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The Best (and Sunniest) Destination Films (to Escape the Winter Blues)
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items This time of year, seasonal depression hits me extra hard, meaning I need an extra boost of serotonin to help get me through to springtime. These chic, sun-soaked travel films are my favorite cinematic escapes, whisking me away to far more temperate ...
Take a chic Italian boat vacation by proxy with this sumptuous first adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's beloved 1955 novel The Talented Mr Ripley, a story of homoeroticism and identity theft in coastal Italy, starring the late French screen idol Alai...
Purple Noon (1960)
Shot entirely on location in Italy—including in Positano and villages on the islands of Ischia and Procida—this second, beloved adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel of the same name struck gold when it cast Matt Damon and Jude Law as con artist T...
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
Shot on the French Riviera, this sexy, erudite romantic crime caper from Alfred Hitchcock—based on David Dodge's 1952 novel of the same name—stars the legendary Cary Grant as an aging cat burglar preying on rich tourists, only to fall for one of them...
To Catch a Thief (1955)
In this beautiful, swoonworthy film, headstrong spinster Katharine Hepburn takes a trip to Venice in the Summertime, where she is unconsciously and unwillingly shown the full extent of her own loneliness. It takes meeting a sweet, devastatingly attra...
Summertime (1955)
In Jacques Deray's sun-soaked, steamy melodrama-turned-mystery, French heartthrob Alain Delon (and his former partner, superstar Romy Schneider) are a gorgeous, bored couple whose Côte d'Azur vacation at a friend's villa near Saint-Tropez is turned u...
The Swimming Pool (1969)
This effortlessly chic, delightful late 60s road movie—which depicts one couple's relationship in non-linear fashion—stars professional pretty people Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney as they traipse across Southern France in a number of notable cars ...
Two for the Road (1967)
Shot in black-and-white scenes (set in Paris) and flashback sequences of the French Riviera (in glorious technicolor), this achingly gorgeous film is a coming-of-age story about the foibles of youth and the unintended consequences of our actions. It ...
Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
There are a lot of Bond movies that are flimsy excuses to jet set, but for my money, this Bahamas-set entry is one of the best. Visually, everything pops: bright blue waters against sunny skies and white sand beaches…it is, to me, the apex of the vin...
Thunderball (1965)
With his era-defining, zeitgeist film, Alfonso Cuarón set out to make his own version of the American road trip film through the lens of Mexican identity, with particular attention to the political and social issues of the era and the everyday citize...
Y tu mamá también (2001)
This beautiful, brightly-lit Jean-Luc Godard jaunt through 60s France follows lovers-on-the-run, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, as they execute a crime spree through the the French Riviera while while fleeing the OAS (a right wing paramilitary o...
Pierrot le Fou (1965)
Soak up 19th-century Italian vistas with this stunning Merchant / Ivory adaptation of the beautiful, iconic EM Forster novel of the same name, which tells the story of a repressed Edwardian woman who travels to Italy with her chaperone and meets and ...
A Room with a View (1985)
Set and filmed in Northern Italy in 1983, this swoony, hazy coming-of-age instant classic is as much an excuse to gawk at Italian villas as it is a fantastical, seductive story of a fraught May-December romance between a young man and a visiting acad...
Call Me by Your Name (2017)
All of the films in Richard Linklater's Before trilogy—which follows the ever-evolving relationship between vacationing lovers-turned-couple Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy—are serious travel inspo, but the Grecian vacation captured in this third film in...
Before Midnight (2013)
The (extremely early 60s) film that literally invented "Spring Break," then-known as “Easter Break,” as a concept! A group of boy-crazy, college-age girls head to Fort Lauderdale to escape their cold environs, finding a beach town overrun with kids t...
Where the Boys Are (1960)
Harmony Korine's postmodern spring break movie puts a new spin on the college vacation flicks of the early 60s (like if the girls in 1960's Where the Boys Are grew up on MTV Spring Break). Shot in and around Florida vacation spots—and starring Disney...
Spring Breakers (2012)
This zeitgeist-y, sun-soaked documentary broke crucial ground in bringing surfer culture to the American mainstream. It depicts a group of surfers who chase an "endless summer," chasing waves around the world—including beachfront destinations in Aust...
The Endless Summer (1966)
Shot on location in Coney Island, this underseen, groundbreaking 50s short film from filmmakers Raymond Abrashkin, Morris Engel, and Ruth Orkin captures the amusement park and beachfront at the height of its popularity. Featuring stunning black-and-w...
Little Fugitive (1953)
Admittedly a bit depressing if you're looking for pure vacation escapism, this terrific Argentinian film from Lucrecia Martel (which translates to “The Swamp” in English) follows a bourgeois Argentinian family over their summer vacation, which they s...
La Ciénaga (2001)