The Endless Summer (1966) on Netflix

NR19661h 35mDocumentary Sport

In winter, cold ocean currents make California's beaches inhospitable, so Mike Hynson and Robert August set off around the world. They follow the summer from West Africa to Australia and Tahiti.

Netflix3.7/5
IMDb7.6/107,011 votes
Rotten Tomatoes100%

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Plot summary

Mike Hynson and Robert August are California surfers, and when winter sends cold ocean currents across their home beaches, they set out to find warm water elsewhere. Their round-the-world route takes them to South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti, then to Hawaii and back to California, with stops in Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria. On the way they meet local people and teach some of them to surf. The plan behind the trip is simple: with enough time and money, a surfer can follow the summer from one hemisphere to the other and never leave it. Hynson and August committed three months to the journey.

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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Endless Summer (1966)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

In January 1964, Bruce Brown and R. Paul Allen four-walled the Sunset Theater in Wichita, Kansas, for two weeks, playing through a projectionist strike and a bomb threat at the first showing; moviegoers lined up in the snow and the film locally outgrossed My Fair Lady.
Brown rented a New York City theater where the film ran 48 weeks; after that run at the Kips Bay Theater, Don Rugoff of Cinema V won the rights by insisting the film and poster stay unchanged, so Brown chose him over distributors who wanted to alter the poster.
Mike Hynson and Robert August had to pay $1,400 for their own around-the-world tickets and commit to three months; the production itself lasted four months.
Brown's original plan was to film mainly at Cape St. Francis, but a travel agent noted that a round-the-world ticket cost $50 less than a Los Angeles to Cape Town round trip, so Brown decided to follow the summer season around the world.
To raise the $50,000 budget, Bruce Brown took the best footage from his four previous films and made Waterlogged, then used that money to film The Endless Summer, his sixth surf film.
The film encouraged many surfers to travel abroad, giving birth to the 'surf-and-travel' culture, with prizes for finding uncrowded surf, meeting new people and riding the perfect wave.