Mel Gibson

Between the barbecue and the fireworks - or instead of either or both of them - there is time for movies and TV series with 4th of July connections. It's a rich theme that has been embraced and referenced by filmmakers and stars in many ways throughout the years, with results as unique as their talents.

In 1983, Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver made the pilgrimage to the Croisette to support Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously. The drama, set in mid-60s Indonesia, a country in a political crisis that would soon overthrow president Sukarno.

In Mel Gibson’s true-life epic Hacksaw Ridge, Andrew Garfield plays Desmond Doss, a Virginia farm boy who enlisted in the army as a medic during World War II but steadfastly clung to his pacifist Seventh Day Adventist faith refusing to touch a weapon. Doss was initially court-martialed by the army but having won the right to his conscientious objection and later proved uncommon bravery in the Pacific saving scores of wounded comrades while wholly unarmed in the face of fierce fighting.

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