In Summer of 85 (Été 85), François Ozon puts his own spin on Aidan Chambers’ coming-of-age novel Dance On My Grave, crafting a complex, meaningful story about love, loss and growth.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 13, 2023

Summer of 85 is a well-designed coming-of-age work that makes for a sentimental and sensual drama, even if it fails to meet its potential.

| Jul 27, 2023

French director François Ozon has been delivering nothing but gems for decades now...

| Nov 2, 2022

For all its emphasis on teenage love, Summer of 85 never shows many signs it has a beating heart.

| Sep 30, 2022

A gift of a gem... [Full review in Spanish]

| Jun 10, 2022

Sensitive, heartbreaking, seductive, and at times fun, mad love story framed in such a contradictory and challenging moment in life as adolescence. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 16, 2022

Summer of 85 ranks as one of Ozons best films, both in the way it fuses genres, and in the way it layers its characters.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 13, 2022

A sun bronzed burst of nostalgia that effectively captures the lust, obsession and pain of first love. Chambers' meaningful prose survives the relocation from the UK to France, though so too does the draggy pacing of the back half of the novel.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 3, 2022

While it is structured like a mystery, Summer of 85 is best viewed as a story of young love, and the impossible perfection with which we view those first rushes of romance.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 26, 2022

Frustrating. But beguiling. And pretty to watch. It's a summer-tale at its best and worst. The emotions aren't profound but the summery vibes give some warmth while they last.

| Oct 25, 2021

Ozon goes to great lengths to anchor the film in the 80s; maybe too much, at times.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 31, 2021

Ozon gets the job done with storytelling economy and an affection for the time period.

| Aug 6, 2021

Sunny, dreamy location shots and intimate performances combine with flashes of humor and a hovering tension in what is a beautifully told, if slightly unoriginal, queer romance that should appeal as much to teens as older generations.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 30, 2021

First love can feel like a swinging pendulum between life and death. It has that kind of gravity. The highs are glorious, the lows are staggeringly painful. Veteran director Francois Ozon taps into this world of discovery and loss in Summer of '85.

| Jul 14, 2021

Ozon's nostalgic ode to the everlasting memories of first love carries his characteristic seductive and edgy style. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 10, 2021

I both admired it and enjoyed it because this great filmmaker knows how to tell a story.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 10, 2021

The teen angst is well-played by the young stars while David's mom provides the silly but still funny comic relief.

| Original Score: B- | Jul 10, 2021

Francois Ozon portrait of obsessive love affair has moments of unexpected power and transcendence. Felix Lefebvre shines as one of the young men in love.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 9, 2021

"Summer Of 85" is wonderfully acted by all. France's northwest coast looks especially appealing thanks to beautiful cinematography by Hichame Alaouie. The era's music is apt.

| Jul 9, 2021

"Summer of 85" balances intriguingly but a little too murkily on a fulcrum of unreliable narration, and it becomes impossible to tell whether Ozon means us to take the story at face value or undercutting Alex's own melodramatic pronouncements.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 7, 2021