Summer at Sea
Sand and surf provide a sun-kissed setting for characters to lose their worries, inhibitions, and sometimes minds in this summertime series of beach-related films. The collection spans tortured romances to campy beach romps to Brighton Beach memories, showing the tidal pull of the ocean for filmmakers and sun worshippers alike.
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Psycho Beach Party
Directed by Robert Lee King | 96 mins | 2000
The wholesome genre of 1950s beach movies gets a demented camp makeover in the parodic, perky-paletted story of Chicklet (Lauren Ambrose), a teenager who becomes a suspect in a serial killer investigation because of her multiple personalities. Screenwr... -
Futuro Beach
Directed by Karim Aïnouz | 107 mins | 2014
In this reflective romance from Brazilian auteur Aïnouz, a lifeguard (Wagner Moura) throws himself into a torrid affair with a motorcycling war veteran whose friend disappears in the ocean, but then struggles to find himself after traveling with his brus... -
Brighton Beach
Directed by Carol Stein and Susan Wittenberg | 56 mins | 1980
Old Brooklyn lives again in Carol Stein and Susan Wittenberg’s good-humored 1980 time-capsule documentary about a melting-pot neighborhood of Jewish Soviet immigrants, Puerto Ricans, and other New Yorkers—right next to Coney Island’s a... -
Stranger by the Lake
Directed by Alain Guiraudie | 100 mins | 2013
Lauded and laureled at Cannes, Guiradie’s understated, simmeringly sensual thriller explores the proximity of Eros and Thanatos in an idyllic, lakeside nude beach/cruising spot—shot for maximum pastoral splendor by DP Claire Mathon—where regular Franc... -
Little Fugitive
Directed by Morris Engel | 81 mins | 1953
A pioneering influence on the French New Wave, this New York independent classic follows a seven-year-old boy through the hustle and bustle of Coney Island after he runs away from home, spooked by a cruel prank. It’s filmed with close-up immediacy thanks ... -
Night Tide
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Suntan
Directed by Argyris Papadimitropoulos | 100 mins | 2016
A frumpy doctor on a sun-kissed Greek isle falls for a nubile young beachgoer whom he treats, then descends down the rabbit hole of his seemingly hopeless crush. An unpredictable tragicomic look at the demands and disasters of sexual desire.
