Today is the 4th of July, a day in which you should, as one relative of a popular "Simpsons" character once put it, "celebrate the birth of your nation by blowing up a small part of it." What would Independence Day be without fireworks? Incredibly boring.

Let's face it though. Fireworks are only exciting when you're watching them live. That's why you don't see them so much in movies. Explosions though, those are an action flick hallmark. So while you're beating the heat during the daytime hours today, waiting for the sun to extinguish and the fireworks to fly, why not settle in with some popcorn and air conditioning while the following five movies delight you with their memorable scenes of mass destruction.

"V for Vendetta"

Spoiler alert, I suppose. This whole list is one big spoiler, so consider yourself warned. The big explosion in "V for Vendetta" comes at the end of the movie. It's also heavily foreshadowed, but the spoiler warning stands. The vigilante V exists to oppose the totalitarian government led by Norsefire. His identity is hidden by a Guy Fawkes mask, referencing the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, which would have seen London's House of Parliament destroyed in a fiery explosion. This is V's plot all along, to blow up Parliament in spectacular fashion, sending a message to the people that the power to disrupt the government's brutal ruling party is in their hands. He succeeds, and the explosive results are glorious.

"Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi"

In addition to being a "Star Wars" movie -- and thus, awesome -- "Return of the Jedi" offers viewers the unique opportunity to watch a massive structure explode from the inside. Lando Calrissian pilots Han Solo's Millennium Falcon into the heart of the second Death Star, delivering a deadly payload of concussion missiles to the planet-killing space station's core. The ensuing rush to escape death sees the Falcon dodging it's way through the dying Death Star's service corridors while a great wall of flame licks at its rear engines. Lando, of course, escapes, and the second Death Star comes apart just like its predecessor, in grand fashion.

"Star Trek"

In one brief plot twist, J.J. Abrams officially knocked fans of Gene Roddenberry's classic science fiction series on their collective asses. In last year's rebooted "Star Trek," a mad Romulan miner makes his way into the past, to a time before Captain James T. Kirk and his faithful Enterprise crew screwed up everything for anyone opposing the United Federation of Planets. Using advanced future technology, the angry, vengeful Romulan launches the first stage of his plan. Using just a drop of a substance called "red matter" he destroys the planet Vulcan, and with it most of the Vulcan people and culture. Live long and prosper? I don't think so!

"Avatar"

Another 2009 film, James Cameron's "Avatar" raised the bar for sci-fi/action flicks with its epic scope and intricately detailed future technology. Funny then that the film's most impressive explosion is the result of a comparably low-tech assault: missiles fired into the base of a massive tree, resulting in what is likely the biggest "Timber!" in film history. Having exhausted all diplomatic options that he's willing to tolerate, the war-loving Colonel Quaritch leads a squadron of fighter pilots to the Na'vi Hometree, firing volley after volley of missiles into the great plant's innards until it comes crashing down. It's an extended sequence of mass destruction that looks all that much cooler in digital 3-D.

"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"

A list of movie explosions would be a pretty sorry one indeed if the name Michael Bay is never once mentioned. You could pick any of his movies out of a hat and find a face-melting explosion to point to as "the best," but there's one in particular from last year's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" that puts them all to shame. In fact, it was so large that Bay landed himself and his movie in the Guinness Book of World Records, for creating the biggest explosion on film with actors present. Said explosion comes at the end of the movie during the big final showdown. In the fiction of the movie, the setting is the Middle East; the explosion was actually staged in New Mexico.

Honorable Mentions

"The Dark Knight"

"The Rock"

"Independence Day"

"Swordfish"

"Chain Reaction"

"Terminator 2: Judgment Day"

And really, anything from the collected works of Michael Bay, James Cameron, Roland Emmerich, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis...