The event proved to be such a success that MJFF has decided to do it again this summer.
"The films featured in this year’s edition of Summer Movies Under the Stars celebrate all the ways in which our magic city, like cinema itself, provides visitors, new arrivals, and lifelong residents alike with infinite avenues of escape and wander," says Igor Shteyrenberg, MJFF's executive director. "At its heart, the three-month outdoor series of screenings, featuring fondly remembered classics and special surprises, will present revelatory stories that offer exposure to unfamiliar places and ways of life that will entertain, enlighten, excite, and celebrate film's ability to illuminate the world around us."
The series takes place every Thursday at 8:30 p.m. throughout the summer months. All screenings are free and open to the public, taking place across four different public parks in Miami Beach: Lummus Park, Altos del Mar Park, Muss Park, and Pride Park. Attendees are encouraged to bring "a blanket, lawn chairs, drinks, snacks, and even pets to the movies to make themselves at home."
Summer Movies Under the Stars will be bookended with the Top Gun movies. The first screening on July 7, will feature the 1986 original Tom Cruise fighter plane/shirtless volleyball classic Top Gun, with the final evening on September 15 featuring Top Gun: Maverick which has dominated the box office since its mid-May release.
Other screenings of note include a trio of anniversary films. Saturday, July 23, will see a very rare public screening of the 1977 original Star Wars movie. This 45th-anniversary screening was a coup for Shteyrenberg; the film's copyright holders very rarely allow it to be screened. August 18 will showcase the 25th-anniversary edition of the Bruce Willis sci-fi movie The Fifth Element, while the 35th-anniversary edition of Dirty Dancing screens on August 25
Contemporary movie fans get a double dose of Marvel with the box office record-breaking Spider-Man: No Way Home on July 14 and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (which in this writer's opinion is the best comic book movie to hit the big screen in a long, long time) on September 8.
Check out the complete schedule for the Summer Movies Under the Stars series below:
- July 7 at 8:30 p.m. at Lummus Park: Top Gun
- July 14 at 8:30 p.m. at Lummus Park: Spider-Man: No Way Home
- July 23 at 8:30 p.m. at Lummus Park: Star Wars: A New Hope
- August 4 at 8:30 p.m, at Muss Park: The Mitchells vs. The Machines
- August 11 at 8:30 p.m. at Altos del Mar Park: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
- August 18 at 8:30 p.m. at Lummus Park: The Fifth Element
- August 25 at 8:30 p.m. at Lummus Park: Dirty Dancing
- September 1 at 8:30 p.m. at Pride Park: Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
- September 8 at 8:30 p.m. at Pride Park: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
- September 15 at 8:30 p.m. at Pride Park: Top Gun: Maverick
