I read a column that indicated almost every war has a great film made with it as the primary premise with the exception of the US Revolutionary War. Maybe a more realistic version of the Patriot? Something has to be made.
Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) is pretty darn good, although it happens on the upper New York frontier and there are no large scale battles in open fields. It was directed by John Ford and had a pretty impressive cast with Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert.
Also,
The Crossing (2000) was also a excellent Revolutionary War film, although it was a "made for TV". Jeff Daniels was outstanding in it as George Washington. It tells the unlikely story of the Christmas night victory at Trenton, over a much stronger and better trained unit of Hessians.
I did not think
Patriot (2000) was a bad film. Its depiction of Yorktown was pretty accurate. I also like the old movie references that Gibson included, like the church scene from
High Noon (1952) and even his own
Mad Max (1979) when he pulls his box containing his dark past out from under his bed, where he hides and compartmentalizes it in order to keep his humanity.