America celebrates its 250th anniversary in 2026. I imagine there are lists of Revolutionary War films circulating. Many leave something to be desired, to be honest.
But, in the period before the American Revolution has provided amazing stories for the screen.
Also, the religious tapestry is complex and fascinating as well, even though Catholicism remains largely unexplored on the silver screen from this time.
To find out if you can rent, buy or stream these movies, check out JustWatch.
Prey (2022)
I grew up with the original Predator film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The prequel, Prey takes place in 1719 in territory outside of the British colonies.
One goes into the film with the ominous feeling of what chance a small band of pre-industrial Comanches stand against a Predator alien, when a squad of machine gun armed special forces led by Arnold’s character had so much trouble with Predator in the 1980s.
This story is about the “prey," however, with the Comanches knowing they face a superior adversary and must outwit their enemy rather than overpower him with brute force or sophisticated weaponry ... neither of which they possess anyway.
Without ruining the ending, the result is a satisfying turning of evil against itself.
The story also includes an Italian translator for the French fur trappers, so the story references characters from traditionally Catholic countries that had some foothold in pre-revolutionary America.
The New World (2005)
My favorite living director, Terrence Malick, directed this true story from the 17th-Century founding of Jamestown, in what is now the commonwealth of Virginia.
Malick takes liberties with the story, in constructing a love triangle among Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher), Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell), and John Rolfe (Christian Bale).
This story references Christianity more than the Disney animated film from the 1990s. It’s alluded to that Pocahontas becomes Christian, as does her son, when she begins a family with Rolfe.
In what was often a violent clash when Old World met New, this story instead illuminates the best of individual encounters between those of different cultures.
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Entertainment Weekly once ranked The Last of the Mohicans as one of the top 100 films of the 20th Century.
Based on a James Fenimore Cooper novel set during the French and Indian War (a 1754-1763 conflict, within the larger Seven Years’ War), director Michael Mann retains the nuanced characterization I remember from the Cooper novel.
Every character is shown to exhibit a tendency to choose good or evil and accordingly, there’s much to admire or revile in both colonists and indigenous tribesmembers alike, as they struggle to survive on the frontier.
That frontier in Cooper's story is set in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains in the upper Hudson River Valley of today's New York State, but the film was shot in and around the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina.
The Crucible (1996)
Daniel Day-Lewis, who played Hawkeye in the aforementioned The Last of the Mohicans, fits the colonial period piece well by playing resident John Proctor of Salem, Massachusetts, in the late 1600s.
Adapted from a Arthur Miller play, Abigail Williams (Winona Ryder) riles up her fellow teenage friends in accusing Salem residents of witchcraft, causing a violent social contagion.
The well-meaning Proctor (Day-Lewis) tries to expose her lies, but ends up among the accused for his efforts.
Salem was an entirely Puritan community. Had there been any Catholic influence in that part of the world at that time, the dispute likely may not have been seen to have been as supernatural in origin, and a tragedy could have been averted.
The Testament of Ann Lee (2025)
A British subject, "Mother" Ann Lee came to lead the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing movement, a k a the Shakers, in England in the mid-1700s.
Fleeing persecution, she arrived in America with disciples in 1774, settling near Albany, New York.
Amanda Seyfried makes an exquisite turn as the real-life title character. Named “shakers” for their physical, charismatic way of prayer, director Mona Fastvold captures well, the subjective, entertainment style of worship that continues to this day in some versions of modern American Christianity.
I’m not the biggest fan of musicals, so it says something that I enjoyed this organic song and dance romp through the last days of pre-Republic America. Warning: Rated R for brief sexual content.
The Scarlet Letter (1926, silent)
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, set in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the mid-1600s, was adapted several times in the silent period (and again, not well, in the 1995).
In the story, visuals are all one needs. Having carried out an affair, Hester Prynne (Lillian Gish) now must wear the scarlet letter A.
Her paramour is never named to the community, but the reader knows him to be the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale (Lars Hanson).
Paradoxically, even though wearing the scarlet letter, Hester is granted spiritual freedom to go live her life, since her sin is already publicly known.
Rev. Arthur, in contrast, must hold privately his transgression and it eats away at his soul the rest of the story.
You can watch the whole film on YouTube.
Image: Shutterstock
Father Vince Kuna, C.S.C., is a Holy Cross priest, and a 2016 graduate of USC's film school.
'Toy Story 5': Heartfelt, Funny — and Too Optimistic about Technology
'Young Washington': The Making of the Man Who Would Not Be King
Netflix's 'Lord of the Flies': Evil Invades Eden
Hitchcock: Did the Master of Mystery Love the Mystery of the Mass?
Keep up with Family Theater Productions our website, Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube.