Whether it's warm enough to merit a trip to the beach or if you're just pining for surf, sun, and sand, the movies have you covered. Going to the movies is a great way to beat the heat, and so is going to the beach; why not watch a film that does both? We combed the beaches for the 32 greatest movies about beaches.
There are countless motion pictures that could be called "Beach Movies," including an entire subgenre of films known as "Beach Party Films." In fact, you could make an entire list out of just movies where tanned surfers have a ball while Elvis plays in the background. However, to keep things interesting, this is a more varied list of beach movies, complete with multiple genres that aren't afraid to get down and sandy when they need to.
Some of the films here are the classics you'd expect. Others involve horror at the shore, beaches that aren't so warm or sunny, and trips to the coast that are anything but a vacation. The movies below, therefore, are ranked by "beachiness" more so than pure quality.
32. The Lighthouse
Year: 2019
Director: Robert Eggers
It's hard to imagine a worse trip to the beach than the long stay that Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson endure in A24's The Lighthouse. Shot in stylish black and white, the film follows the veteran and rookie lighthouse keepers in nineteenth-century New England as they're stranded at their dreary, rocky post for weeks and weeks due to a gnarly storm, and potentially some supernatural happenings, too. They have only each other for company, which might be worse than having nothing, and quickly go stir crazy. Basically, The Lighthouse is a beach movie for people who don't like going to the beach.
31. Dunkirk
Year: 2017
Director: Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan's extremely tense historical drama tells one of World War II's most incredible stories, the Dunkirk evacuation. When the British forces are driven back to the shores of France in 1940, the massed soldiers gather on the beaches of Dunkirk in the hopes that they'll be able to make it across the English Channel for a chance to fight again. If they don't get rescued, the Nazis have them all cornered, and the clock is ticking. (Literally, since Dunkirk's incredible soundtrack incorporates a subtly stressful ticking throughout.) This beach is not the rest and relaxation sort, that's for sure.
30. The Sand
Year: 2015
Director: Isaac Gabaeff
The Sand (which is also known by the on-the-nose title Killer Beach) follows a group of teens whose fun day at the beach turns deadly when they discover that something is lurking in the sand. There's something lurking in the sand, and touching it with your bare skin will cause it to melt and peel away. When the friends rouse after their beach partying is over, they find that they're trapped on the beach unless they can find their way across the sand. The Sand is a cheap, campy horror movie, but sometimes those are the most fun.
29. Baywatch
Year: 2017
Director: Seth Gordon
Not a great movie by most standards, but undeniably a great beach movie, the film adaptation of the old Baywatch TV show stars Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron as two lifeguards who find themselves facing off against a drug lord in addition to saving people from drowning (and running in slow-motion). Alexandra Daddario co-stars, as does Priyanka Chopra, in this guilty pleasure beach blow-out, which in many ways captures the spirit of going to the beach better than a lot of films. You're not visiting the beach to challenge yourself or learn; sometimes, all you are after is having a nice time.
28. Piranha 3D
Year: 2010
Director: Alexandre Aja
This gleefully gory and explicit reboot of the '70s horror comedy series is a rare bit of freshwater beach representation in movies, as the carnage the prehistoric piranhas unleash takes place at a lakeside vacation retreat in Arizona. The presence of the flesh-eating fish, which emerge from an ancient cave and wreak havoc on the vacationers, makes Lake Victoria a not-that-appealing place to visit. Although, depending on your vibes, all the college kids who were there for spring break might've already made it a bad beach before the animals started attacking.
27. Fool's Gold
Year: 2008
Director: Andy Tennant
Matthew McConaughey stars as Finn, a roguish treasure hunter seeking the lost loot of a sunken Spanish galleon. His quest for the riches reconnects him with Tess, his ex-wife, played by Kate Hudson. When they find themselves working together, they start to rekindle some of the passion of their old relationship, but sparks aren't the only thing that are flying in this beachy action comedy romance; bullets fly, too, since Kevin Hart's nefarious Bigg Bunny wants the treasure all to himself.
26. 50 First Dates
Year: 2004
Director: Peter Segal
It seems only fitting that Adam "The Sandman" Sandler would be in a beach movie, given the nickname. In 50 First Dates, he plays Henry Roth, a womanizing employee of Sea Life Park Hawaii who finds himself falling for Lucy, an art teacher played by Drew Barrymore. The catch? She has anterograde amnesia and forgets him every single night when she goes to sleep. It's a charming enough romantic comedy, though truth be told, the beachy setting of the film is as essential to the movie as the high-concept premise. Picture the same movie, but set in Iowa instead of an ideal holiday destination—that would be a bummer.
25. Blue Crush
Year: 2002
Director: John Stockwell
Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sanoe Lake star as three friends who live on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. As a kid, Anne Marie (Bosworth) was a rising surf sensation, but a gnarly wipeout set her career back, and even though she and her friends and younger sister Penny (Mika Boorem) are dedicated to riding waves, it's going to take a lot for Anne Marie to recapture what she once had. The plot of Blue Crush is fine, about what you'd expect from a generic sports movie. The surfing sequences, though, will make you want to head to the beach, board in hand.
24. Gidget
Year: 1959
Director: Paul Wendkos
Without Gidget, the whole concept of "Beach Movies" might not even be a thing; that's how influential this 1959 flick was. Starring Sandra Dee as Francine "Gidget" Lawrence, the movie followed the young teen as she fell for a surfer and became part of California's surf culture. A sunny, retro good time with pleasant vibes and pleasantly low stakes, Gidget kicked off the "Beach Party" subgenre and played a major part in making surfing popular across the United States.
23. The Beach
Year: 2000
Director: Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle's first of many collaborations with Alex Garland was The Beach, an adaptation of Garland's novel of the same name. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Richard, a backpacker who learns of a seemingly idyllic secret island off the coast of Thailand where he and a few other people attempt to live. However, this paradise soon brings out the worst in them. The Beach loses its own narrative and thematic thread at a certain point (Boyle and Garland's future collaborations would be better), but it's a beautiful-looking, ambitious movie all the same. Plus, it's literally just called "The Beach." How could it not be on a list of great beach movies?
22. Blue Hawaii
Year: 1961
Director: Norman Taurog
Elvis Presley was originally eyed to co-star in Gidget, the movie that launched the Beach Party genre, but he couldn't do it because he was serving in the army at the time. However, a few years later, he was free to hit the cinematic beach, and in Blue Hawaii, he plays a man who returns home to Hawaii after he's released from the army (it's almost like the part was made for him). The '60s flick is a fine little musical that coasts on Elvis' music, natural charisma, and sunny vibes. The King would film three movies in the Aloha state in the following decade, Girls! Girls! Girls! and Paradise, Hawaiian Style.
21. Roma
Year: 2018
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
The first movie from a streaming service to be nominated for Best Picture, Netflix's Roma is a beautiful drama about an indigenous housekeeper of an upper-middle-class Mexican family in the 1970s (loosely inspired by director Alfonso Cuarón's own childhood). It's a nuanced, patiently powerful movie, but its most famous, cathartic scene takes place on a beach, when Cleo, the housekeeper (Yalitza Aparicio), wades into the water to save one of the family's children from a powerful wave, even though she can't swim.
20. Chariots of Fire
Year: 1981
Director: Hugh Hudson
Truth be told, very little of this Best Picture-winning sports drama takes place on the beach; instead, it follows two British runners of very different religious backgrounds as they try to find success on the track and acceptance in society. But oh man, the scene that does take place on the beach is one of the most iconic of all time, following a group of runners as they sprint along the shore while Vangelis's iconic score plays. That alone earns it a spot in the beach movie hall of fame.
19. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Year: 2004
Director: Michel Gondry
This acclaimed Charlie Kaufman-penned sci-fi romance follows Jim Carrey's Joel as he undergoes a procedure to erase all the memory of his ex from his mind following a bad breakup. The ex, Clementine (Kate Winslet), has done the same. And yet, as he undergoes the procedure, Joel remembers the happy times he perhaps doesn't want to let go of, including time spent in Montauk, where they first met —and will perhaps meet again. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a beautiful, thought-provoking movie that's perhaps a bit too melancholy to be considered one of the great "Beach Movies," though odds are good you'll still find yourself wanting to visit Montauk in the winter all the same.
18. Us
Year: 2019
Director: Jordan Peele
Get Out director Jordan Peele's sophomore feature, Us, shows a dark side of Santa Cruz—and a dark side of everybody, really. Lupita Nyong'o stars as a woman who goes on vacation with her family (played by Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, and Evan Alex) to the beach town where she once had a traumatic experience under the boardwalk as a child when she encountered a doppelganger of herself. The vacation soon turns bloody when doubles of everyone, known as Tethered, start emerging to overthrow their counterparts.
17. Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar
Year: 2021
Director: Josh Greenbaum
Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo star in this wonderfully deranged comedy, which they also co-wrote together. The pair play the titular Barb and Star, two middle-aged friends from Nebraska who go out of their comfort zone to take a vacation to the titular town of Vista Del Mar, Florida. Once there, they find themselves in the midst of a nefarious plot involving killer mosquitoes, and it's up to Barb and Star to save the beach and save the day. It's a bonkers movie, hilariously so.
16. Mamma Mia!
Year: 2008
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
The cast of Mamma Mia!—whose ranks include Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgård—look like they had so much fun shooting this film on a Greek island, and the movie as a whole is an unhinged experience that makes you wonder if everybody involved was delirious from sun poisoning. A jukebox musical that strings together some of ABBA's greatest hits while Seyfried's Sophie tries to determine which of the three men her mom hooked up with two decades ago is her dad, Mamma Mia! is glorious beach camp.
15. The Endless Summer
Year: 1966
Director: Bruce Brown
A groundbreaking documentary, The Endless Summer follows surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August around the world as they chase the sun and the waves, travelling to new locales and finding new spots to surf. In addition to introducing surfing and the various people Hynson and August met, The Endless Summer also introduced moviegoers to a more casual form of documentary filmmaking. Makes sense. A formal documentary wouldn't match surfing's vibe at all. (The iconic poster for The Endless Summer is also probably one of the more famous movie posters. Chances are, more college students have this on the wall of their dorm than there are college students who have actually seen it.)
14. The Shallows
Year: 2016
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Blake Lively stars in one of the best shark attack movies since Jaws, playing a young surfer who finds a secluded Mexico beach with scenic views and perfect waves. It also has a giant great white shark lurking in the water, and when she's attacked, Lively's character finds herself stranded on a little rocky island. She can see the safety of the beach, but there's a shark circling her, all while she's bleeding out and the tide is rising. (The movie 47 Meters Down is low-key the true best shark movie since Jaws, but most of it takes place in a shark cage at the bottom of the ocean rather than on a beach, making it ineligible for this list.)
13. Ride Your Wave
Year: 2019
Director: Masaaki Yuasa
Hinako Mukaimizu is a young woman who moves to a seaside town to surf and soon falls in love with Minato Hinageshi, a firefighter. Tragedy strikes when Minato drowns, though a grieving Hinako soon discovers that she can summon his spirit in a body of water. It's magical, but can Hinako fully mourn him and move on (and can his spirit be at peace) this way? This romantic fantasy anime will have your tears flowing more freely than the crashing waves Hinako used to ride.
12. L'Avvetura
Year: 1960
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Widely regarded as one of the canonically great works of cinema, the Italian drama L'Avventura follows a group of wealthy friends as they take a yacht to the Mediterranean for some relaxation amidst the islands. Once there, though, one of them, Anna (Lea Massari), goes missing without a trace. Don't mistake this for a twisty genre mystery, though; the rest of the movie deals with the fallout as her friends try to make sense of her disappearance, their feelings for one another, and the empty ennui they feel despite (or perhaps because of) their wealth. It's something that a dip in the Med can't fix.
11. From Here to Eternity
Year: 1953
Director: Fred Zinnemann
From Here to Eternity contains quite possibly the most famous shot set on a beach in film history, when Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr passionately kiss on the sand as the waves crash over them. That's just one part of this Best Picture-winning classic, which stars Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, and Frank Sinatra as enlisted men stationed in Hawaii as Pearl Harbor looms. It's a complex love story that involves broken hearts and a war drama that involves broken bodies.
10. Moonrise Kingdom
Year: 2012
Director: Wes Anderson
Newcomer child actors Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward star in one of Wes Anderson's loveliest films as Sam and Suzy, two precocious 12-year-olds who decide to run away together on the island of New Penzance. With a cast whose adult ranks include Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, and Jason Schwartzman, Moonrise Kingdom is a charming look at coming-of-age and young love, featuring a great scene at a New England beach.
9. Luca
Year: 2021
Director: Enrico Casarosa
The Italian coast already looks impossibly lovely in real life, so imagine how good it looks through a Pixar lens? This movie, which was unfortunately released straight-to-streaming during the pandemic rather than playing in theaters, stars Jacob Tremblay as the voice of Luca, a young boy who is a sea monster living in the waters off the Italian Riviera. He wants to experience life on the surface, and he takes a human form whenever he's on land (assuming he stays dry),but there are plenty of obstacles in the way. Think of this as a charming riff on The Little Mermaid set in the Ligurian Sea. (Come to think of it, The Little Mermaid counts as a beach movie, too.)
8. Old
Year: 2021
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Lots of movies are about beaches; only one movie is about a beach that makes you old. Though the premise of M. Night Shyamalan's Old, which followsa group of vacationers (led by Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps) who are trapped on a mysterious beach that's causing them to rapidly age, almost instantly (and understandably) became a meme, the actual film is surprisingly thoughtful. It's a meditation on the nature of mortality, the process of aging, and how that affects us and our relationships. Also, Old features some extremely gnarly body horror.
7. Lilo & Stitch
Year: 2002
Directors: Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois
"Ohana means family." One of the Disney movies that's most beloved by Millennials is also a top-notch beach movie. Lilo & Stitch tells the story of Lilo (Daveigh Chase), a young girl who lives in Hawaii with her older sister after the deaths of her parents, and Stitch (the ramblings of director Chris Sanders), an alien experiment who escapes captivity and crash-lands in Lilo's life. It's quirky and heartfelt, and it features Stitch catching waves and rocking out to Elvis Presley.
6. Moonlight
Year: 2016
Director: Barry Jenkins
Barry Jenkins' Best Picture-winning Moonlight, which follows a young boy, Chiron, as he grows up in Miami, might have some of the most emotionally moving beach scenes of any seaside-set film. From Mahershala Ali's profound swimming lesson ("you're in the middle of the world") to a now-adult Chiron's moonlit reminiscence on the beach that closes the film, beaches are a recurring and crucial setting in Moonlight, a triumphant exploration of Black and gay identity.
5. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Year: 2008
Director: Nicholas Stoller
After Peter (Jason Segel) gets dumped by his actress girlfriend, Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), he's heartbroken. A little vacation and change of scenery might do him well, so he heads to a Hawaiian resort… only to find out that his ex is staying there, too. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one of the funniest comedies of the decade and one of the most earnest, too, using the beach resort as a setting for growth and healing while treating all its characters like fully developed humans. Except, maybe for Paul Rudd's surfing instructor Kunu, who is a really sweet dummy.
4. Porco Rosso
Year: 1992
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Porco Rosso is an ace WWI pilot cursed to have the appearance of a pig who works as a mercenary hunting down sky pirates over the waters of the Adriatic in one of Hayao Miyazaki's many masterpieces. It's one of the anime legend's most purely delightful films (with a righteous anti-fascist message to boot), and it features some incredible beach vibes. Personally, I would like to live in the little limestone cove island that Porco uses as his base of operations.
3. Point Break
Year: 1991
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Keanu Reeves stars as FBI rookie Johnny Utah, who goes undercover as a surfer in the hopes of catching a group of robbers known as the Ex-Presidents, as there's evidence that the crooks are regular wave chasers. When he meets Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), an outgoing, spiritual surfing and extreme sports enthusiast, it's the start of a magical bromance. But, of course, things get complicated when Johnny learns that Bodhi is indeed the leader of the Ex-Presidents. Point Break is an exceptional beach movie, one of the best action movies ever made, and an incredibly astute look at masculinity.
2. Cast Away
Year: 2000
Director: Robert Zemeckis
For most people, the beach is temporary. You go, have fun in the sun and the surf, and then you go back to normal life. That's not really an option for Tom Hanks' Chuck Noland, who finds himself stranded on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean when the cargo plane he's aboard crashes. Cast Away is a gripping story of survival, perseverance, and problem-solving that also happens to boast an incredible supporting performance from an inanimate volleyball.
1. Jaws
Year: 1975
Director: Steven Spielberg
Jaws is not just the best, most iconic beach movie of all time; it's also quite possibly the most important movie ever made, as Spielberg's shark attack cinematic masterpiece basically invented the concept of a summer blockbuster. Following a police chief (Roy Scheider) as he deals with a massive great white lurking in the waters of Amity Isle during the summer tourism season, Jaws is so impactful that chances are you're thinking about it, somewhere in the back of your mind, any time you go to the beach.
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