Why cry in the sun when you can sulk in the pool? For the second year running, Zodiac Film Club brings you a programme of summer-set films with a dark side. Escape 2026’s spate of increasingly alarming heatwaves and dive with us into the blue, melancholy depths of sad swimming pool cinema.

In a well-off suburb in Connecticut, New York advertising executive Ned Merrill arrives at a pool party wearing just a bathing suit and a strange demeanor of desperation. Noticing the series of backyard swimming pools that lead to his own house, he decides to swim his way home, a proposal that seems to fill his neighbours with unease…

A shady person undertakes a sunny journey in Frank and Eleanor Perry's cult odyssey - a film whose production was as troubled as its lead character. So strange and surreal is The Swimmer that audiences have been arguing about it ever since its release. Take your own journey and see for yourself.