[Image](https://www.filmaffinity.com/ve/filmimages.php?movie_id=781007)
Director François Ozon is in top form with this nostalgic but deeply affecting LGBT love story set in 1980s Normandy.
At its center are two phenomenal performances by Félix Lefebvre and Benjamin Voisin as teenagers Alexis and David, whose dizzying summer romance stirs passions and demons.
With mesmerizing naturalism, Lefebvre and Voisin experience the rapture of first love in all its intensity and fragility. Ozon sees in them - and in the period - a shocking empathy and emotional acuity.
[Image](https://www.filmaffinity.com/ve/filmimages.php?movie_id=781007)
Set against the backdrop of a dreamy synthesizer score and sun-drenched coastal getaways, this is cinema as pure transportive experience. Ozon leaves room for souls to breathe and hearts to understand what words cannot convey.
Eté 85 is heartbreakingly beautiful in the way it sees love, not as a choice, but as a basic human need, even in the midst of society's darkest closed minds. Its message is a transcendent hope that will endure.
An achingly charming and profound masterpiece, the kind that sticks with you forever. Ozon is simply one of the most essential voices in world cinema; these revelations are among his finest works. A definitive LGBT love story for the ages.
[Image](https://www.filmaffinity.com/ve/filmimages.php?movie_id=781007)
At the 2020 edition of the César Awards, the highest French film awards, Eté 85 received 4 nominations, including Best Director for François Ozon and Most Promising Actor for Félix Lefebvre.
It won the Queer Palm at the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, celebrating its impact and importance as an LGBT story.
Both Lefebvre and his co-star Benjamin Voisin were honored at French acting awards ceremonies for their impressive work.
In France, where Ozon is considered a national treasure, Eté 85 was a moderate box office success, grossing $2.3 million on a modest budget.
Its festival run also attracted a great deal of international interest, with a worldwide gross of close to $4 million, a very high gross considering the film's size and its appeal to art-house audiences.
