With one of the most brutal heatwaves in recent memory pummeling Europe at the moment, it\u2019s easy to hate on summer. The sweaty clothes; the sticky skin; the stifling weather. But, let\u2019s be honest, we all know that it\u2019s worth it in the end\u2014because what other season can ignite such classic feelings of desire and intimacy? It is merely the heat? Slivers of exposed flesh as we walk down the simmering pavements? Or have we been conditioned to believe that it\u2019s really only in summer that we let our guards down enough to experience the full, unleashed passion of love? In order to explore this idea further, we\u2019ve compiled ten of our favourite sensual summer films; the ones that have influenced the way we perceive love, sex, and relationships during the hottest months of the year. From shipwrecked teens to isolated French villas and pristine Jamaican beaches, these are the movies that keep us coming back, year after year, giving in to our own disposable romances \u2014 if only for the length of a hot, sweaty summer.<\/p>\n
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Where better to start than\u00a0My Summer of Love<\/em>?\u00a0Mona (Natalie Press) is from a working class family of petty criminals, and Tamsin (Emily Blunt, in her first movie) is a posh girl who is bored with her upper middle class, boarding school lifestyle. The film\u00a0chronicles their chance encounter and subsequent awkward, messy, lovely, beautiful, complicated courtship, and is a perfect portrait of the elation and terror of first love.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The whole idea behind a summer fling is that it doesn\u2019t last forever, but few films in recent memory chronicle the utter breakdown of a brief summer relationship than Sebastien Lifshitz\u2019s broody art film,\u00a0Almost Nothing<\/i>. The film is told in flashbacks, as 19-year-old Mathieu (Jeremie Elkaim) learns to cope with the torrid romance he shared with C\u00e9dric (St\u00e9phane Rideau) a year and a half earlier. The film is as tense and reckless and the boys themselves, and features a beach-bound sex scene that makes\u00a0Call Me By Your Name<\/i>\u00a0look like\u00a0Moana<\/i>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A saucy teen classic,\u00a0The Blue Lagoon<\/i>\u00a0is the truly wild tale of two children who get shipwrecked on a desert island, and throughout the years that follow indulge in some seriously hands-on sex education. The film was unceremoniously panned for its unrealistic storylines and stiff acting from Christopher Atkins and a 14-year-old Brooke Shields (whose nude scenes were filmed by an adult stunt double), but its controversial nature made it an instant sleepover staple.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The original French title of Jean-Jacques Beineix\u2019s kitchen sink drama is\u00a037.2 Le Matin<\/i>, or the temperature of a pregnant women upon awakening. But it also represents the oppressive heat of the summer that Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) and Betty (B\u00e9atrice Dalle) spend in their sleepy beach town, locked in the throes of legitimately one of the most co-dependent messes of a relationship ever committed to celluloid. It doesn\u2019t end well, but the ride will make you look back on your own summer romances with renewed affection.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We should all be so lucky to live out the plot of\u00a0How Stella Got Her Groove Back<\/i>, the film adaptation of Terry McMillan\u2019s blockbuster \u201990s romance novel. Stella (Angela Bassett) is a stockbroker just entering her 40s and questioning her life choices as she raises her son as a single mom. But as luck would have it, a chance vacation to Jamaica throws her in the path of Winston Shakespeare (I\u00a0mean<\/i>), a young islander 20 years her junior (played by Taye Diggs in his first film role). As Stella grapples with the responsibility of her life back home and her nascent\u00a0cougar-dom, she\u2019s forced to make some seriously difficult choices \u2014 made easier by palm trees and pi\u00f1a coladas, of course.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Yet another Frenchman, Fran\u00e7ois Ozon\u2019s moody films are fraught with tense irony, and while the primary relationship in his 2003 pyschodrama\u00a0Swimming Pool<\/i>\u00a0isn\u2019t a sexual one, it\u2019s the heavy air of illicit conspiration that makes it so enthralling. Crime writer Sarah (Charlotte Rampling: always excellent) has retreated to her publisher\u2019s summer villa to complete her latest novel, only to be unwillingly joined by his rebellious daughter, Julie (Ludivine Saigner). As Julie hooks up with scores of local men, Sarah finds herself both repulsed and fascinated by the younger woman\u2019s sexual exploits \u2014until they turn deadly.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Remember how stoked everyone was on this movie when it came out? Post-Titanic,\u00a0<\/i>Leonardo DiCaprio had the world in the palm of his hand, and Danny Boyle cast him rather geniously as a na\u00efve American backpacker traipsing around Thailand, trying to locate a mythical stretch of legendary beach. But really, all the tweens were in the audience to see Leo get it on with Virginie Ledoyen, who played the sexy French traveler Fran\u00e7oise. Fair enough, as the film doesn\u2019t quite hold up (neither did the beach itself, which was so altered during the filming that 20th Century Fox was actually sued by the country of Thailand), even though it does retain its sensual nature.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nothing screams summer lovin\u2019 like a sexually fraught road trip with your best friend and a random woman with shady ulterior motives.\u00a0Y Tu Mam\u00e1 Tambi\u00e9n<\/em>\u00a0introduced us to both Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, and for that, we should always be appreciative. Bernal and Luna play Julio and Tenoch respectively, two young men whose close friendship is put to the test when they both fall for the mysterious Luisa (Maribel Verd\u00fa). The (spoiler) cathartic kiss they share during the film\u2019s climactic threesome is still seared into arthouse screens everywhere.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Long before this year\u2019s Oscar winner\u00a0The Shape of Water<\/i>\u00a0had Sally Hawkins getting jiggy with a humanoid fish creature, Tom Hanks seduced Daryl Hannah in\u00a0Splash<\/i>, Ron Howard\u2019s relatively family friendly rom com about an unlucky-in-love human who becomes smitten with the feisty mermaid that saves his life. Perhaps not as steamy as some of the selections on this list (it has a PG rating, after all),\u00a0Splash<\/i>\u00a0is notable for introducing an entire generation of young movie fans to the notion that making out underwater is both extra romantic and logistically fallible.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before he hit critical gold with\u00a0Call Me By Your Name<\/i>, Luca Guadagnino directed Tilda Swinton in one of her most brilliant roles, the wide-eyed and oppressed Russian matriarch of an Italian family of textile tycoons, in\u00a0I Am Love<\/i>. Swinton\u2019s Emma bides her summer days putzing around her glorious mansion and meddling in the lives of her equally gorgeous children until the arrival of a young chef throws her idyllic life into peril. All of Guadagnino\u2019s usual themes are present \u2014 unbridled desire, lush scenery, complex characters \u2014 and the final scenes of tragic abandon are some of the director\u2019s finest.<\/p>\n"}]},"yoast_head":"\n2. Almost Nothing (S\u00e9bastien Lifshitz, 2000)<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"
3.<\/b>\u00a0The Blue Lagoon (Randal Kleiser, 1980)<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"
4. Betty Blue (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1986)<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"
5. How Stella Got Her Groove Back (Kevin Rodney Sullivan, 1998)<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"
6. Swimming Pool (Fran\u00e7ois Ozon, 2003)<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"
7. The Beach (Danny Boyle, 2000)<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"
8. Y Tu Mam\u00e1 Tambi\u00e9n (Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n, 2001)<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"
9. Splash (Ron Howard, 1984)<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"
10.\u00a0I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino, 2009)<\/b><\/h2>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"images","gallery":false,"settings":{"fit_width":"6","caption":""}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text_area","text_area":"