Independence Day
The White House explodes. Will Smith punches an alien and delivers the one-liner. Jeff Goldblum uploads a virus from a PowerBook. The movie that made July 4th weekend a permanent blockbuster holiday — and the biggest film of 1996 by a mile.
Roland Emmerich and writer-producer Dean Devlin built Independence Day as a $75 million spectacle aimed squarely at the July 4 weekend — it opened July 3, 1996, and Fox paid $1.3 million for a Super Bowl XXX commercial that helped establish the now-standard tradition of premiering blockbuster ads during the big game. The cast lined up Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Randy Quaid, and Judd Hirsch for humanity's last stand against a city-sized alien invasion.
The White House destruction shot became THE image of 1996 — the nation's most famous building vaporized in a rolling wall of fire, thrilling and transgressive at the same time. Jeff Goldblum's scientist uploading a computer virus to the alien mothership from a PowerBook was so gloriously implausible it looped back around to iconic. And Bill Pullman's presidential speech — "Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!" — was added during filming, and helped the production secure the rights to the title itself.
It finished with $817.4 million worldwide: the highest-grossing film of 1996 and the second-highest-grossing film ever at the time, behind only Jurassic Park. It won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. And it minted Will Smith as a guaranteed box-office event — the Fresh Prince was suddenly the biggest movie star on the planet, and July belonged to him for years afterward. Every summer alien-invasion blockbuster since is living in this movie's shadow.
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