Collected

Four Essential Surf Movies

Written by Laura Thompson

October 8, 2026

What we’re obsessed with in craft and culture. This week, four surf flicks to watch instead of The Endless Summer.

Blue-toned vintage photo of a surfer silhouetted against a towering wave, arms raised for balance, with the title "A Day in the Life of Wayne Lynch" below in white serif type on black.

“A Day in the Life of Wayne Lynch” (1978)

Let’s get this out of the way up front: The Endless Summer, despite the ubiquity of its poster in dorm rooms across America, aged like milk. Surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August circle the globe like Christian missionaries in boardshorts, while director-narrator Bruce Brown tosses around the kind of casually racist dad jokes that could, depending on your temperament, derail a Thanksgiving dinner.

So when pro surfer Harry Bryant put me onto Wayne Lynch, the Aussie junior surf champion turned reclusive Vietnam draft dodger, I was psyched. In the 1960s, Lynch was the boy king of what’s known as the “shortboard revolution,” when traditional longboards were shrunk down into the shorter, more maneuverable boards that are still popular today. He took that maneuverability and pioneered a more athletic style of surfing. By the time filmmakers Jack McCoy and Dick Hoole caught up with Lynch to make this short film in the late ’70s, he had largely given up his superstar competitive career and was hiding out in the bush in Victoria, surfing empty deepwater reef breaks just for the hell of it. While The Endless Summer is a cheesy travelogue, A Day in the Life of Wayne Lynch shines as both a love letter to Australia’s rugged Surf Coast and a snapshot of a crucial moment in surf history.

Stop-motion animation still of a claymation orange van driving down a road past stylized palm trees, beneath a green road sign reading "Topanga" with a left-pointing arrow.
Credit: Still from “Follow the Sun” (1983).

“Follow the Sun” (1983)

Follow the Sun is the kind of surf film that has something for everyone. Want contest surfing? It’s got Michael Ho and Gerry Lopez at their peaks, competing at the Pipeline Masters. Want a travel doc? It’s got the first-ever footage of a famous Costa Rican wave (the same one Jared Mell rips on some 40 years later in Yi-Wo). Want a technique breakdown? It’s got Cheyne Horan explaining how to hit the lip with a whammy. Want clairvoyance? It’s got Larry Bertlemann predicting the aerial obsession that now defines much of modern high-performance surfing.

Mason Ho told me it’s one of the few surf films he can watch over and over again. Though I’m not sure how much of a choice he has—Michael’s his dad. Still, it’s got a stacked ensemble cast—a kaleidoscope of some of the world’s most influential surfers—and showcases a wave-riding style whose timelessness is belied by the campy neon fashion that accompanies it.


A man reaching up to a tall rack densely packed with multicolored surfboards in red, yellow, blue, green, and pink, stacked horizontally against a white wall.
Credit: Still from “Sprout” (2004). Courtesy of Thomas Campbell

“Sprout” (2004)

When I went through my Rolodex of surf-industry professionals and enthusiasts, asking for recommendations, Sprout came up again and again as a fan favorite. Board shaper Troy Elmore, pro surfer Mikey February, and my not-famous-but-still-quite-talented surf buddy Shelton all gushed about the ways this film expanded the very definition of surfing.

If the previous two selections depict the progression of early shortboarding, Campbell’s second film cuts in the other direction. It features a playful exploration of a variety of surfboards that had been more or less left behind by the shortboard revolution. Sprout’s version of surfing is quietly devotional, paying homage to the old ways of wave riding while reimagining it for a modern era. Today’s alternative-board renaissance owes a huge debt to Campbell. Plus—and I hate that this is noteworthy, but it is—the cast isn’t just dudes. Sprout includes standout longboarding from Belinda Baggs, Maureen Drummy, Ashley Lloyd, Kassia Meador, and other hella talented lady sliders. Just how male-dominated was the sport in 2004? Consider: It took another five years for Baggs to become the first woman to grace the cover of The Surfer’s Journal.


Digitally illustrated image of two penguins surfing inside a glowing wave barrel, its green inner face giving way to an orange-tinted horizon at the end of the tube.
Credit: Still from “Surf’s Up” (2007). RGR / Alamy

“Surf’s Up” (2007)

Yes, the animated penguin movie. Surfer-shaper wunderkind Kobe Hughes once told me it’s the best depiction he’s ever seen of competitive surfing. Hollywood isn’t exactly known for its realistic portrayals of the sport (you can skip Point Break, as far as I’m concerned), but this mockumentary somehow gets it pretty close to correct. With a frisky sense of satire, it zoomorphizes the very real personalities you’ll find in any surf lineup—the aggressive hotheads, the frothing youngsters, the wizened uncles, the fried psychonauts—and skewers the capitalist interests that exploit all of them.

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