What movie feels like summer to you?

Heat radiating off the sidewalk, water lapping at the shore, charged emotions—and sometimes sharks

By Jen Lennon, Saloni Gajjar, Drew Gillis, Tim Lowery, Emma Keates, Cindy White, Jacob Oller, Mary Kate Carr | May 10, 2024 | 2:00pm

Film Features Films

Clockwise from bottom left: Before Sunrise (Columbia Pictures), Jaws (Universal Pictures), Y Tu Mamá También (20th Century Fox), Body Heat (Warner Bros.) Graphic: The A.V. Club

Summer can bring about more than just a certain mood evoked by warmer weather. Perhaps more than other seasons, it can bring up specific memories. For some, summer feels like adolescence, mountain bikes, chalk on the driveway, and trying to stave off the boredom after you’ve been ordered outside for the day. For others, it’s all warm beaches and romance, the welcoming glow of the sun. And sometimes it’s the miserable, sweltering heat beating down on you, inescapable, at a time when you just can’t catch a break. Since the season can bring up so many different emotions, we decided to ask our staff: What movie feels like summer to you?

Jaws (1975)

JAWS | Official Trailer | Experience It In IMAX®

Sunny skies, blue waters, a crowded beach, fireworks for the 4th of July…nothing screams summer more than these elements combined, and Jaws features them all aplenty. Are there also killer sharks terrorizing a small town called Amity Island, instilling fear in everyone except for the corrupt mayor and medical examiner? Yes. The thrill of Jaws lies in how it turns the comfortable into something unbelievably terrifying. I saw the movie as a pre-teen and I’m still extremely nervous to go swimming in water that’s not a pool. Every element of the Steven Spielberg movie is groundbreaking, not least because it became our first summer blockbuster. There’s no better way to kick off the season than watching it. And because I love the combination of horror and summer (it subverts expectations, what can I say?), my runner-up here is the slasher I Know What You Did Last Summer. [Saloni Gajjar]

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