Rita Walden is a depressed, middle-aged New Yorker. Always tired, Rita is prone to nightmares, and when she does dream more pleasant thoughts, they are of her childhood on the family farm. In her mind, she settled for second best when she married her ophthalmologist husband, Harry, as she still thinks about what life would have been like with the older farm boy on whom she had a crush at age 12½. She is constantly bickering with her mother, her sister Betty, and her grown-up daughter Anna, who has issues of her own. Rita is estranged from her son Bobby; she is in denial about his homosexual orientation. After Rita's mother dies suddenly, Rita is on the verge of a nervous breakdown in dealing with her mother's estate, especially when the family talks about selling her beloved farm, which she still intends to pass on to Bobby. Harry thinks that a European vacation would help Rita clear her mind, with the possibility of visiting Bobby, who is currently living in Amsterdam. Although Rita faces some crises on the trip, many of her conflicts do ease after she sees Harry revisit Bastogne for the first time since his days in World War II.

• Joanne Woodward as Rita Walden
• Martin Balsam as Harry Walden
• Sylvia Sidney as Mrs. Pritchett
• Tresa Hughes as Betty Goody
• Dori Brenner as Anna
• Ron Rickards as Bobby Walden
• Win Forman as Fred Goody
• Peter Marklin as Joel
• Nancy Andrews as Mrs. Hungerford
• Minerva Pious as woman in theatre
• Sol Frieder as man in theatre
• Helen Ludlam as grandmother
• Grant Code as grandfather
• Gaetano Lisi as student in theatre
• Lee Jackson as Carl

• List of American films of 1973

• Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams at IMDb  
• Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams at AllMovie  
• Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams at the American Film Institute Catalog  
• Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams at the TCM Movie Database