This year, the May holidays are shorter than usual, and there’s no time for grand trips — the perfect excuse to hunker down at home with a big screen and treat yourself to a vacation, at least a pretend one. Today’s picks are movies about vacations and holidays that went completely off the rails. We’ve got time loops, stolen Ladas, and a corpse on the beach. Stock up on popcorn and check out this list of movies about vacations and holidays.
Check out these great movies about vacations and holidays
Unbelievable Adventures of Italians in Russia — A Comedy About a Treasure Hunt Across Leningrad
No holiday is complete without this film, and for good reason. Eldar Ryazanov’s 1973 movie was a Soviet-Italian co-production featuring an entire ensemble of colorful Italian actors alongside Andrei Mironov as a policeman.
Eldar Ryazanov also made films with action scenes like this. Before it was mainstream! Photo: rbk.ru
The story begins when a dying elderly emigrant woman in Rome tells her granddaughter that she hid a treasure under one of the lions in Leningrad. Random witnesses overhear everything — and soon a group of completely different people races to the USSR. Car chases in Ladas, stunts with a plane, a lion in an ambulance cage, and 1970s Leningrad as a character in its own right. It’s hard to believe that such action was filmed in the USSR in the ’70s!
Unbelievable Adventures of Italians
The Gendarme Takes Off — A Comedy with Louis de Funès
The Gendarme comedies with Louis de Funès are essentially one long vacation spanning six films. All of them were shot on the French Riviera, the action revolves around beaches, promenades, and yachts, and the screen is always filled with summer, sunshine, and an eternal resort season. But it’s a completely different vibe — before the hype of the 2000s, when the rich started flooding in.
A great comedy from the legendary “Gendarme” series. Fun and cozy. Photo: filmix.my
“The Gendarme Takes Off” from 1970 stands out among the rest — because here Ludovic Cruchot is finally officially off duty. The squad has been disbanded, the cap and uniform put away in the closet, and the restless gendarme goes on vacation with his daughter. But old habits die hard — Cruchot senses “crimes” where there are none, chases suspicious characters, and stages pursuits in swim trunks. And all around — postcard views of Saint-Tropez, white villas, blue sea, and de Funès’ signature facial expressions, which are the real reason to rewatch these French comedies every May holiday.
Palm Springs — A Comedy About a Time Loop at Someone Else’s Wedding
If you want something newer with a clear storyline — go with this 2020 romantic comedy. The debut feature from director Max Barbakow caused a sensation at the Sundance Festival and scored 95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Starring Andy Samberg (Jake from “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) and Cristin Milioti from “How I Met Your Mother.”
A comedy about a looping vacation. After watching it, the idea of an endless holiday doesn’t seem so great anymore. Photo: Kinopoisk
Nyles is stuck in a time loop right in the middle of a wedding in the California desert: every morning he wakes up to the same day, lounges by the pool, drinks beer, and freaks out guests with weird toasts. Then someone else accidentally falls into the loop — and the day starts to take on new colors. But things get a bit creepy along the way, though it gives you something to think about. Namely, is it really that great to always be on vacation?
Full Speed — A Comedy Where a Family Drives and Can’t Stop
A French farcical comedy from 2016 by Nicolas Benamou, the same director behind the “Babysitting” duology. Parisian plastic surgeon Tom Cox (who looks uncannily like Robert Downey Jr.) takes a long-awaited vacation, loads his pregnant wife, two kids, and a very sprightly grandpa into a brand-new minivan, and heads to the resort.
A comedy not about the vacation itself, but about the road to it. Photo: filmix.my
On the highway he turns on cruise control, the onboard computer glitches, and the brakes simply stop working. The car races nonstop at 140 km/h, and there’s even an unexpected passenger inside. The entire story unfolds in real time and keeps you on edge until the very end. A light, completely brainless, and incredibly funny movie with no pretensions of depth. The star of the show is a Danjoon Medusa: can you figure out without Googling what car it really is?
Weekend at Bernie’s — A Dark Comedy About a Dead Boss at a Villa
A 1989 dark comedy — a true classic of late-’80s American cinema that you absolutely must see at least once. And also — my personal favorite, because humanity has never come up with anything more absurd and funny. Two young clerks, Larry and Richard, discover fraud at their own company and report it to their boss — Bernie. The boss then invites them for the weekend to his luxurious beach house on Long Island.
A weekend with a dead boss — doesn’t sound great. Photo: irecommend.ru
Only by the time they arrive, it turns out that Bernie is dead, and the guests are already on their way. The guys decide to pretend
