Summer Jobs

If you're like the protagonists of these movies, the summer job is not just a way to make some scratch between school years. It's also a chance to hang out with a bunch of lovable oddballs – and maybe even fall in love.

14-year-old Duncan (Liam James) is not having a good summer at the shore. But things look up when a charming slacker (Sam Rockwell) puts him to work at the local water park, allowing the sensitive boy to find his mojo.

It's 1987, and recent college grad James (Jesse Eisenberg) is forced to make his own living at a Pittsburgh amusement park. It's a dead-end job, but it can't be that bad, with the supercool Em (Kristen Stewart) working by his side.

Although the hero of this golf-based comedy is caddy Danny Noonan (Michael O'Keefe), Caddyshack's real stars are the "snobs and slobs" that surround him, most famously Bill Murray as a gopher-hating groundsman.

Christina Applegate is Sue Ellen, one of five siblings left to fend for themselves after their mean old babysitter kicks the bucket. The enterprising Sue Ellen rises from a lowly Clown Dog employee into the upper tiers of a fashion design house.

High school gym coach Mark Harmon has to teach remedial English all summer – or else he'll lose his job. Will Harmon's goof-off students pass their exams, so he can make tenure? Safe money says yes.

Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor and Annabeth Gish play pizza waitresses in Mystic, Connecticut. Fresh out of high school, all three become involved in romantic entanglements – and ponder the secret of their employer's magical pizza sauce.

More secret sauce in this zany farce, starring Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell as Dexter and Ed, two burger flippers who struggle to keep their humble restaurant alive after the slick Mondo Burger opens across the street.

Cynical Enid (Thora Birch) doesn't have the kind of fun, life-affirming summers that other screen teens do. While her BFF Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) finds work as a barista, Enid can't even hold down a gig at a movie theater.

Scarlett Johansson, still plugging away at awful jobs, is hired by wealthy Mrs. X (Laura Linney) as a nanny for her young son. All is not well in the X household, but fortunately, a Harvard hottie (Chris Evans) is there to ease the nanny's pain.

Rupert Grint, in between terms at Hogwart's, takes a job as caretaker for an eccentric soap opera actress (Julie Walters, also on leave from the Harry Potter franchise). The two misfits inevitably bond; must be a Weasley thing.

While her friends spend the summer abroad, cranky Tibby Tomko-Rollins (Amber Tamblyn) feels trapped in her hometown's discount department store – until an unexpected friendship helps her see the good in people.

At Kellerman's resort in the Catskills, Jennifer Grey's Frances "Baby" Houseman falls for Patrick Swayze's hunky dance instructor Johnny Castle. Millions of moviegoers follow suit.

No summer loving at this Brooklyn pizza joint, which becomes a powder keg of racial tension on the hottest day in years. Writer/director Spike Lee, Danny Aiello, Richard Edson and John Turturro play the short-tempered staff at Sal's.

This position must have been hard to fill after the summer of '75: Police Chief of Amity Island. Roy Scheider, as Martin Brody, has the thankless task of killing the great white shark who's been chomping up beachgoers on his watch.