Before there was sunscreen, high-tech wet suits, and corporate-sponsored surfing competitions, there was Bruce Brown, the original beach bum and the director of the greatest surf movie ever made, The Endless Summer. This 1966 documentary spurred a generation of surfers to devote their lives to surfing and compelled people in places far away from California and Hawaii to take up what was, at that time, still a faddish and exotic sport.

It’s built around a simple but brilliant concept: Two champion California surfers, Mike Hynson and Robert August, take a trip around the world, following the seasons so that wherever they go, it’s always summer. From Australia to Africa to Tahiti, they travel the globe in search of the perfect wave.

In one of the documentary’s most memorable scenes, they instruct African tribal villagers who have never seen a surfboard in the fine points of hanging ten. Technically primitive by today’s standards, the film’s 16mm cinematography nonetheless captures the lyrical beauty of ‘60s long-board surfing.

Brown supplies the witty running narration and injects the film with frequent doses of goofy, slapstick humor. The Endless Summer is as laid back and fun loving as its surfing protagonists; yet, despite its utter lack of pretension, there is ultimately an underlying poetry in the surfers’ quest for an ideal. (Barnes & Noble)

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The definitive surf movie, this 1966 documentary by Bruce Brown is beautifully shot and thrilling to see in its portrait of youthful freedom on the world’s shores. Brown followed two surfers around the globe in their quest for the perfect wave, finding it eventually on a remote beach far from home.

The narration by “Big Kahuna Brown” cuts through the reverence a bit, being cheeky in tone. The greatest surf movie ever made. “On any day of the year it is summer somewhere in the world…” Go with Robert August and Mike Hynson as they follow the summer season to Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii and California in search of the perfect wave.

Still the ultimate surf film of all time! The concept was to surf on beaches that had never been surfed before. This led them Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti. And, naturally California and Hawaii. Sometimes the surf was to their liking. Sometimes it was not.

But always it was an adventure, the kind of adventure that I quickly got caught up in even though it all seemed like a home movie and the camera was old fashioned. I remember one spot where there is a long smooth wave to ride and the narrator notes that the wave was so long that he ran out of film, stopped shooting, changed the film, and was able to continue filming the surfer on the same wave. (Amazon)