Five Documentaries that Capture the Feeling of Summer

The feeling of summer is an essence filmmakers have spent decades trying to bottle: a specific kind of restlessness and the sense that time is looser than usual. These five documentaries capture it best, whether it’s rediscovering the freedom of a festival, the golden glow of a sunset or the silence that comes from finally unplugging.

Endless Summer (1966), directed by Bruce Brown – who is also a competitive surfer – follows Mike Hynson and Robert August as they search for “the perfect wave” across Hawaii, Australia, South Africa and a range of spots that, at the time, had barely been surfed. The premise was relatively simple: chasing a never ending summer around the globe. The film became a cult classic, beloved for its opening scene depicting breaking waves at sunset, which set the template for decades of surf films that followed.

One of the most influential of those descendants is Morning of the Earth (1972), directed by Albert Falzon. The film was remembered for its soundtrack as much as its footage, with G. Wayne Thomas’s score becoming the first Australian soundtrack to sell 1million copies. The milestone helped promote the film as more than a surf movie and cemented it as a piece of national cultural history. The film captures surfers Stephen Cooney and Rusty Miller as they endeavor to become the first people to ever ride Uluwatu, now one of the most famous breaks.

Summer of Soul (2021), Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s directorial debut, used old footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which was a celebration of Black music and culture. The original footage was never properly used and effectively went undiscovered for 50 years. The film went on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, and its impact had as much to do with restoring a piece of erased history as it did with the performances themselves, including by Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone.

The Best Summer (2026) tells a similar story of rediscovery. Director Tamra Davis, who was then married to Beastie Boys drummer Mike D, shot hours of Hi8 footage while touring Australia in 1995 with the Summersault festival. She filmed Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Pavement, Rancid, Beck, Bikini Kill and her husband’s band along the way. The tapes sat forgotten for 30 years until Davis found them while packing for evacuation during the 2025 Malibu wildfires. The film premiered at Sundance in January 2026, and while reviews were split between those calling it a fragmented home movie and others praising its rare glimpse backstage and ability to record the essence of ’90s rock energy, the festival spirit of summer is very much present. 

Arguably the opposite of a ’90s music festival, In Pursuit of Silence (2015) takes a very different approach to the feeling of summer, by capturing the calmness of the season and the feeling of returning to the demands of day-to-day life once it ends. The film travels from a traditional tea ceremony in Kyoto to the streets of Mumbai, one of the loudest cities on the planet, but its real subject is silence. Deliberately shot at a slow pace, the film juxtaposes moments of peace in nature with shots of modern life – which feels unbearably intense.