After the insanity of Easter term,12 weeks of summer holiday can feel like an eternity. But with Michaelmas term looming, you may feel like watching something university-set to acclimatise to the scholastic environment. Alternatively, you may fancy watching something which encapsulates the languor and (hopefully) pleasant weather of the summer vacation before it’s all over. With that said, here are my seven recommendations for films which embody that end-of-summer feeling…

Everybody Wants Some!! (2016)

In 1994, Richard Linklater crafted the ultimate beginning-of-summer film with the iconic Dazed and Confused. But his 2016 follow up, Everybody Wants Some!! (similarly named after a Led Zeppelin track) remains criminally underrated. It features a group of baseball-playing freshmen in the 1980s as they begin life at college. Featuring an excellent soundtrack and a breakout comedic performance from Glen Powell, Everybody Wants Some!! is an official recommendation for incoming freshers – it contains examples of how and how not to act upon arriving at university.

Drowning By Numbers (1988)

“The film effectively conveys how the torpor of summer can drive one batty”

Set in a Suffolk seaside town, Drowning By Numbers is the most low-key of murder plots. Three generations of women from the same family, all named Cissie, each commit a crime, but these are treated about as seriously as the imaginary games which take place in the background. The film effectively conveys how the torpor of summer can drive one batty (though hopefully not to the point of homicide), as well as the British obsession with games and hobbies as a means to while away time. Drowning by Numbers itself functions as a puzzle, with easter eggs scattered throughout (to say more would ruin it).

La Ciénaga (2001)

Lucrecia Martel’s feature debut, La Ciénaga, follows an extended family over the course of a summer. Grandparents recover from accidents, siblings bicker, and parents struggle to keep everything together in this blisteringly realistic depiction of fraught but ultimately loving familial relationships. I struggle to think of a film which better conveys the claustrophobic heat and boredom of a long summer. La Ciénaga will make you look forward to the structure of university life if nothing else.

American Graffiti (1973)

Before making Star Wars, George Lucas had a modest budget with which to make an ensemble coming-of-age drama. American Graffiti was the result, a nostalgic classic in which seven Californian teenagers try to enjoy the last night of summer holidays in 1962 before leaving for college. Rather than a traditional score, the film is entirely soundtracked by 1950s and early 60s radio hits, which bridge the disparate storylines. It’s hardly a relatable watch, as it strives to recreate the minutiae of a time and scene only the most elderly of postgrads will have experienced. But its themes of personal growth and the ephemerality of teenage summers are universal.

Whisper of the Heart (1995)

“I will always associate this film with a romantic vision of the kind of deep study that Cambridge entails”

Regardless of whether you’ve seen the Studio Ghibli film Whisper of the Heart, you likely recognise its protagonist Shizuku Tsukishima: the original Lofi Study Beats Girl. The summer before she starts senior high, she notices that all her library books have been checked out by a certain Seiji Amasawa, who Shizuku starts to encounter everywhere. I will always associate this film with a romantic vision of the kind of deep study that Cambridge entails, from meet-cutes via library books and antique shops, to the more realistic scenario of writing for hours in one’s room. As an alternative recommendation for students going on a year abroad, Kiki’s Delivery Service may resonate, as Kiki makes the best of life in an unfamiliar town, without her friends and family back home.

The History Boys (2006)

Adapted from Alan Bennet’s 2004 play, The History Boys follows a group of A-level students at a boy’s grammar school in Watford, as they prepare for Oxbridge admissions tests and interviews. While the characters have an unsavoury obsession with Oxf*rd, the film does a good job capturing the effort and time poured into Oxbridge applications by so many people. It’s easy to forget, surrounded by other successful Cambridge applicants, how high stakes the application process can feel in the moment. Whether you are returning to Cambridge or arriving for the first time, The History Boys is an endlessly witty and well-acted film to watch if you are in need of self-congratulation.

Summer is often treated by filmmakers as a transitional period in which characters grow and attempt to prepare for their future. Hopefully this list will help you prepare for Michaelmas 2025 by providing you with films to stoke any necessary nostalgic or anticipatory feeling as summer winds down!