Before Sunrise Tops Best Summer Holiday Movies List
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- The Guardian's critic published a ranked list of the 20 best summer holiday movies, with Before Sunrise (1995) named #1 — Richard Linklater's film about Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke wandering Vienna for a stolen night.
- Before Sunrise went on to spark two sequels catching up with the same lovers many years later, though the critic argues the awareness of time was "baked into the tale from the start."
- Eric Rohmer placed twice on the list, with A Summer's Tale at #11 and The Green Ray at #3 — the latter following thirtysomething Delphine drifting across France searching for the titular sunset phenomenon.
- The list spans seven decades of cinema, from 1953 entries including Roman Holiday, Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot and Summer with Monika, to 2022's Aftersun, Charlotte Wells's "impressionistic, deeply felt" debut.
- Céline Sciamma's Tomboy (#14) argues the summer break can be a "transformational timeout, with September's child only distantly related to July's."
- The critic admits agonizing "at some length" over what deserved the top spot, but settled on Before Sunrise as the film that captures what summer holiday movies are really about: "freedom and escape, romance and self-discovery" — and time itself.
Why it matters: The Guardian critic's ranked picks reveal a pattern: summer films aren't just sun-and-fun romps but charged intervals where characters confront identity, class and mortality — from La Piscine's Riviera noir to Aftersun's young father in Turkey. For readers planning summer viewing, it's a curated map across seven decades of cinema.
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