Summer is the right time to watch movies. Not the ones that demand your full attention and a post-credits analysis. The ones that make you want to go somewhere, that breathe, that have light in them, or that tell stories about people on the move. Here is our top 10, from the classic to the very recent.
1. Mamma Mia! (2008): the ultimate summer movie by Phyllida Lloyd
A Greek island, ABBA, and Meryl Streep dancing in overalls. Mamma Mia is the summer movie, plain and simple, the one you mock for twenty minutes and end up singing along to through tears. Directed by Phyllida Lloyd, it is one of the most effective musicals of the 2000s, and it has aged far better than expected.
2. Call Me by Your Name (2017): the Italian summer we all wish we were living
Summer in northern Italy in the 1980s. Peaches, sun, philosophical chats by the pool. Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer in a Luca Guadagnino film that takes its time, which is exactly what it should do. The film that makes you want to drop everything and rent a room somewhere in Lombardy.
3. Little Miss Sunshine (2006): the most perfect family road trip in film
A dysfunctional family, a Volkswagen van that refuses to start, and a children's beauty pageant at the end of the road. Co-directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, Little Miss Sunshine is one of the most perfectly written tragicomedies of its decade. You laugh, you get frustrated, you cry, and you never notice the time passing.
4. Thelma and Louise (1991): Ridley Scott's feminist road trip
Two women, a Ford Thunderbird, and freedom at the edge of the American desert. Thelma and Louise remains one of the most powerful road movies ever made, and it just turned 35. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis carry it all with a presence you rarely see. If you have never seen it, that is a gap worth closing this summer. If you already have, you are itching to watch it again.
5. Moonlight (2016): Barry Jenkins's masterpiece
Miami. The beach as a space of discovery and identity. Barry Jenkins follows Chiron across three periods of his life, with a gentleness and precision that earned the film the Best Picture Oscar in 2017. Moonlight is a film about Black masculinity, love, and everything we learn to hide to survive. It is one of the most important works of the last decade.
6. Do the Right Thing (1989): Spike Lee and the Brooklyn heatwave
Brooklyn. The worst heatwave day of the year. Spike Lee films a day that spirals out of control in a neighborhood where everyone knows each other and racial tensions have finally reached their breaking point. Sun-drenched, colorful, political, and still just as relevant. The Public Enemy needle-drop at the opening remains one of the most striking intros in American cinema.
7. Lady Bird (2017): Greta Gerwig's first film
Sacramento, California. A teenager who wants to leave, a mother who wants her to stay. Greta Gerwig's solo directorial debut is one of the truest portraits of adolescence we have seen in years. Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf in a mother-daughter relationship that will inevitably remind you of someone. Bright, precise, and free of sentimentality.
8. Saltburn (2023): Emerald Fennell's summer thriller
A summer at a wealthy English family's manor. A student who is not quite what he claims to be. Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) directs a very particular summer thriller: elegant, unsettling, with a final scene that divides audiences as much as it sticks with them. One of the most talked-about films of 2023, for good reason.
9. Into the Wild (2007): absolute freedom according to Sean Penn
A young man abandons everything, his savings, his degrees, his parents, to head into Alaska alone. Adapted from Jon Krakauer's book, Into the Wild is the film of absolute freedom, the one that makes you want to sell your car and go walk somewhere. Emile Hirsch carries it all on his shoulders. Eddie Vedder wrote the score. And the ending stays with you a long time.
10. Dazed and Confused (1993): Richard Linklater and the art of doing nothing
The last day of school in a Texas town in 1976. Nobody does anything important. That is exactly the point. Richard Linklater films this day, with teenagers, beer, cars, and plenty of time on their hands, as if it were the most precious thing in the world. Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich, all unknowns at the time, all perfect. The summer movie that does not even take place in summer but feels more like summer than any other.
To round out your list, check out our pick of 5 movies coming to streaming in July 2026 and 5 series to watch in streaming this July. And if you are heading out this week, France's Fete du Cinema 2026 discounted screenings run until July 1. Download OneMovie for free on iOS
