Summer Lovers (1982) on Netflix

R19821h 38m

Michael Pappas and Cathy Featherstone, high school sweethearts, take a two-month summer rental on Santorini. Michael's attention keeps going to Lina, a French archaeologist at the Akrotiri dig.

Netflix2.1/5
IMDb5.8/104,905 votes
Rotten Tomatoes25%

Trailer

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Plot summary

Two recent college graduates, Michael Pappas and Cathy Featherstone, rent a hillside villa on Santorini for the summer; they have been a couple since high school. At a beach where young tourists go nude, Michael notices a woman sunbathing. Cathy, whom people take for a goody two-shoes, shares her sexual fantasies with him; guided by a book of techniques, she binds him to the bed and lets hot wax fall on his chest. She starts taking photographs and makes a darkroom out of the bathroom. Michael later meets Lina, an archaeologist from France working a temporary assignment at the Akrotiri excavation, and begins an affair with her. Guilt drives him to admit it to Cathy, who is upset and wants him to be finished with it, which he reads as permission to go back to Lina.

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Summer Lovers (1982)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

Dutch actor Hans van Tongeren was cast almost by accident: he was simply visiting Santorini as a tourist when Daryl Hannah noticed him in a crowd, and she arranged for him to meet the director, which led to his role as Jan.
Valérie Quennessen, who played the archaeologist Lina, made a real find while filming: the Tampa Bay Times reported in November 2023, citing IMDb, that she discovered pottery around 3,500 years old at the Akrotiri site.
The villa where the Michael and Cathy characters stayed was bought by a couple in 1987 and turned into a gift shop named "Summer Lovers."
Summer Lovers is the final theatrically released film of actress Valérie Quennessen, who retired from acting shortly afterwards to raise her children and died in a car accident in 1989 at the age of 31.