The 10 Best Summer Camp Movies Ever

It’s been said that the world is divided into two types of people: Those who went to overnight summer camp as kids, and those who are incomplete. Ask a “camp kid” about their camp experiences sometime, and you will (most of the time) be treated to a long, halcyon barrage of pleasant memories about friendship, togetherness, breaking rules, sexual awakening, and ropes courses. There is something ineffably satisfying about the camp experience that non-camp people will never fully grasp. 

Unless, that is, your camp experience was awful and difficult and awkward and painful and terrible. There are also those kids who got to go to summer camp, but met with nothing but hardship and adversity. They were teased, targeted, and picked on by other kids. They found the outdoors to be dirty and sweaty and gross. They found physical activities like hiking and swimming to be unpleasant. 

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There is an entire genre of films devoted entirely to summer camp, a genre that saw its heyday in the 1980s, but extends into history. And within that genre, filmmakers have been careful to cover the ambivalence described above. If you loved camp, there are plenty of films that celebrate the experience. If you hated camp, there are movie summer camps populated by some of the most persistent serial killers in movie history. 

Either way, the films can be great. Crave has seen plenty of summer camp films, and we have come up with the following list of excellent movies to watch while you pack and while your mom painstakingly sews little nametag on the inside of each pair of underpants you own. 

The 10 Best Summer Camp Movies Ever

Top Image: Paramount

Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon. He also contributes to Legion of Leia and to Blumhouse. You can follow him on “The Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.

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