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Water covers over 70% of our planet, so it’s no wonder that it flows through our storytelling. Biblical rain offered divine judgement either in the form of a blessing and rewards, or retribution and vengeance. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Feste the fool issued the melancholic refrain: “For the rain it raineth every day.” It reminded the audience of the persistence of suffering in life.

worldwide have revered the visual beauty and the metaphorical value of rain on screen, letting it augment many a classic scene, sequence or speech. Technically, rain intensifies (the overall visual presentation on screen, combining set design, lighting, props and more): it catches backlight and renders air itself visible, creating depth and shimmer.

And as our global weather patterns undergo changes, that engagement with cinematic weather conditions like rain can allow for an “ecological meta-narrative” that connects humans (both on and offscreen) with their environment.

Whether depicting solitude, decay, adversity or romantic destined love, rain in movies emotes as much as a character would. Here are ten key moments where rain took a starring role in film – just perfect for watching on a wet day.

1. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Few scenes invert bad weather more joyfully than Gene Kelly’s iconic number. After a night of salvaging their disastrous film project, The Duelling Cavalier, actor Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) realises that he has fallen for the bubbly singer Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds). On his ebullient walk home, a legendary song and dance number turns the perceived bad weather on its head with the cheerful refrain: “Come on with the rain, I’ve a smile on my face.”

Kelly reportedly performed the sequence while running a fever, and the scene’s exuberance reframes rain not as obstacle but as liberation. The uplifting choreography sees Kelly splashing through puddles that reflect streetlights, making the urban space of the set design feel elastic and alive.

2. Seven Samurai (1954)

Rain heightens the brutal physical clashes in filmmaker Akira Kurasawa’s Seven Samurai. As the Samurai face their final battle, the rain (which has been used throughout to add mood and tone) is as cruel and violent as any of the antagonists, amplifying the pressure with its muddy, disorientating and visceral presence in the conflict.

, using wind, dust and rain to choreograph movement within the frame. The downpour turns the battlefield into sludge, erasing clear footing and underscoring the film’s meditation on chaos, class struggle and the cost of collective defence.

3. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)

The final reunion scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s raises the emotional stakes with its unrelenting rain. In a taxi to the airport, Holly Golightly, played by Audrey Hepburn, tries to run away and abandon her emotional commitments to struggling writer Paul Varjak (George Peppard) and the stray cat she’s adopted.

After an incensed Paul watches her throw the cat out into the rain, he exits, determined to rescue the soggy feline. As she tearfully joins him, her character arc is complete. The storm forces Holly quite literally to stop running, confronting the emotional commitments she has tried to evade.

4. Network (1976)

In Network, a New York rainstorm provides the ultimate backdrop for anchorman Howard Beal’s (Peter Finch) unhinged and rain-drenched live rant. The drumming of rain against studio windows suggests a world outside the sealed, commodified space of television as, in a renowned monologue, he berates the news channel’s manipulation and society’s disintegration with the famous line: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this any more.”

5. Point Break (1991)

In Point Blank, rookie FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) confronts Bodhi, a bank-robbing surfer played by Patrick Swayze, in the rain. The weather ultimately enables him to evade capture by allowing him to ride one last big wave; something both know he will never survive.

Here, rain acts as a redemptive force. Bodhi seeks exoneration through the only thing he respects – nature.

6. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

In prison drama The Shawshank Redemption, Andy’s (Tim Robbins) Raquel-Welch cell poster hides a hidden escape shaft, years in the making while he endured time for a crime he didn’t commit.

Wading through a sewer tunnel he finally emerges to a torrential downpour, holding out his arms and facing the heavens in a symbolic act of cleansing, salvation and freedom. Rain here washes away not guilt, but injustice.

7. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

Rain doesn’t always have to represent high drama. In the Richard Curtis-penned film Four Weddings and a Funeral, American Carrie’s (Andie MacDowall) famously cheesy line, “Is it still raining, I hadn’t noticed?” puts the seal on her romance with bumbling but charming British Charles (Hugh Grant) and secures the star-crossed lovers a future.

The actors were during the rain rigged shoot. Rigs often rely on using cold water and multiple takes.

8. Magnolia (2000)

Magnolia’s frenzied collective experience of a thunderstorm of frogs will forever capture the imagination of the more surreally minded. In this scene, rain symbolises the universal chaos of life and binds disparate characters into a shared reckoning.

9. The Notebook (2004)

The physical brutality of heavy rain underscores heartbreak, loss and forgiveness in decades-spanning The Notebook as Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams’ separated lovers Noah and Allie reunite after family has dictated their separation.

A sweepingly romantic scene in a sleeper hit turned cult favourite, the downpour legitimises emotional excess – tears indistinguishable from rain.

10. Blade Runner (1982)

The demand of three of the most challenging filming elements – smoke, night shoots and rain – had the crew of Ridley Scott’s futuristic dystopian Blade Runner christen the film as 50 nights of filming in constant artificial rain took a physical, mental and logistical toll.

Whether depicting disorder or harmony, life-enhancing joy or unprecedented destruction, rain remains a valuable visual medium and narrative tool for filmmakers.

, Course Leader, BA (Hons) Screenwriting; Deputy Course Leader & Senior Lecturer, BA (Hons) Film Production,

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