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Credit: In the Heights/Warner Bros.
Records were made to be broken, of course, so perhaps it’s no surprise that the summer of 2023 was the hottest on record, globally (well: for at least the last 2,000 years). Though the season isn’t over yet, 2024 appears poised to break more records, something that happens with regularity that would be alarming were we not so easily and consistently distracted.
In that spirit, maybe it’s time to get out of the heat for a couple of hours (if you’re fortunate enough to have air conditioning that works on a regular basis) and stream a movie or two. It’s often said that hot beverages can be cooling on hot days, so it stands to reason (I guess?) that a hot, sweaty movie set in a sultry climate might be just the thing. If not, bookmark this and come back when it’s cold—maybe these movies will heat you up as readily as they’ll cool you down.
Do the Right Thing (1989)
The setting: Brooklyn, NY
The heat in Spike Lee’s masterpiece Do the Right Thing isn’t merely incidental: It’s the trigger for an explosion—the factor that set a Brooklyn neighborhood’s simmering racial tensions (largely between the Black residents and the Italian-American owners of a local pizzeria) to boil over on one particularly sultry summer day. Cinematographer Ernest Dickerson created a color scheme for the movie emphasizing reds and oranges, while the movie as a whole includes a memorable montage involving an opened fire hydrant, and an even more memorable bit involving Mookie (Spike Lee), Tina (Rosie Perez), and some rapidly melting ice cubes.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
The setting: North central Florida
Based on the the real-life account of one-time convict Donn Pearce, Cool Hand Luke tells the story of the title’s Luke, a World War II vet sentenced to two years on a prison camp chain gang for some relatively mild drunken shenanigans. With the camp’s cruel and unforgiving overseers (led by George Kennedy’s Dragline Slidell), the movie is nearly two full hours of hard-labor in the blistering Florida sun. The film’s most memorable heat-related moment, though, deals with the heat indirectly: Luke impresses his fellow prisoners by winning a bet that he can eat 50 hard boiled eggs in one hour—and all you’re thinking about is spoilage and salmonella.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Predator (1987)
The setting: An unnamed South American rainforest
Filmed mostly in Mexico, Predator finds a group of buff actions stars (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, etc.) fighting off an invisible hunter deep in some rainforest or other. You know it’s hot because of the glistening biceps, and you can presume that it gets hotter as the film goes along as Arnold’s outfit loses bits throughout, until it’s so hot that he’s wearing nothing but a thin layer of mud by the movie’s final act.
Where to stream: Hulu, AMC+, Digital rental
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
The setting: The Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range in northwest Mexico
The sweat and grime and dirt of John Huston’s film isn’t merely scene-setting: It feels like a look inside the soul of Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart), one of the most believably avaricious characters in American cinema. Dobbs and a small party head into the mountains on the hunt for the title’s treasure, only to find themselves turning on each other in a dark spiral of greed. At least it’s a dry heat.
Where to stream: Digital rental
In the Heights (2021)
The setting: Washington Heights, NYC
The phenomenal, wildly underrated musical follows several members of the largely Dominican-American community (at least in the movie) in Washington Heights during a summer building to the hottest day of the year. The movie’s centerpiece number, “Carnaval del Barrio,” brings most of the movie’s characters together and sees Daniela (Daphne Rubin-Vega) exhorting her community to celebrate rather than mope. After all, she sings, “Since when are Latin people scared of heat?”
Where to stream: Max, Digital rental
Beau Travail (1999)
The setting: Republic of Djibouti
Claire Denis’ gorgeous, hypnotic tone poem follows men of the French Foreign Legion to Djibouti, where a triangle of obsession and hate develops between Adjudant-Chef Galoup (Denis Lavant), new recruit Giles Sentain (Grégoire Colin), and the Commandant they both admire. Emotions run strong in the summer heat of the Horn of Africa.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, Digital rental
Body Heat (1981)
The setting: South Florida
One of the cornerstones of the entire erotic thriller genre, Lawrence Kasdan’s appropriately titled Body Heat made an instant superstar of Kathleen Turner, playing neo-noir femme fatale Matty Walker. She embroils weeny lawyer Ned Racine (William Hurt) in a plot to murder her rich husband—making him think, quite naturally, that it was his idea. Between the sunny setting and the various entangled bodies, everyone’s sweaty pretty much all the time.
Where to stream: Digital rental
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
The setting: Maycomb, Alabama
Fictional Maycomb, Alabama was based on Harper Lee’s real-life hometown of Monroeville in that state, where the summer temperatures could reach somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 degrees (of course, that was before climate change really kicked in—as I write this, Monroeville temps are reaching nearly 100). This was also an era when white people of any social consequence—Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch, for example—wore three-piece suits as a matter of course. The movie doesn’t go quite so far visually, but the sweltering heat of a city baking in its own racial violence makes you feel as though Atticus, Tom Robinson, and everyone else in that stifling courtroom are going to sweat through the trial and everything they’re wearing.
Where to stream: Tubi, Digital rental
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
The setting: The fictional town of Newt, Muerto County, Texas
Horror can run cold, as in John Carpenter’s arctic-set The Thing, but it very often runs hot. In Tobe Hooper’s unintended franchise-opener, a group of five young road trippers run out of gas at the worst possible spot: But who was to know that Leatherface lived right there? The heat of a Texas summer is palpable here, while also allowing heightening the general nastiness of a filthy house full of bugs drawn to rotting flesh. And, though it’s less gratuitous here than in later slashers, it also allows for our leads, particularly the women, to flee the killer wearing a bit less than they might otherwise.
Where to stream: Peacock, Tubi, Digital rental
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
The setting: The Mississippi Delta
It’s hard to watch nearly any Tennessee Williams play or adaptation without finding yourself craving a perfectly crafted mint julep, or a giant glass of sweet iced tea. The poster for this classic finds Elizabeth Taylor’s Maggie Pollitt stretched out on a bed in a pose that’s metaphorically hot, sure, but with actual flames rising off of her in a thematic, if not entirely necessary, artistic flourish. Dealing largely with the tempestuous marriage between Maggie and Paul Newman’s Brick, the movie frequently finds its cast glistening in the summer heat, with a decaying plantation house as the setting.
Where to stream: Digital rental
A Time to Kill (1996)
The setting: Canton, Mississippi
Earlier legal dramas (To Kill a Mockingbird, for example) might have implied heat, but this John Grisham adaptation goes quite a bit further. Revolving around the defense of a Black father (Samuel L. Jackson) who murders the white men who attacked his daughter, the film finds pretty much everyone sweating all the time. It’s probably not just the heat.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Sorcerer (1977)
The setting: The fictional village Porvenir, somewhere in South America
This unjustly forgotten William Friedkin films stars Roy Scheider as one of four men from different parts of the world (he’s the American) who wind up in Porvenir, a fictional and remote village somewhere in South America. Some people are needed, you see, to transport old, and badly stored dynamite across 218 miles in rickety trucks. Did you know that nitroglycerin literally sweats? It’s something these guys will quickly learn. Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 The Wages of Fear mines suspense from a similar setup.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Y tu mamá también (2001)
The setting: A road trip across southern Mexico to Chiapas
Alfonso Cuarón’s seminal coming-of-age movie finds a couple of teenagers (Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal) taking a road trip with an older woman (Maribel Verdú) who’s facing a major upheaval in her own life. Jealousy, expectation, and sexual tension (both expected and unexpected) threaten the relationship among the three as they head to a paradisiacal and isolated beach, with highly emotional stakes. What starts as a trip to the beach becomes something much more meaningful.
Where to stream: IFC Unlimited
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
The setting: Northern Italy
In the summer of 1983, in northern Italy, the archaeologist dad of Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet) invites grad student Oliver (Armie Hammer ) to live with the family over the summer. While everything seems just peachy at first, the sweating begins in earnest shortly thereafter.
Where to stream: Netflix, Digital rental
Dune (2021)
The setting: The desert planet Arrakis
You won’t find much sweat in Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel—they can’t waste the water, you see. Timothée Chalamet plays Paul Atreides, heir to the dukedom of the desert planet Arrakis (rich in spice, extremely poor in water) at a time when rival factions and the local Fremen have other ideas.
Where to stream: Max, Digital rental
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)
The setting: Jaipur, India
Here, one of those great ensemble casts (Judi Dench, Celia Imrie, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup, Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson and Penelope Wilton) head off to sunny Jaipur, India to take up residence at the title’s hotel—one that’s seen better days, in spite of the advertising. Luckily, the manager (Dev Patel) is sincere about making the place a home for the British guests, all of whom have suffered drastically reduced circumstances. Fortunately, they all discover that Jaipur and their new community has quite a bit more to offer than the last-ditch retirement plan they’d previously considered it.
Where to stream: Digital rental
12 Angry Men (1957)
The setting: A jury room in New York City
Over the course of roughly 90 minutes, 12 jurors deliberate the conviction or acquittal of a teenager charged with murder. The stifling and oppressive heat of the small jury room, on an exceptionally hot summer day, adds to the already dramatic stakes: the uncomfortable climate turns the room into a pressure cooker, with emotions and nerves running extra hot.
Where to stream: Tubi, MGM+, Digital rental
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
The setting: A water- and petrol-starved near future
Any of the Mad Max movies, set in a parched, post-apocalyptic wasteland, will do here, but this 2015 film, the one that gave us Charlie Theron’s Furiosa, is probably the best of the lot. Non-stop action in the desert as heroes and villains fight it out over incredibly scarce resources, with more personal stakes for Furiosa.
Where to stream: Max, Digital rental
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
The setting: Sparta, Mississippi
When Philadelphia detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) becomes trapped in Sparta, Mississippi after sundown, his life is in danger—at least until the local sheriff (Rod Steiger) realizes that he needs help from Mister Tibbs on a murder investigation. Another film in which the southern heat runs side by side with bigotry and racial tension.
Where to stream: Tubi, Digital rental
Eve’s Bayou (1997)
The setting: Somewhere in the Louisiana Bayou
Eve’s Bayou, the debut of director Kasi Lemmons, conjures a world of Southern Gothic mystery and magic that never loses sight of the emotional realities of its main characters. Jurnee Smollett plays the title character, who begins the film with the story of the day she killed her father as a 10-year-old—the film exploring her story with the Rashômon-esque understanding of the mutability of memory.
Where to stream: Digital rental
