Winter Solstice is a 2004 American drama film written and directed by Josh Sternfeld and starring Anthony LaPaglia, Aaron Stanford, and Mark Webber.

New Jersey landscape gardener Jim Winters is struggling to raise his sons, high school student Peter and older Gabe, as a single father.

Gabe announces he is leaving home to move to Tampa, Florida, although he's vague about both his reason for doing so and what he plans to do there once he arrives.

Peter, who was in the car with his mother when she was killed in an accident five years earlier, is a rebellious, hearing-impaired underachiever doing poorly in school, despite the efforts of his teacher Mr. Bricker, who urges him to work harder to meet his potential.

"[3] Dana Stevens of The New York Times called the film "the kind of ambling, event-free family drama that will either draw audiences in with its gentle, understated power or quietly bore them out of their skulls.

"[4] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times observed, "The movie is not plot-driven, for which we must be thankful, because to force their feelings into a plot would be a form of cruelty.

"[5] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film "a completely boring, counterfeit movie" and added, "Because everyone in Winter Solstice is miserable, because everyone is sensitive, because nothing happens, because people smile through tears and tear through smiles, and because there isn't a single explosion or car chase, there will be people who'll insist that this film is a searing examination of the human soul.

He added, "Relatively little happens in Sternfeld's screenplay, the rewards of which lie in its intelligent refusal to offer artificial, clean solutions or to broadcast the characters' conflicts in big, showy scenes.