Definition:
Point a camera toward a strong light source, and the light may scatter inside the lens elements, creating streaks, halos, circles, or washes of light across the image. That is lens flare. Once considered a technical flaw to be avoided at all costs, it has become one of the more contested aesthetic tools in contemporary cinematography.
What It Means in Movies:
Lens flare signals that a real camera is in a real space responding to real light. That signal can read as authenticity, as documentary immediacy. Or it can read as self-conscious stylisation. Which reading lands depends entirely on how the flare is used and whether it serves the film or simply decorates it.
Why It Matters:
JJ Abrams built an entire visual identity around deliberate, frequent lens flares in his early Star Trek films. A technique that starts as a signature can become a cliché quickly. The cinematographers who use lens flare most effectively are the ones who deploy it sparingly, for specific emotional reasons.
Example:
In the 2009 Star Trek reboot, Abrams and cinematographer Daniel Mindel used practical lens flares throughout, generated on set rather than added digitally. The effect was designed to give a sci-fi film the tactile quality of something actually photographed rather than constructed.