On July 2, an enormous alien mothership enters Earth’s orbit and deploys 36 saucer-shaped 15 mile wide ships over major cities around the globe. In New York City, David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), a satellite technician for a television network, discovers transmissions hidden in satellite links that he believes the aliens are using to coordinate an attack. David and his father Julius (Judd Hirsch) travel to the White House and warn President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) of the attack. The President, portions of his Cabinet and the Levinsons narrowly escape aboard Air Force One as the alien spacecraft destroy Washington D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, and other major cities.
Meanwhile, USMC Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) is part of a counterattack against the ships. His girlfriend Jasmine, her son, and their pet dog survive the destruction of Los Angeles by hiding in a storage closet in a freeway tunnel. The next day, July 3, Jasmine commandeers an abandoned maintenance truck to drive to Hiller’s military base. Along the way she picks up several survivors. She also finds the injured First Lady (Mary McDonnell), who had been flying out of Los Angeles by helicopter when it was knocked down in the alien attack.
Captain Hiller leads a squadron of F/A-18 Hornets on a sortie against one of the spaceships. The ships are found to be guarded by force fields, which repel any weapons or detonations. The ship releases scores of fighters, armed with similar shields and weaponry. During a one-sided dogfight, Hiller captures an alien pilot after luring an alien fighter to the Grand Canyon,[4] where he tricks it into a crash landing. While dragging the unconscious alien across the desert, Hiller is picked up by a ragtag group of refugees driving campers and trucks to a nearby military base. The group includes Russell Casse (Randy Quaid), an alcoholic crop-duster who claimed to have been abducted by aliens years earlier. They take the captured alien to Area 51, where Air Force One has already landed. Area 51 conceals a top secret facility housing a recovered spacecraft and alien bodies stored since the Roswell incident in 1947. The captured alien regains consciousness in a sealed lab and reveals that its species travels the galaxy, harvesting planets’ resources before moving on. The alien tries to psychically attack President Whitmore, but is killed by his Secret Service detail. A nuclear attack against a shield protected ship over Houston is a failure. Captain Hiller, wanting to find Jasmine, steals a helicopter and travels back to his abandoned base where he finds Jasmine, the First Lady and other survivors. The President and his daughter Patricia (Mae Whitman) later visit the First Lady in the base hospital and she dies from internal injuries from the helicopter crash. The President stays with her for the last few minutes of her life. Outside, Patricia and the President hug and comfort each other.
On July 4, David devises a plan to use the 1947 fighter to sneak into the mothership and introduce a computer virus before detonating a nuclear device inside. The computer virus would filter down to the city ships, deactivating their shields. The plan is to simultaneously attack the 36 city ships once their shields are down. Hiller volunteers to be the pilot, since he is the only person to have seen them in action and survive, giving him unique knowledge of the ship’s capabilities. David decides he must go along to upload the virus. With few military pilots left the President (a former fighter pilot himself) rallies the refugees and garners a number of volunteers, including Casse. Morse code is used to contact forces around the world in order to coordinate the attack.
After the virus is implanted and lowers the shields, Whitmore leads an attack against the Los Angeles ship slowly approaching Area 51. Although the fighters can now damage the alien ship, they run out of missiles shooting down the large number of the ship’s fighters. The city ship’s sheer size makes missiles ineffectual and the ship prepares to fire its main weapon at Area 51. Casse has the last missile, but it jams, so he flies his aircraft into the main weapon bay in a suicide attack, causing a chain reaction which destroys the alien ship.
Simultaneously, other forces around the world are able to bring down the remaining destroyers using Casse’s method. David and Hiller are discovered on the mothership, but when they fire their nuclear weapon, their ship is freed and they escape with just seconds to spare. The mothership is destroyed and the 1947 fighter crashes in the desert near Area 51. The world celebrates, and the main characters watch debris from the mothership enter the atmosphere, reminiscent of fireworks.

1996

PG-13

024543036722

Movie

Independence Day

1

2.35:1

153

United States

1996-03-07

1080p

2.35:1

2

2

Snap Case

~$1.98

2024-07-05

2018-02-07 18:28:05