8 movies to watch this summer if you're dreaming about studying abroad
Summer is officially here, which means you have exactly the right amount of time to do the following: lie somewhere comfortable, not think about personal statements, and watch films that will quietly feed the part of you that's already imagining life in a different city, in a different country, completely on your own terms.
This list isn't the typical "10 college movies!" roundup full of American frat parties and football games. These are films that actually capture something true about what it feels like to leave, to arrive somewhere new, to build a life from scratch in a place that doesn't know you yet. Some are inspiring. Some are a little uncomfortable. All of them are worth your time.
1. The Theory of Everything (2014)
What it's about: Stephen Hawking's years at Cambridge; the brilliance, the struggle, the love story, the sheer weight of ambition meeting a world-class academic environment.
Why you should watch it: Because Cambridge looks exactly the way you imagine it, and the film captures something real about what it means to be surrounded by people who are genuinely excellent at what they do and what that does to you. It's also a reminder that the most extraordinary paths rarely look straightforward from the inside.
The feeling it gives you: I want to be somewhere that takes ideas seriously.
2. L'Auberge Espagnole (2002)
What it's about: Xavier, a French economics student, moves to Barcelona for an Erasmus year and ends up sharing a flat with seven people from seven different countries. It is, somehow, both chaotic and deeply moving.
Why you should watch it: Because it's the most honest film ever made about what studying abroad actually feels like; the loneliness of the first weeks, the slow building of friendships that feel more real than anything back home, the strange grief of leaving at the end. If you only watch one film on this list, make it this one.
The feeling it gives you: I want to live in a flat with strangers from everywhere and figure it all out together.
3. Good Will Hunting (1997)
What it's about: A working-class genius in Boston who cleans floors at MIT and secretly solves problems that stump the professors. About potential, about fear of using it, and about what stops us from becoming who we could be.
Why you should watch it: Not for the university setting specifically, but for the question it keeps asking underneath everything else: what are you so afraid of? If you find yourself hesitating about applying somewhere ambitious -too far, too expensive, too much- this film is for you.
The feeling it gives you: Stop wasting it.
4. Whiplash (2014)
What it's about: A jazz drummer at a prestigious New York conservatory being pushed toward greatness by a terrifying conductor.
Why you should watch it: Because it will make you think about what you're willing to work for. It's not a comfortable film, and it's not meant to be. But it asks a question that's worth sitting with: how much do you actually want this? And it doesn't let you off the hook with a soft answer.
The feeling it gives you: Okay, but actually, how much do I want this?
5. Mona Lisa Smile (2003)
What it's about: A progressive art history professor at Wellesley College in 1953, challenging her brilliant students to think beyond what society expects of them and what they expect of themselves.
Why you should watch it: Because it's about the difference between studying somewhere and actually being changed by it. The best universities don't just teach you a subject. They ask you who you want to be. This film is a beautiful, slightly underrated exploration of that question.
The feeling it gives you: I want a university that challenges me, not just grades me.
6. The Social Network (2010)
What it's about: The founding of Facebook, mostly set at Harvard. Yes, you know the story. Watch it anyway.
Why you should watch it: Not because you're going to start a tech company from your dorm room (you might, but that's beside the point). But because it captures the specific electricity of being in a place full of ambitious, smart, slightly unhinged people who are all trying to figure out what they're capable of. Harvard as a setting is almost a character in itself.
The feeling it gives you: I want to be around people who are obsessed with something.
7. Brooklyn (2015)
What it's about: A young Irish woman in the 1950s who emigrates to Brooklyn for a better life, slowly building a new identity in a new world — and then has to choose between where she came from and who she's become.
Why you should watch it: Because studying abroad isn't just about lectures and libraries. It's about becoming someone slightly different from the person who left. This film captures that transformation with more quiet honesty than almost anything else on this list and it will make you think about your relationship to home in a way that's useful to understand before you go, not just after.
The feeling it gives you: You can love where you came from and still need to leave.
8. Little Women (2019)
What it's about: Louisa May Alcott's classic, adapted by Greta Gerwig, following four sisters navigating ambition, independence, love, and the tension between what the world wants from you and what you want for yourself.
Why you should watch it: Because Jo March's entire arc is about refusing to shrink. About taking your work seriously when nobody else does yet. About understanding that wanting more, wanting to write, to study, to go somewhere bigger isn't arrogance. It's clarity.
The feeling it gives you: I am not going to be talked out of this.
A note before you press play
The thing all of these films have in common is that they're about people who decided to go somewhere, do something, become something, even when it was hard or uncertain or not fully mapped out yet. That's not a coincidence. That's basically what you're considering doing.
So watch them, let them sit with you, and notice which ones make you feel something you recognize.
If you want to talk through what "somewhere" looks like for you specifically -what country, what kind of university, what kind of person you want to be by the time you graduate- that's exactly the kind of conversation we have at Lumen. And the first one is free.