The Green Ray

Éric Rohmer's The Green Ray (French: Le Rayon vert; sometimes released as Summer in English-speaking territories) won the Golden Lion at the 1986 Venice International Film Festival and the FIPRESCI Prize at the same festival — Rohmer's only Golden Lion across his more than twenty completed features. The film is the fifth in his Comedies and Proverbs cycle, after The Aviator's Wife, A Good Marriage, Pauline at the Beach and Full Moon in Paris; the cycle would conclude with My Girlfriend's Boyfriend the following year.

Rohmer shot the film with cinematographer Sophie Maintigneux on 16mm using natural light only and almost no traditional production equipment — no dolly, no crane, no rigged audio. The screenplay was developed in workshop with the cast, who improvised their dialogue around an outline Rohmer had prepared; the lead, Marie Rivière, is credited as co-writer for her contribution. Rivière had appeared in three earlier Rohmer features and would go on to appear in three more.

The title refers to the actual atmospheric optical phenomenon of the green flash visible briefly at sunset under specific conditions — a phenomenon documented since Jules Verne's 1882 novel Le Rayon vert, which the film references explicitly. The closing capture of the green ray was shot at the Île de Ré on the French Atlantic coast under unusual circumstances, with Rohmer waiting for atmospheric conditions across multiple evenings; he reportedly captured it on the third or fourth attempt. Sight & Sound returned the film to its 2022 Greatest Films of All Time list.