Bentley, 2025). This reflective film follows one logger (Robert Grainier, played by Joel Edgerton) as his life spans 19th-century railroad construction all the way to the Apollo missions. The film captures the audacious moon-shot spirit of America—manifest destiny that, after it conquered the West, turned upward to conquer space. Amid the ambition of a nation, however, stands one man’s quietly resilient life: a self-built homestead, marriage and fatherhood, ownership and responsibility, endurance through suffering. Rated PG-13. Watch on Netflix.
Rebuilding (Max Walker-Silverman, 2025). A story of a Colorado man who seeks to rebuild his life and family after a wildfire, Rebuilding captures the American values of hardscrabble perseverance and overcoming. It’s not just about rugged, self-made individualism but about the collective grit of a community that comes together in hard times and spurs one another to keep going. Rated PG. Rent on Amazon.
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