Looking for the best films about Summer Camp to help you get excited about your trip? Camp plays a massive part in the lives of American children. It’s no surprise that life at camp is the backdrop for some pretty awesome films. Quite a few American Summer Camps have been used as the setting for famous films, and you could end up working at one! So, If you’re looking for some inspiration for your next movie night, you need to put these 6 Summer Camp films on your list.
Released in 2001, Wet Hot American Summer is a cult classic. The movie follows a group of Summer Camp Counselors working their last day of camp in summer 1981. The film helped launch the career of the likes of The Hangover star Bradley Cooper and Elizabeth Banks from the Hunger Games. It’s quirky, weird, and nothing like camp at all. It’s still a really fun film though!
The Parent Trap is one of the best films about summer camp, and it’s one of the most popular films from the 1990s. The film sees a young Lindsay Lohan meet her twin sister during her first summer at camp. It was based on an existing American camp in Maine called Camp Walden which means you could end up spending your summer there!
Released in 2008, this is a classic film from our childhood. Celebrities Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas both star in Camp Rock. This film musical focuses on Mitchie, a girl who wants to spend her summer at a rock camp but can only attend if she works in the kitchen as one of the staff. The movie was filmed on two different camps called YMCA Camp Wanakita and Camp Minden which are both based in Ontario, Canada!
Notorious slasher flick Friday the 13th tells the story of a group of teenagers who try and re-open a cursed camp. Before they manage to, each Camp Counselor is picked off one by one by a mysterious killer with a vendetta. The original film inspired a number of sequels, but the original was released way back in the 1980s.
Camp Nowhere was the film debut of Jessica Alba and is 100% one of the best films about Summer Camp. The story follows a group of friends dreading another summer working at Computer Camp. They start their own camp with no Counselors, no parents, and no rules.
Coming in last but by no means least on this list is Heavy Weights. The 1996 Disney movie sees a group of kids suffer a summer of fitness when a fanatic takes over their camp. Two different Summer Camps – Pinnacle and Ton-A-Wandah in North Carolina – were used as filming locations for the movie.