19 Summer Movies For 19 Different Occasions

Summers are day drinking, sitting at the pool, grilling out, going to the beach, going to the pool, going to the river, pissing in bodies of water, night drinking, cheap beer, America, hamburgers, watermelons, hot dogs, sausages, all meats in tubed form, vodka, fireworks, shots of tequila, and patriotism.

In a sense, the summer days/evenings make up for the monotonous grind that makes you beg for an asteroid to just come and take the pain away.

Occasionally, you’re a little too hungover, or the weather just isn’t cooperating the way it should, leaving you bedridden or forced into a theater.

For those days, movies are there to save the day.

A summer movie isn’t a cold winter night’s movie; there’s a certain undeniable energy that comes from a summer movie, a need to get to the point, a pacing that takes you on a rollercoaster ride and doesn’t fuck around.

Slow burns generally aren’t summer movies.

The summer brings about different tastes, unique cravings, and eclectic offerings, so when a very specific mood hits, you need a very specific fix.

That’s why this list exists.

I’ve compiled 20 movies to hit the right spot when you need them most, beginning with…

Best Summer Movie: Jaws

We can go ahead and get this one out of the way early because it’s the movie that started the whole summer movie craze, the ultimate creature feature, the best work in Steven Spielberg’s extensive filmography: Jaws.

It’s sort of like doing a best baseball player list and throwing in Babe Ruth. You know it’s coming but it still isn’t stale or anything, and like Babe Ruth, the folklore around the movie is as fascinating as the movie itself. Jaws has no business being this incredibly good, but John Williams at his best and some all-time great acting performances ensured that we still get a ping of anxiety whenever we get into the ocean to this day.

The scar-showing scene still ranks up there with one of the best scenes in cinematic history, showing exactly what makes Jaws so special, the people and the idea of the shark, not the shark itself.

If you’re one of those lost souls who haven’t seen Jaws, God forbid, let this be the summer you rectify your sins.

Best Upcoming Summer Monster Movie with an Awful Name That Could Be a Hell of a Lot of Fun: The Meg

The Meg.

They named a shark move The Meg.

Everyone understands that the movie is about the megalodon, a shark that towered over all other species of sharks, but that name is beyond atrocious.

Yet as bad as the name is, the trailer actually looks pretty fucking dope:

It doesn’t take itself too seriously, as seen by the Rainn Wilson character’s careful trotting around the 4th wall, yet there is certainly a problem that needs to be rectified. From the first half to the second half of the trailer, there’s a huge shift in tone. It goes from this foreboding, dark film about a hidden monster preparing to pick the people off one-by-one to a bright, sunny day in which everyone’s worst nightmare will come to fruition to the lovely stylings of Frank Sinatra.

If the trailer is any indication, it looks as if they’re going to skirt the line between seriousness and campiness, which can be the perfect blend for a summer thriller.

My biggest concern is that it’s rated PG-13, but they’ve grabbed my interest as is, a huge first step.

Man, there really should be a rule that a monster movie comes out every summer.

Honorable Mention: Bleeding Steel

Best Summer Movie for Teaching Kids #Sports: The Sandlot

As far as sports go, summer is synonymous with baseball. Watching a football movie in the scalding heat just feels weird and unnecessary. Hockey movies are a no-go. Basketball is a close second, but it isn’t the same.

Yes, baseball reigns king in the summer, and there’s nothing quite out there in the sports realm like The Sandlot, which blends the best qualities of Stand By Me with summer days/nights with your pals from your childhood. But you know that because you’ve seen it. Everyone has seen it.

I find that The Sandlot may be even more impactful to me now as an adult than it was when I was a kid. The carefree nature of the kids is something I (and I’m assuming everyone else) never fully appreciated. The very thought of the biggest worry in my life being a baseball in the neighbor’s yard is something that can’t help but make me smile, and it’s something we’d all trade for in a second, if not sooner.

Honorable Mention: Bad New Bears (the original, not the shitty remake)

Best Summer Movie for Teaching Everyone Else #Sports: Major League

The greatest sports movie (excluding boxing movies) ever made is Major League. That’s more of a fact than an opinion, but I suppose you could try to argue with me on the matter if you want. It would be pretty futile. It has everything: Love, betrayal, mid-summer pranks spawned out of boredom, redemption, and spite at the highest level.

When you think of the ultimate underdog movie, this has to be at the top of the list. Starting from a list of players who were out of their prime, never had one, or were dead, the Cleveland Indians shocked the world when ownership (a.k.a. a conniving woman intent on moving the team to Miami) set them up to fail terribly.

Aside from the brilliance of the story, it’s one of the funniest sports movies we’ve ever had. I mean this is the movie that gave us this scene:

It’s essentially a perfect drinking movie to watch with a group of friends, which is essentially the best way to watch a movie in the summer.

Honorable Mention: White Men Can’t Jump

Best Upcoming Summer Movie if You Want Drug-Fueled Satire With Some Up-and-Coming Stars: Sorry to Bother You

Starring Lakeith Stanfield of Get Out fame and Tessa Thompson, who has been blowing up in recent years with Thor: Ragnarok, Westworld, Creed, and Dear White People, Sorry to Bother You feels like something wholly original, which makes sense this is director (and rapper) Boots Riley’s first venture into the world of feature filmmaking (as a director).

When I first saw the art style, colors, and plot direction, I immediately assumed it was a Spike Lee joint, but there’s a different energy to it than what he usually puts up. It looks funny, pointed, and sort of frenetic, though definitely in a good way. Still, Lee’s fingerprints are all over it, particularly something like Do the Right Thing, which is the best of what he’s done. If this is in that stratosphere, we’re all in for quite a treat.

Black men/women breaking through/moving up/breaking out of a white-dominated world isn’t exactly a new genre, but there’s certainly been a renaissance on the subject, and the has the makings to be the most interesting (and funny) of the bunch.

Best Summer Movie for When You Want to See Shit Blow Up: Bad Boys 2

Before Michael Bay went full Michael Bay, he made some genuinely entertaining movies, albeit very flawed ones, but perfectly suitable for shutting your brain off and allowing the pyrotechnics to take over.

The most shining example of this is Bad Boys 2, the 2003 sequel starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence at the height of their powers:

The chemistry between Smith and Lawrence is off-the-charts good, and the Pablo Escobar-esque storyline is a fun one. There’s enough callbacks to the original to remind you that you’re watching a sequel, but there’s enough originality there to keep it from feeling as if you’re watching the same movie with different names.

Honorable Mention: Terminator 2

Best Summer Movie for When You Want to Feel Like an Intellectual, but You Also Want to See Shit Blow Up: Mad Max: Fury Road

This is just like if Michael Bay made an action movie but went against every decision that would make it complete shit.

George Miller returned to the bleak world he created after a 30-year hiatus, and what spawned from that is a tight, 2-hour, hold-your-nuts thrill ride that’s as visually impressive as it is harrowing. Thematically, it breaks away from the male-hero archetype we’ve become accustomed to and love to explore the survival of man and the sacrifice of women, a move that not only separates it from others in the series but from nearly all action movies.

I’ve written at length about my love for Mad Max: Fury Road, but the point stands. It transcends the action movie label. It’s perfect in every way, particularly in the summer, where the heat from the desert on film can be felt by simply walking outside into your backyard.

Though there’s probably less slavery and murder in your backyard.

Honorable Mention: First Blood

Best New Summer Horror Movie That May Get You Thinking Way Too Existentially: Hereditary

The A24 brand has become one of the strongest in the film world for putting out thought-provoking works of art that haunt you, make you laugh, and provide an outlet for exploration and contemplation.

Hereditary might be the best of them all.

As far as my summer movie rule on pacing goes, this may be the one that argues that point the most, but it perfectly embodies the types of horror movie offerings we’re receiving right now, so it has to be mentioned.

Hereditary is a slow-burning horror masterwork that deals with grief and the things that get passed down from generation to generation. It’s a family drama, first and foremost, but it evolves and mutates along the way, and by the grand finale, it’s hardly even recognizable from its starting point.

This new wave of directors is special. They have access to decades upon decades of prior works at their fingertips, and it seems the they all utilize those tools. People I’ve never heard of keep popping up randomly and create scenes I’ve never seen before, specifically the opening shot and some of the stuff during the chaotic finale. They’re brilliant and fearless.

Runner-Up: The Little Stranger

Best Summer Movies for All of Your Blood and Gore Needs: A Nightmare on Elm Street/Friday the 13th

This is a tie, and it isn’t fair, but you can’t make me choose between my children, so I won’t.

Horror movies simply work in the summer, particularly the sexually promiscuous ones and ones with a killer that spits one-liners in-between kills. By those standards, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th (and basically the entirety of their franchises, even the shitty ones) are perfect summer movies for what they need to be. (NOTE: Halloween is a fall horror movie, not a summer one).

Jason Voorhees and Freddy Kruger are on the Mount Rushmore of horror movies villains, though for very different reasons. One is a brooding, walking destructive force of undead, while the other is a wise-cracking pedo with a penchant for haunting the dreams of children. Their biggest commonality (other than the fact that they faced off in Freddy vs. Jason) is they each find new, exciting ways to stalk and violently murder children.

Jump scares, gore, and sexuality, on paper, shouldn’t work as well as it does, but decades of practice have only proven that humans still fall back on our most primal instincts for our adrenaline needs. Isn’t that what summer is truly about?

Runner-Up: Scream

Best Upcoming Summer Movie to Drown You in Anxiety: Searching

Watch this:

You feel that creeping anxiety taking over your being yet? Because I sure as fuck do. This is like an expanded Black Mirror episode, only more frightening because it isn’t in some not-too-distant future. It’s in the here and now.

Social media gives people a platform to portray what they please to the outside world, allowing them to hide the real them. If someone tries hard enough, they can make sure no one really knows them, and that’s a parent’s worst fear in our current era.

Searching explores the missing child genre in a new way for a new generation, and from the looks of it, they nail it, frighteningly.

Honorable Mention: Slender Man

Best Summer Movie to Revisit Instead of Seeing Its Shitty Sequel: Jurassic Park

I know there’s a new Jurassic World movie that just came out, but that just reinforces the idea that you should just watch the original Jurassic Park instead.

Having watched the new sequel, I can say it isn’t as bad as some people are pretending. It changes the landscape of what’s to come entirely, setting up a Lost World-esque sequel again. It set in motion some really interesting moves for yet another movie in the world we’ve grown to love, but does it improv upon the original?

No, it doesn’t.

Jurassic Park still stands as a summer movie titan, a movie about survival, a movie about ethics and morality as much as it was about the dinosaurs, a movie with a theme song that you’re thinking about at this exact second. Yeah, you’re thinking about it.

Honorable Mention: Predator

Best Summer Movie if You Need a Marvel Fix Because They Have You Exactly Where They Want You: Ant-Man and The Wasp

I know the feeling. I’m deep in the shit with you.

We’re addicts impatiently waiting on our fix, that sweet hit of superhero action.

With Ant-Man and the Wasp, two far lesser heroes in a world of new heroes, Marvel is truly flexing their muscles to prove they can fill up theaters with anything.

They have the whole making wildly entertaining superhero movies down to an exact science, and this one looks no different. One exciting new wrinkle in the Ant-Man-led movies is that the fate of the universe isn’t at stake, and the lower stakes gives it an entirely different feel. You still care about the outcome, but you don’t fear the deaths of half the heroes you’ve grown to love.

You can expect well-timed jokes, nifty action sequences, and at least one post-credits scene that you’re going to want to see even though you have to piss tremendously.

And you’ll do it again and again and again for as long as the drugs keep getting dropped down to us.

The Best Summer Movie for Trying to Relive the Feeling of the Beginning of Summer: Dazed and Confused

The moment school ended for the summer was a wave of euphoria for me, the moment of sweet release when our oppressors were forced to release us into the outside world.

No movie has ever captured that feeling (and the night that followed) better than Richard Linklater with Dazed and Confused.

Life was simple in high school. You made it through the grind of everyday life to get to summer, where (in an ideal world) you’d drink with your buddies and try to find a little quality time with someone, if only for a brief night. Those were the things worth living for, the ultimate goals.

Things don’t change the much as you get older, though summer is no longer an oasis, only a quick pit stop on an arduous journey. Time passes quicker; responsibilities grow; but people never change. They just have less time.

Honorable Mention: Grease (Fun fact: My mother watched Grease 27 times in theaters back in 1978.)

The Best Summer Movie for When You’re Trying to Relive the Feeling of a Childhood Summer: The Goonies

Remember back in the summer when you didn’t have to work a job? Before football practice took up the entirety of your days? Before the realization that you needed money to do the fun things later in life?

That childhood is what we all long for deep down, and one of the best ways to reminisce upon that time is by watching The Goonies.

When I was a kid, I routinely went on adventures with my friends, which normally meant exploring the farthest reaches of our home town on our bikes. Sometimes it was more than that, but there was an innocence to our adventures, as is the case with almost all children

Even when the stakes are miraculously high, as they are in The Goonies, there’s an innocence to the motives. They’re trying to save the houses of their families. They’re trying to do the right thing the right way while the evils of adulthood fight them every step of the way. And then there’s Brand (Josh Brolin), stuck somewhere between adulthood and childhood, forced to make a decision, becoming the final bastion of youth in the war just as he’s on the brink of teetering to the other side.

We all aspire to be Brand, but in the end, we all fall victim to the other side.

Honorable Mention: Stand By Me/The Lost Boys

The Best Summer Movie for Witnessing a Fictional War: Independence Day

When July 4 is right around the corner, it’s hard not to remember the time Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, and Randy Quaid saved America (and the World) from alien invaders.

I mean what’s there to say about Independence Day that you don’t already know?

It’s already incredibly dated, but it’s so damn watchable that you’ll forgive it time and time again. There’s big explosions,  the best presidential speech you’ll find in a movie, and this scene:

That’s quality humor from a Will Smith that we haven’t seen in a hot minute.

Independence Day is the unity-inspiring work of art we need this summer.

Honorable Mention: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Best Summer Movie for Witnessing a Real War (and the Traumatic Effects of It): Platoon

I imagine most people assumed that Major League would be the only time Charlie Sheen popped up in this list, but nope, that crazy asshole had a hell of a run in the last 1980s.

This one is far different from the first offering.

War is hell. War is ugly. War is bitter, dirty, oppressive, hateful, sad, and awful in every way.

It changes people in the worst type of ways, making them something entirely different from when they entered the arena. The Vietnam war, in particular, did awful things to the people who experienced it. You see it firsthand in Charlie Sheen’s character, as his youthful exuberance is quickly stripped from him when the cold reality of the war hits him.

Platoon is one of many amazing war movies out there, and while it isn’t as happy and uplifting as some on the list, there is an internal reward for watching it.

Honorable Mention: We Were Soldiers/Apocalypse Now/Full Metal Jacket/The Deer Hunter

Best Summer Movie From Last Year That You Didn’t Realize Was a Lot Better Than It Should’ve Been: Power Rangers

Did I create this entire list to try to shoehorn in my new love for last year’s Power Rangers movie?

Well, it’s hard to say.

But I will say I loved the hell out of this movie and I feel it doesn’t get talked about nearly enough.

Base on the show we all grew up watching, the 2017 Power Rangers had every right to be an awful movie. There was nothing stopping it from being a cash-grab based on nostalgia like Transformers or the new Ninja Turtles (What the hell, Michael Bay?).

But it was neither of those things. There was some heart put into this, and we cared about the characters as people long before we saw the suits we already knew, a terrific choice in pacing and plot.

There were shots in this movie that were actually really impressive, surprisingly. When Rita Repulsa obtains all the power she needs to evolve and the gold begins to flow around her, that’s a beautiful piece of CGI that has stuck with me since I first saw it.

Please, take a couple of hours one night to watch this because it deserves the views.

Honorable Mention: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Best Summer Movie for When You Considered Going on Vacation But Thought Better of It: Vacation

The most classic vacation-gone-wrong film in American cinematic history. Vacation set the standard for all vacation movies moving forward.

When I was a kid, my dad worked during the summers and rarely, if ever, had a day off, so we took our family vacations in the fall/winter. I longed to have that family trip to the beach or Disney World in the heat of the summer. To get me through my feelings, I would watch Vacation to remind me that maybe that was an awful time to drive across the country.

Without Vacation, we wouldn’t have Christmas Vacation, a staple in American homes during the Holidays, so that alone makes it important, but the fact that it is incredibly funny in its own right is icing on the cake.

Honorable Mention: The Way Way Back

Best Summer Movie to See With Your Significant Other That You Definitely Don’t Want to See but May Sneaky Like in the End: The Spy Who Dumped Me

I can’t tell if this movie is going to be good or not, but I chuckled during the trailer far more than I expected.

That’s half the battle.

Part of being in a healthy, loving relationship is giving into the wants and desires of your significant other. My wife, for instance, sometimes likes trash movies, particularly romcoms and dumb comedies that aren’t even funny. To be fair, I like uber-violent art house films and anime. To each their own.

Finding something they’re excited about that you can stand is so incredibly important that it bears repeating. Finding something they’re excited about that you can stand is so incredibly important that it bears repeating. Finding something they’re excited about that you can stand is so incredibly important that it bears repeating. And so on.

The Spy Who Dumped Me will be my compromise for 2018. Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon are both very funny girls and seem to have some real chemistry here.

Also, I love spy comedies. It can be a fun, quirky sub-genre, particularly when gadgets get thrown into the mix. I do love gadgets.

It won’t win any awards, but I can already tell it will be a breeze of a movie to sit through. You may even have a little fun.

Honorable Mention: Crazy Rich Asians