From 'Wicked' to 'The Substance,' these are some of the best rated movies of the year
When the air con fails in his car while stuck in traffic on a baking hot Los Angeles afternoon, William Foster (Michael Douglas) decides to walk home... and into a whole heap of trouble.
The sweltering Deep South serves as a backdrop for this tense prison drama, with Lucas Jackson (Paul Newman) determined to escape the chain gang, even when his attempts earn him a "night in the box."
Similarly, a hot and humid Mississippi only adds to the racial tensions that surface in this legal drama starring Samuel L. Jackson and Matthew McConaughey.
A Brooklyn neighborhood broils in unbearable heat as simmering racial tensions play out between its African-American residents and the Italian-American owners of a local pizzeria in this Spike Lee-directed drama.
The movie's title says it all, really. This neo-noir erotic thriller sees a South Florida lawyer enter into a torrid love affair with the wife of a wealthy businessman. William Hurt and Kathleen Turner sweat it out admirably.
Based on real events that took place on a hot and sweaty day in New York in 1972, 'Dog Day Afternoon' recreates the bank robbery and hostage situation led by John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile at a Chase Manhattan branch in Brooklyn. Al Pacino and John Cazale absolutely nailed their respective characters.
'The Seven Year Itch' contains one of the most iconic pop-culture images of the 20th century—Marilyn Monroe's skirt blown up by the blast from a subway vent. The movie's story takes place during a New York City heat wave, the scene a prelude to Monroe's character and that of co-star Tom Ewell's heading back to his air-conditioned apartment because hers is uncooled.
The muggy, oppressive Mississippi climate served this celebrated crime drama well, with Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier working together, albeit reluctantly, on a murder investigation in the segregated South in what is regarded as one of the definitive portraits of American racism.
Set in New York City in the scorching summer of 1977 at the height of the shocking "Son of Sam" murders, Spike Lee's crime thriller includes the infamous citywide electricity blackout sparked by a lightening strike. The outage resulted in widespread looting and other criminal activity.
Set in a dilapidated New Orleans apartment building, 'A Streetcar Named Desire' simmers with intent, a sultry, sweat-soaked Marlon Brando boiling over with irresistible belligerence.
The dry, stinging heat of the desert lends authenticity to David Lean's epic historical drama based on the life of T. E. Lawrence, portrayed by Peter O'Toole.
French North Africa and the Sahara Desert provided backdrops for this adaptation of author Paul Bowles' novel of the same name. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and starring Debra Winger and John Malkovich, 'The Sheltering Sky' features a baked and arid landscape throughout.
The summer heat trapped inside the court building where 12 jurors deliberate the fate of a man accused of murder threatens to thwart the cool, objective reason of each. Glistening brows and sweat-soaked shirts add to the sense of stifling claustrophobia.
Chasing down a bandit who's kidnapped the wife of a wealthy rancher, Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, and Woody Strode—the "professionals"—end up in a maze of canyons so hot to the touch under a baking sun the gunmen quickly seek shade in the depths of a cave.
British Army miscreants incarcerated in a military prison in North Africa during the Second World War are forced to walk up and down a huge sand pyramid—the hill—in temperatures of up to 46°C (114°F). Sean Connery is among those tired and dehydrated.
A juvenile detention center set on a dried-up lake where it never rains and which is plagued by venomous lizards is where much of this weird but imaginative comedy-drama is set.
Crippling summer heat helps to hijack John Turturro's titular character from completing his movie screenplay. The mercury rises when insurance salesman turned serial killer John Goodman turns up.
The sun shines intensely over the small Italian island of Pantelleria where this taut psychological drama is set. Sultry and irritable in the heat, the cast of characters have to deal with several deaths, including one of their own.
This charming coming-of-age drama is set on the Mississippi, a river warmed by a blazing Arkansas sun. Matthew McConaughey is the eponymous Mud, a fugitive who is befriended by a pair of teenagers.
Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner), a member of the Iraq War Explosive Ordnance Disposal team, not only endures the threat of hidden IEDs, but searing temperatures that average 49°C (120°F).
Los Angeles shimmers as private detective Jack Nicholson investigates deceit, corruption, and murder amid a dispute over water rights in southern California.
Mel Gibson and Mark Lee suffer under an Egyptian sun, but nothing prepares the Australian conscripts for the heat aimed at them on the Anzac battlefields of Gallipoli in one of the most futile military engagements of the First World War.
Temperatures at Zabriskie Point in California's Death Valley National Park have reached as high as 52°C (127°F). Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni partly filmed the widely panned 'Zabriskie Point' at this sizzling location.
Tropical Thailand is where 'The Beach' is set. But Leonardo DiCaprio finds nothing but trouble in paradise in Danny Boyle's adventure drama.
Heatstroke, sickness, and dehydration plague Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn as they navigate a river through the steamy jungles of Africa.
Sources: (New York Post)
See also: How people die from extreme heat
Hot weather only adds to the erotic tension between Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie (James McAvoy) in 'Atonement,' based on the novel of the same name by Ian McEwan.
Alfred Hitchcock's mystery thriller takes place during a heat wave, with James Stewart's photographer stuck in a wheelchair and thinking he may have witnessed a murder in an apartment behind his own.
In the summer of 1967, four friends sunbathing on the roof of a tenement in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, agree on a prank to steal a hotdog cart. What happens next changes their lives forever.
The sweat rolls off a muscled Arnold Schwarzenegger and his equally chiseled paramilitary team as they attempt to track a near-invisible alien in a dark and clammy Guatemalan rainforest.
Films set in heat waves and hot weather
When searing temperatures set the scene
MOVIES Cinema
The destructive heat waves increasingly plaguing much of the planet remind us how uncomfortable and potentially dangerous hot weather can be. And high temperatures have often created high drama for filmmakers seeking to set their movies in extreme heat. In fact, some of cinema's most celebrated pictures have been made under the hottest and most humid of environments. But what films are among the most memorable made in stifling and sweltering conditions?
Click through and work up a sweat finding out!