11 Movies With ‘Summer’ in the Title for When It’s Too Hot to Go Outside

Ah, summer. Sun and swim. Blue skies and barbecues. Picnics and pitying yourself as you scroll through social media and wonder, “How the fuck can all of these people afford European vacations?” I hate it. This season—like Christmas—just isn’t for me. Firstly, I strongly dislike sweating and smelling the perspiration of others on the subway. Secondly, multiple patriotic holidays, as we face staggeringly high heat? I’ll pass.

But as much as I hate it, I’ll admit it’s inspired many of the movies I find myself returning to even long after temperatures return to some level of livable in New York. A group of teenagers terrorized by the man they thought they killed? A historic music festival that convened the most brilliant musicians of all time? A horny baseball team on Cape Cod being...a horny baseball team? These are the stories that—to quote Nicole Kidman—inspire us “to laugh, to cry, to care. Because we need that. All of us.” Especially in A/C.

And because a shocking amount of them have “summer” in their titles, here’s 11 that are worth revisiting as the world burns and your colleagues continue to brag on Instagram.

Two words: Brittany Murphy. Actually, wait. Here’s a few more: Brittany Murphy standing over a reclined Freddie Prinze Jr. while balancing an open beer bottle between her legs to simulate urinating on him. Yes, that is an actual scene in this 2001 classic. Though that pees de résistance whizzes right by, the rest of the movie is a damn good time too. How it could not be when it touts so many of America’s beloved pastimes? Baseball! Babes! Blatant fatphobia! Summer Catch is problematic as all hell, and it certainly didn’t win any awards (its current score on Rotten Tomatoes is 8%), but Prinze Jr. as a working class Cape Cod kid with dreams of the major leagues and a jones for the rich girl next door is somehow still a home run.

Hear me out: 500 Days of Summer is more than just Zooey Deschanel’s last good film. It’s a rorschach test. Don’t believe me? Work it into the conversation on your next date, happy hour with co-workers, or holiday dinner table. Should anyone say anything even remotely akin to “I feel bad for Joseph Gordon-Levitt,” you’re not just encouraged to remove them from your life—you’re entitled to. I’m only half-kidding.

The best part of re-watching this romcom (apart from its soundtrack) is remembering that at one time, you simped so hard for the patriarchy that you too, sided with Gordon-Levitt’s sad sack Tom Hansen. It’s OK! You’ve grown, engaged with bell hooks, and are now capable of identifying the few hundred times Deschanel’s character, Summer Finn, communicated that she was, in fact, not the manic pixie dream girl that Tom so pathetically willed her to be. She literally just wore hoop skirts and said she liked The Smiths. Grow up!

Paul Rudd! Twink Bradley Cooper! Christopher Meloni in a crop top! That’s what you’re getting with this cult classic and its cast of chaotic characters: Hot dudes being hot. And very, very silly. Sure, the satirical comedy got panned by critics—one likened it to “agony on a stick.” It is profoundly stupid, but I really must counter that it’s supposed to be! There’s also something to be said for the chemistry among the film’s band of big names—many of whom have since said that the behind the scenes dynamic was akin to high school. In 2011, for Wet Hot American Summer’s 10-year anniversary, Amy Poehler confided to Entertainment Weekly that they were very often “trashed.” Frankly, I want nothing less from late 20-somethings and 30-somethings making a movie about a fictional summer camp.

Even if your primary familiarity with the sport of surfing is the recent revelation that Jonah Hill banned his pro surfer girlfriend from posting bikini pics, you will enjoy this 1966 documentary from Bruce Brown (aka the “pioneer of the surf film”). The Endless Summer takes place across the coasts of Australia and South Africa as Mike Hynson and Robert August chase waves—and other big, crushing things like fulfillment. Not only is the film refreshingly devoid of clichés, it’s just really beautiful to look at it.

In the summer of 1977, an Italian-American neighborhood in The Bronx was terrorized by a real life serial killer who identified himself as “Son of Sam.” Years later, Spike Lee and Michael Imperioli co-wrote Summer of Sam, a cinematic snapshot of the moment, depicting the murder investigation through the eyes of fictional residents that happen to be some very messy men. The true crime thriller yielded some very mixed reviews but I find it compelling for much of the same reasons Roger Ebert wrote in his 1999 review: “It’s not about the killer, but about his victims—not those he murdered, but those whose overheated imaginations bloomed into a lynch mob mentality. There is a sequence near the end of the film that shows a side of human nature as ugly as it is familiar: the fever to find someone to blame and the need to blame someone who is different.”

Once upon a time Emily Blunt portrayed a bad teenager in the British countryside who introduces a local girl to petty crime, passionate sex, and suicide pacts. It’s moody queer cinema at its best, and occasionally, most brutal. There’s good old fashioned religious guilt, magic mushrooms, and all the coming-of-age tropes audiences have come to expect from films about teenage girls determining who they are, and yet none of it feels tired. Even better? It’s a story about two queer women that doesn’t culminate in tragedy or a cloying happy ending. Instead, My Summer of Love is a reminder of the first time you found out that the coolest girl in the world isn’t always who she says she is. That’s just a part of growing up.

Where do I begin? This adaptation of William Faulkner’s best-selling novel will instantly make you understand the need for Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward’s infamous “fuck hut.” Their chemistry? Good lord. Something tells me the foundation of the fuck hut wasn’t strong enough to sustain the sheer force of it. The Long, Hot Summer is basically a rom com meets a southern soap opera—which is exactly why everyone should watch it. And the fact that it launched Newman and Woodward’s love story? Hollywood just doesn’t make ’em like this anymore.

I don’t know how to describe One Crazy Summer as anything but an 1980's fever dream. John Cusack is an art school hopeful called Hoops McCann and Demi Moore portrays Cassandra, a rock singer on the run from a motorcycle gang. Believe it or not, these two are the anchors of an ensemble that includes the following: Cookie, a rich asshole’s girlfriend; a weirdo known as Ack-Ack Raymond; and the latter’s friend, Egg, who, at one point in the movie, gets stuck in a Godzilla costume. I don’t know, man. It’s not not bizarre. On the other hand, it was filmed in Hyannis and features a classic “haves vs. have nots” subplot, so, there are far worse movies to watch when you’ve grown tired of wiping sweat from every orifice.

Want to see Ryan Philippe act as if his rent was due the second he stepped off set? Have a hankering to snicker at some of the worst slasher movie dialogue ever committed to film? I Know What You Did Last Summer is the blockbuster for you. You know the story: As four recent high school graduates are out on a drunken joyride to celebrate the Fourth of July, they accidentally kill a man. As any group of thinking-people would do, they then decide to dump his unresponsive body in the nearest body of water. As it happens, the man wasn’t actually dead—and he’s vengeful. I Know What You Did Last Summer is mostly just suspenseful until its bloody finale. Philippe’s performances of raw machismo—one of which includes literally choking Jennifer Love Hewitt during an argument—are accidental comedy gold.

I won’t lie, Hot Summer Nights isn’t the best movie. But the cast—most notably Timothée Chalamet as a teenage drug dealer—is amusing as all hell. There’s some good old-fashioned appeals to ’90s nostalgia, a very solid soundtrack, and a plot that will keep you engrossed, if only because it’s a bit of a mess—let’s just say, it’s not exactly airtight. But if you’re game for A24's gritty—and a little goofy—take on a coming-of-age cautionary tale, you just might love this.

During the summer of 1969, as Woodstock dominated international media attention, Harlem’s Mount Morris Park played host to a lesser-known—yet just as culturally significant—event known as the Harlem Cultural Festival. As seen in Questlove’s Oscar-winning Summer of Soul, the testament to Black pride convened countless community activists, preeminent civic leaders, and performers for six Sundays, including Nina Simone, B.B. King, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Stevie Wonder. Every performance was free, and the festival drew hundreds of thousands of revelers, yet history would remember little else about it for decades.

Summer of Soul might just be one of the most moving music documentaries I’ve seen in the last five years. It will make you sing, dance, and feel deeply on your couch. And if it’s your introduction to the event, it will likely piss you off that you’ve only just learned of its magic.