Summer Holiday 1963 “We’ve seen it in the movies, now let’s see if it’s true.” Cinema has always had a soft spot for the azure skies, sun-blessed landscapes and limpid seas of the ideal getaway destination. Peter Yates’s musical gave us four lads on a very British, of-its-time caper through Europe on a London omnibus, buoyed by that title song, sung by Cliff Richard with a tone of summery longing. My Summer of Love 2004 In Paweł Pawlikowski’s romance, the ebbs and flows of the relationship between Natalie Press’s working-class Yorkshire teenager and Emily Blunt’s posh rebel are intensified by the lack of structure the holidays bring, enabling transgressive behaviour and, ultimately, damaging flights of fancy. Call Me By Your Name 2017 The holiday romance is a mainstay of the summer film, and Luca Guadagnino’s drama captures the lust, joy and transience of the experience, wrapped up in a seductive rural Italian setting. A cultured American teenage boy’s fling with an older man is conducted through meandering bike rides and cooling dips in remote lakes; the film’s languid atmosphere gives it an air of inevitability. The Green Ray 1986 Travelling solo can be a lonely affair, as Marie Rivière’s Delphine discovers when her friend bails on her two weeks before their break in Éric Rohmer’s gently observant drama. Flitting from Paris to Cherbourg to the Alps to Biarritz, Delphine struggles to get in the holiday spirit but fate may have plans for her … The Endless Summer 1965 Bruce Brown’s easy-going documentary posited the summer holiday as a year-round activity, following surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August on the quest for the perfect wave from California to Ghana to South Africa to Australia, and was key to spreading the popularity of the sport across the globe. Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday 1953 The great clown film-maker Jacques Tati takes the seaside resort as a microcosm of French society in a gently mocking comedy. It is also the first appearance of his most famous character: M Hulot, a pipe-smoking bachelor with a penchant for getting into choreographed scrapes. Shirley Valentine 1989 It is not just the young ’uns who have summer romances. Willy Russell’s comic play, directed for the screen by Lewis Gilbert, sees middle-aged Liverpool housewife Shirley (the effervescent Pauline Collins) escape her egg-and-chips life for a trip to Greece and a clear-eyed dalliance with Tom Conti’s tavern owner. Midsommar 2019 Not all foreign vacations turn out for the best; some attempts at cultural engagement end in violent death. Ari Aster’s brilliant horror, which uses the extensive daylight and bright colours of a Swedish high summer to chilling effect, has Florence Pugh and her fellow Americans attending a rural pagan festival, only to realise their involvement is central to its bloody success. Moonrise Kingdom 2012 Wes Anderson brings his fastidious quirkiness to bear on the subject of young love in this delightful comedy set on a New England island over one summer. Jared Gilman’s 12-year-old Khaki Scout Sam falls for local girl Suzy (Kara Hayward) while camping in her area. They arrange to run away together, bringing the wrath of the adults down on them. Summer With Monika 1953 “Summer dreams, ripped at the seams.” In Ingmar Bergman’s influential drama, the passion engendered by love in the sun can’t last. Bored adolescents Monika (Harriet Andersson) and Harry (Lars Ekborg) spend carefree days and nights on idyllic islands near Stockholm, but reality bites when they return to the city to discover she’s pregnant. This article was amended on 28 May 2021 when it was brought to our attention that the main image was from Cliff Richard’s 1964 film Wonderful Life. The picture was supplied with incorrect caption information.