The time has come when the evenings grow longer and especially beautiful. It’s as if summer itself knows it’s coming to an end and is trying to show itself in the best light. Something in the air is changing imperceptibly, yet tangibly: the scent of the grass is different, the shadows fall differently, and even the most ordinary sunset seems a little more soulful than ever before. That bittersweet feeling emerges—a barely recognizable note that’s impossible to describe precisely, but which you recognize immediately and that makes you linger outside longer than you planned. You want to stretch out these days—but you already know it won’t work.
UA.News has put together a selection of movies with that same late-summer vibe—varying in genre and era, but all equally steeped in that August mood you’re so reluctant to let go of.
“Stand by Me”
Release Year: 1986
Genre: drama, coming-of-age
IMDb Rating: 8.1/10
Starring: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell
Director: Rob Reiner
There are movies that capture something so precise in human memory that after watching them, you feel like calling someone from your childhood. The film is based on a novella by Stephen King and draws on the author’s own memories. It tells the story of four 12-year-old boys who, one late summer, set out on a hike through the woods to find the body of a missing boy. But in reality, this isn’t a thriller or a mystery. It’s a film about the last days of childhood, which seem endless at the time but turn out to be the shortest. It’s about how friendship among teenagers can be so sincere—a sincerity it will never have again in adult life. The ending is one of the most powerful in coming-of-age films. It’s best to watch it in the evening, when it’s getting a little dark and you can allow yourself to feel a little melancholy.
*Little Miss Sunshine*
Release Year: 2006
Genre: comedy, psychological drama
IMDb Rating: 7.9/10
Starring: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Abigail Breslin, Alan Arkin, Paul Dano
Directors: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
A yellow minivan that keeps breaking down, only to start moving again when everyone pushes it together. The Hoover family sets out from Albuquerque to California so that little Olive can make it in time for the “Little Miss Happiness” beauty pageant. Dad is a failed motivational speaker; Mom is a morally bankrupt woman; Uncle is a professor who attempted suicide; Grandpa is an old rascal with a good heart; and the brother is a teenager who has taken a vow of silence. The perfect American family! Beneath the comedic surface lies a very serious story about what success really is, why we chase it so desperately, and what’s left when the chase ends in nothing. The film won two Oscars—for Best Original Screenplay and for Alan Arkin’s Best Supporting Actor performance. It’s one of those movies that makes you want to hug your strangest, yet most beloved, family members.
“Adventureland”
Release Year: 2009
Genre: romantic comedy, drama, coming-of-age
IMDb Rating: 6.8/10
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig
Director: Greg Mottola
Summer 1987. James Brennan has just graduated from college with a degree in comparative literature and has discovered that with such a degree, the only job he can find is as a cashier at a run-down amusement park. His plans and dreams of Europe have fallen apart, as have his career prospects. Ahead of him lay an endless summer amid rusty rides, eccentric coworkers, and pop hits on the radio, which played the same songs on repeat. But here, amid this chaos, he meets Em, and something truly interesting begins. Director Greg Mottola made this film as an autobiographical work; it captures the real feeling of what a first summer as an adult is like, when illusions begin to crumble but something new is born in their place.
*Call Me by Your Name*
Release Year: 2017
Genre: romantic drama, coming-of-age
IMDb Rating: 7.8/10
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Armie Hammer, Michael Stuhlbarg
Director: Luca Guadagnino
The story takes place in northern Italy in 1983, where 17-year-old Elio lives with his parents in a country villa—surrounded by books, peaches, bike rides, and endless summer days that seem as though they’ll never end. When Oliver, a graduate student—an American, very self-assured and so handsome—arrives to stay with them, Elio begins to feel something he hasn’t yet named. This is a film about that first great feeling—the kind that later becomes the standard by which all others are measured, and which is never felt again. What remains between two people even after they’ve gone their separate ways?
*American Graffiti*
Release Year: 1973
Genre: comedy, coming-of-age, drama
IMDb Rating: 7.4/10
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips
Director: George Lucas
Some people consider this film to be the best George Lucas has ever made. *American Graffiti* takes place over the course of a single night—the last night of summer before two friends head off to college and everything changes forever. California, 1962: rock ’n’ roll blaring from the radio, cars lining the boulevard, teenagers trying to cram everything that remains of the past into a few short hours. Every detail of this film is felt to the fullest: in the way people move between cars, the way they exchange glances through windows, the way they cling to something that’s already slipping away. The film was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture. It’s the kind of movie that makes you want to get in a car and drive off somewhere, with no particular destination in mind.
*Under the Tuscan Sun*
Release Year: 2003
Genre: romantic comedy, drama
IMDb Rating: 6.8/10
Starring: Diane Lane, Sandra Oh, Raoul Bova, Lindsay Duncan
Director: Audrey Wells
Divorce, depression, writer’s block, and a friend who practically forces you onto a bus to Tuscany—that’s how this story begins. Fraces Mays, a writer from San Francisco, finds herself in Cortona, impulsively buys a dilapidated old villa, and begins to restore it. Because she simply has nothing else to do and nothing left to lose. Through mistakes and disappointments, Frases slowly learns to be open to life again and to enjoy it. Tuscany is almost a character in its own right here: the hills, the markets, the neighbors, the smell of food, and the old roof tiles that need replacing.
“Lost in Translation”
Release Year: 2003
Genre: Psychological drama, comedy
IMDb Rating: 7.7/10
Starring: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris
Director: Sofia Coppola
Tokyo, a hotel, two Americans with nowhere to hide from themselves. Bob Harris—once a star—has come to shoot a whiskey commercial and feels hopelessly out of place in a city where he understands nothing and no one understands him. Charlotte is a young photographer’s wife who is accompanying her husband on a business trip and realizes she has no idea who she wants to be. The two meet in a bar at the top of a skyscraper—and something develops between them that’s hard to put a name to: not romance in the usual sense, but a very intimate and rare kind of loneliness shared by two people. We strongly recommend watching this late at night, when the city has fallen silent.
