Summer Under the Stars 2026: TCM Festival Highlights

It has been quite a while since I visited with you on Once Upon a Screen, but the times call for a change in that behavior. What times are those, you ask? Well, it is my favorite yearly festival on Turner Classic Movies (TCM), Summer Under the Stars (SUTS), where for thirty-one days in August a featured film player takes over the airwaves for twenty-four hours.

This year’s Summer Under the Stars spotlights five actors never featured at this festival: Diane Keaton on August 6, George Hamilton on August 10, Marie Windsor (Ben Mankiewicz’s pick) on August 21, Bonita Granville on August 25, and Brock Peters on August 28. This year you will also see the work of cinema icons like Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck (Alicia Malone’s pick), Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James, Stewart, Bette Davis, Groucho Marx, and Rita Hayworth. A day is also dedicated to the legendary career of the pioneering Hattie McDaniel who, I believe, was last honored at this festival in 2013. McDaniel’s day is the pick of TCM host Jacqueline Stewart.

Kicking off the festival this year is the beloved and supremely talented Doris Day whose work is sure to lift you out of any doldrums you may be experiencing. Although I adore Doris in musicals, and you will see a few of her best including her first feature, Michael Curtiz’s Romance on the High Seas (1948), I strongly recommend her rare dramatic turn in Stuart Heisler’s unsettling noir Storm Warning (1950) with Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, and Steve Cochran.

I am also really looking forward to Joan Bennett day on August 5, a featured star chosen by Czar of Noir and TCM host Eddie Muller. The planned movies span from Bennett’s pre-codes through her memorable film noir era through to Dark Shadows. A memorable career well represented. Two of my favorites, Jack Lemmon and Joel McCrea also get days this year as does Robert Redford on August 18, which will serve as a double remembrance for an important actor and champion of independent cinema, his Summer Under the Stars day as well as a 90^th birthday tribute.

I could go on about other highlights from this year’s SUTS schedule, also known as glued-to-the-tv-days, like those spotlighting Dana Andrews (Dave Karger’s pick), Basil Rathbone, Rosalind Russell, and Gene Tierney, but I will leave you here for now with a plan to be back throughout August to highlight some of my favorites. Until then, print the entire Summer Under the Stars schedule here and enjoy a slideshow of the fabulous faces honored at this year’s SUTS.

Doris Day in publicity portrait for the film ‘It’s A Great Feeling’, 1949. (Photo by Warner Brothers/Getty Images)
American actress June Allyson (1917 – 2006), circa 1945. (Photo by FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
Actor Basil Rathbone Posing with Pipe in Hands
Steve McQueen studio publicity portrait wearing suit circa 1963. (Photo by Screen Archives/Getty Images)
Natalie Wood close up portrait circa 1969. (Photo by Screen Archives/Getty Images)
Actress Katharine Hepburn as Christine Forrest in the film, ‘Keeper of the Flame,’ Hollywood, California, 1942. (Photo by Clarence Sinclair Bull/Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
Actress Ava Gardner, the former Mrs. Frank Sinatra, in an elegant studio pose.