Every summer, families flock to the beach for surfing, swimming and staring at sexy young people in swimsuits. And since all those things make for fun movies, Hollywood has spent a lot of money over the years making beach movies. The genre is a pretty simple one: set a movie at a beach, and you’ve got a beach movie. Whether the films use that setting for comedy, romance, thrills or horror is a little incidental. Are there luscious waves in the background? Are hot men and women wearing next to nothing? Then there you go: those are beach movies.
But although there are tons of beach movies made throughout the history of cinema, not all beach movies are created equal. That can be a good thing, since some of the most entreating movies in the genre are actually the worst, full of dopey storylines and flimsy excuses to show off a lot of skin. But some of the best beach movies are also some of the best movies ever made, as you’ll see in Crave’s list of 11 Great Beach Movies for Summer. Whether you’re headed off to the surf yourself or stranded in a land without sand or sun, these are the flicks we heartily recommend you watch to kick off the summer season… for one reason or another.
11 Great Beach Movies for Summer:
Top Photo: MGM Pictures
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved, Rapid Reviews and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
11 Great Beach Movies for Summer
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Into the Blue (2005)
No serious discussion of beach movies would be complete without one mention of John Stockwell, the actor-turned-director who spent half his career making thrillers about bikini-clad heroes. Blue Crush is an audience favorite, and Turistas is fun for horror fans, but his 2005 The Deep knock-off Into the Blue is his pièce de résistance. Jessica Alba and Paul Walker never looked hotter than when they searched for sunken treasure, and the shockingly violent climax is genuinely disarming.
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Surf Nazis Must Die (1987)
Surf movies don't get much stranger than this cult classic Troma flick, in which the grandmother of a black murder victim leaps onto her motorcycle to take revenge on a vicious gang of Surf Nazis. The surfing footage is actually pretty impressive, probably because 2nd Unit D.P. Dan Merkel also worked on Big Wednesday and Endless Summer II. But it's the goofy sense of humor that makes Surf Nazis Must Die into a scuzzy b-movie classic. A switchblade surfboard? Really?
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Psycho Beach Party (2000)
Based on the off-Broadway play, Robert Lee King's Psycho Beach Party is an affectionate homage to 1960s beach party movies and psychodramas, with a hint of 1980s slasher movie for good measure. Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) stars as "Chicklet," a naive beach bunny who suffers from blackouts and may be the serial killer stalking a beach full of studs and nymphets, including a young Amy Adams (in one of her earliest roles). Psycho Beach Party has sexy, campy humor for the quirky movie lover in all over us.
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The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981)
One of the dumbest damned movies ever made is also one of the funnest. The TV movie The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island finds the original castaways feeling nostalgic for their tropic isle, so they open a resort there. Pretty soon The Harlem Globetrotters show up and have to play an epic basketball game against giant-headed robots. Stories don't get much sillier, but on a hot summer day, The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island may be just the beach movie you're looking for.
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Beach Blanket Bingo (1965)
Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello became motion picture legends for their many groovy beach party movies in the 1960s. They appeared in nearly a dozen of these goofy movies, in which impossibly white people sang songs, drag raced with dopey leather gangs and fell in love over and over again, but the best is probably the fifth: Beach Blanket Bingo, in which Linda Evans guest stars, gets kidnapped, and Bonehead romances a mermaid. Good ol' Bonehead!
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Back to the Beach (1987)
Frankie and Annette returned in the absolutely lovable sequel Back to the Beach, in which they bring their own teenaged kids to shore and reclaim their old identities as the king and queen of summer. Pee-Wee Herman performs, Frankie Avalon surfs a tidal wave, and everyone on-screen and off has an absolutely wonderful time.
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Cast Away (2000)
Director Robert Zemeckis is known for his incredible visual effects, but the most impressive image he ever put on screen may very well be Tom Hanks, who took a one year break from filming Cast Away to lose 50 lbs., so as to better play a man stuck on a deserted island for many years. Hanks spends most of Cast Away acting opposite a volleyball, and you never stop to think twice about it. It's a harrowing and beautifully filmed film about survival at any cost.
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Point Break (1991)
"You're saying the FBI's gonna pay me to learn to surf?" They sure are, Johnny Utah, and it's going to be pretty danged cool. Keanu Reeves stars in Kathryn Bigelow's cheesy action movie classic as a fed going undercover with extreme sports bank robbers, led by a zen guru named Bodhi, played to sexy perfection by Patrick Swayze. Our heroes and villains take time away from the beach to skydive, but the typhoon of a finale cements Point Break as one of the great beach movies of all time.
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Lilo & Stitch (2002)
No one thought much of Lilo & Stitch when it first came out in 2002, but this unlikely story of an alien monster using a Hawaiian girl as a human shield gradually built a reputation as one of Disney's best animated films of the 21st Century. With good cause: the humor is subversive and funny, the emotions are devastating, and the fabulous Hawaiian backdrop comes to life with gorgeous colors, memorable music and a heaping helping of local culture.
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From Here to Eternity (1953)
Fred Zinneman's incredible Best Picture Oscar-winning drama From Here to Eternity tells the intense story of American soldiers stationed on Oahu in the days preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor. Frank Sinatra won a richly deserved Academy Award as the ill-fated Private Maggio, but the scene that went down in history is Burt Lancaster's sexy surf side frolic with Deborah Kerr. It's still one of the most romantic images ever filmed.
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Jaws (1975)
The best beach movie ever made is also the film that will make you never, ever want to visit the beach again. Steven Spielberg's Jaws adapts Peter Benchley's novel about a seaside resort plagued by a giant Great White Shark, and the men who risk life and limb to rid the island of Amity from its menace once and for all. Groundbreaking, suspenseful as hell, and packed with unforgettable performances (not to mention John Williams' iconic music), Jaws is the movie we all think of as we take that first perilous step into the water, hoping for the best.
