Oliver arrives at the family's summer home in B., Italy as the new visiting American scholar.

Elio sneaks into Oliver's bedroom and rolls around naked on his bed while Oliver is away from home.

Oliver massages Elio's shoulder during a tennis game and Elio shoves him off to hide his desire.

Oliver briefly dates Chiara, a local girl, making Elio consumed with jealousy and longing.

Oliver and Elio visit Monet's berm together and Oliver kisses Elio for the first time.

Elio slips a note under Oliver's door asking to speak with him privately that night.

Oliver meets Elio in his bedroom at midnight and they have sex together for the first time.

Elio masturbates into a peach and Oliver knowingly eats from it, reducing Elio to tears of relief.

Oliver asks Elio to accompany him on his final trip to Rome before returning to America.

Oliver and Elio attend a glamorous book launch party for the poet Alfredo in Rome.

Oliver leaves Italy and returns to New York for his job, while Elio goes back to B. alone.

Elio's father speaks openly to Elio about loving Oliver and urges him to embrace love fully.

Oliver returns to visit B. and announces that he is engaged to a woman and plans to marry.

Elio surprises Oliver with an unannounced visit to his university and they catch up over drinks at a hotel.

Oliver visits B. again years later and Elio silently hopes Oliver will call him by his own name.

Oliver arrives in B., Italy as a visiting scholar and Elio quickly falls into an obsessive, agonizing attraction he cannot understand or control. After weeks of unbearable tension and a first kiss at Monet's berm, the two finally come together sexually, discovering passion and shame in equal measure. Their relationship deepens through the intimate peach scene and a spontaneous trip to Rome, where they move freely in each other's world. Oliver's departure back to New York marks the beginning of the end, and a later holiday visit confirms that their relationship cannot be revived once Oliver announces his engagement. Decades on, a reunion at Oliver's university and a final visit to B. reveal that neither man has ever fully released what they shared that summer.

The headline events of Elio and Oliver's summer love story.

Elio notices Oliver's Star of David necklace worn openly and feels an immediate Jewish kinship with him.

Oliver helps pick apricots from the family tree and Elio fantasizes about Oliver as he bites into the fruit.

Elio reads Heraclitus, Oliver's scholarly subject, as a private excuse to have something to discuss with him.

Oliver meets Vimini, Elio's precocious ten-year-old neighbor who is quietly living with leukemia.

Elio and Oliver go swimming together and Elio indirectly hints at his feelings; Oliver says they cannot discuss it.

Oliver touches Elio's foot under the dinner table and Elio's nose bleeds from the overwhelming physical sensation.

Elio buys two copies of the French novel Armance and inscribes Oliver's copy with a secret coded message.

Elio kisses and touches Marzia against a wall in town while his mind drifts entirely to Oliver.

After sleeping with Marzia, Elio hopes the encounter will diminish his uncontrollable longing for Oliver.

After their first night together, Oliver and Elio sneak out of the house to wash themselves in the ocean.

The morning after their first night together, Oliver wears Elio's swim trunks, which thrills Elio deeply.

The group from Alfredo's party ends the Rome night singing a Neapolitan lullaby; Elio teaches Oliver the words.

Oliver calls Elio from New York and tells him to search his room for something Oliver took with him.

Elio searches his room and discovers that Oliver quietly took the postcard photograph of Monet's berm as a keepsake.

Vimini dies from her illness and Elio leaves Italy to begin university studies in the United States.

Elio's attraction to Oliver builds through a series of small, charged encounters — sharing apricots from the family tree, reading Oliver's subject of study, and noticing the Star of David worn openly on Oliver's chest. The emotional intensity overflows into physical symptoms, including a nosebleed at dinner when Oliver's foot brushes against Elio's, and private gestures such as a secret coded inscription inside a gifted French novel. Elio's parallel romance with Marzia gives him room to explore his desire, while each new intimacy with Oliver pushes further past the boundaries of shame after their first night together. The group's barhopping in Rome ends with a tender Neapolitan lullaby shared between Elio and Oliver, a brief paradise before the world reclaims them. Years later, Vimini's death and Elio's departure for university close the chapter on his Italian youth for good.

The quieter moments and secondary scenes that shaped Elio's summer awakening.

Elio first encounters Oliver's breezy use of 'Later!' and is deeply unsettled by its casual dismissal.

After Oliver ends things with Chiara, Elio suspects Oliver has moved on to pursuing other local girls.

Elio calls out to Oliver a phrase from a sex dream, hoping Oliver will repeat the words back to him.

At a late-night poetry event in town, Marzia tells Elio that readers are people who hide from real life.

Elio tells Oliver directly that he worships him, making his true feelings explicit aloud for the first time.

Oliver performs oral sex on Elio after their first night together, dissolving Elio's lingering sense of shame.

Oliver confesses he has wanted Elio for the entire summer and believes he was the one who first pursued him.

Elio finds Oliver alone by the beach at night and learns he spent those missing evenings watching the water in solitude.

In their Rome hotel room, Oliver and Elio defecate in front of each other, crossing a final threshold of bodily shame.

Elio points out to Oliver a street in Rome where he first experienced desire for another man as a younger boy.

At dinner in Rome, Alfredo tells the group about being seduced by a Thai hotel worker of ambiguous gender.

Oliver describes to Elio a parallel life he imagines — one where he never married and stayed open to different loves.

Elio confesses to Oliver that hearing news of Oliver's death would feel like experiencing his own death.

Oliver visits B. with his wife and two children, walking their old haunts as family rather than lovers.

Oliver tells Elio he remembers everything about their time together, and Elio waits to hear himself called by his own name.

The summer begins with Elio thrown off balance by Oliver's breezy confidence, and slowly escalates as Elio finds bolder ways to close the distance — quoting dream words aloud and finally confessing his worship directly. At the pivotal turn of their physical relationship, Oliver's tenderness dissolves Elio's shame, and Oliver's stunning confession that he had wanted Elio all along reframes the entire summer's cold and hot signals. In Rome, Elio and Oliver shed all remaining physical shame together, while Alfredo's story about ambiguous desire mirrors the blurred boundaries of their own love. As adults reunited years later, Oliver's description of a parallel life and Elio's raw confession about the weight of Oliver's potential death reveal a love that never fully dissolved. The novel's final turning point arrives when Oliver visits B. and tells Elio he remembers everything — and Elio waits in hope to hear himself called by his own name.

The discoveries, confessions, and emotional shifts that redefined what Elio and Oliver meant to each other.