Romance with an older woman, romance with her daughter and a comedy wetsuit. It wouldn’t be summer without watching Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock in that ill-advised outfit – an unwanted present from his folks, who push him into the family pool on his 21st birthday. In Mike Nichols’ coming-of-age story, the graduate, who falls for Mrs Robinson and then Elaine, is trying to form his own future, with varying degrees of success. Watch and conclude that summer is a time to try on the new you (with or without the help of scuba gear).

The glistening pool is the real star of Jacques Deray’s stunning, sleazy summer arthouse film. Romy Schneider and Alain Delon (previously a couple in real life) play Marianne and Jean-Paul, a journalist and failed novelist, who have been lent a friend’s home near Saint-Tropez for the holidays. When Jean-Paul’s pal Harry (Maurice Ronet) turns up with his 18-year-old daughter, Penelope (Jane Birkin), the games begin, in and out of the water.

A couple of years ago, the estate in Long Island where Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of the F Scott Fitzgerald novel was filmed was put on sale for £68m. If that exceeds your holiday budget, try watching the movie instead. It offers a glimpse into the Gilded Age at its most decadent. Only, the water isn’t fine. The first time Leonardo DiCaprio’s Gatsby – his eyes matching its turquoise – ventures into that spectacular, circular swimming pool in his 1920s all-in-one, he is shot dead.

We all love a summer challenge – and Burt Lancaster’s Connecticut businessman has a corker. While at a friend’s house, he realises there is a pool in each property between there and his own so he decides to take a dip in each of them and effectively swim back home. This light-hearted premise morphs into a satisfyingly meaty movie about a man’s struggle for purpose, based on John Cheever’s short story, first published in The New Yorker.

Luca Guadagnino’s drama set on the volcanic island of Pantelleria is the Platonic form of summer. This reimagining of La Piscine shows four self-loving hedonists who use the lapping water of their villa’s pool to reflect their own bloated egos. Ralph Fiennes plays the skinny-dipping music producer, Tilda Swinton a rock star, Dakota Johnson a Machiavellian beauty and Matthias Schoenaerts a bronzed Adonis. The pool is a cauldron for their sexual energy, which, in keeping with the landscape, threatens to erupt messily.

Who hasn’t dreamt of skiving off school or work on a hot summer’s day like Ferris Bueller in our favourite 1980s high-school movie – and the pool scene is the highlight. As part of the day’s antics, the student slacker Ferris breaks into someone’s garden. At first, his best friend, Cameron, sits on the edge of the pool in a daze, refusing Ferris and his girlfriend Sloane’s invitation to come in. Then Cameron plunges down to the bottom of the pool like a lead weight, to be “saved” by heroic Ferris, only to discover it was all a prank – or was it?

Jonathan Glazer’s directorial debut arrived amid a glut of British gangster movies, but it stood out. It begins with criminal Gal (Ray Winstone) enjoying retirement poolside on the Costa del Sol. But when an old associate Don (Ben Kingsley) tries to get him back for one last job – entering a bank through an adjacent bathhouse – things do not exactly go swimmingly.