Media shifts in the past 50 years based on a late capitalist economics have profoundly affected how a film is produced, delivered, and received. In this article, I aim to examine two exemplar surf films—The Endless Summer (1964) and Slow Dance (2013)—as well as the surf film genre to note some of the ways these cultural artifacts have changed over time. I link these shifts to larger cultural shifts, and draw attention to several key strategies that these surf films utilize to remain topical to their audiences.