Before Sunrise
National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
An unexpected meeting on a train leads two travelers to spend an evening wandering through Vienna. As the night unfolds, they share stories and conversations about life and love, exploring new ideas while a quiet intimacy grows between them, knowing it may be their only night together.
What critics thought
A near-universally praised two-hander built almost entirely on conversation, Before Sunrise won critics over with its naturalistic performances and Linklater's willingness to let the film breathe at its own unhurried pace. The closest debate isn't about quality but about ambition — whether this is a quietly radical act of cinema or simply a very good small movie that knows its limits. Either way, audiences and critics have only grown fonder of it over time, with retrospective polls ranking it among the greatest romances ever made.
“Before Sunrise is as uneven as any marathon conversation might be, combining colorful, disarming insights with periodic lulls. The film maker clearly wants things this way, with both these young characters trying on ideas and attitudes as if they were new clothes”
Janet Maslin·The New York Times
“Small movies can be as daring as big ones, and Linklater, in his offhand way, is working without a net here. Before Sunrise may be the closest an American has come to the discursive talk gamesmanship of Eric Rohmer”
Owen Gleiberman·Entertainment Weekly
“Just once, for a single day, Jesse and Céline have given life the sort of shape and charge that until now they have found only in fiction, and may never find again”
Anthony Lane·The New Yorker
“Before Sunrise is not a big movie, or one with big ideas, but it is a cut above the banal twentysomething love stories you usually see at the movies. This one, at least, treats young people as real people”
Hal Hinson·The Washington Post
Genres
Comedy, Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
DirectorRichard Linklater
StarringEthan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Andrea Eckert, Hanno Pöschl, Karl Bruckschwaiger
ComposerFred Frith
Before Sunrise
National Film Registry
An unexpected meeting on a train leads two travelers to spend an evening wandering through Vienna. As the night unfolds, they share stories and conversations about life and love, exploring new ideas while a quiet intimacy grows between them, knowing it may be their only night together.
What critics thought
A near-universally praised two-hander built almost entirely on conversation, Before Sunrise won critics over with its naturalistic performances and Linklater's willingness to let the film breathe at its own unhurried pace. The closest debate isn't about quality but about ambition — whether this is a quietly radical act of cinema or simply a very good small movie that knows its limits. Either way, audiences and critics have only grown fonder of it over time, with retrospective polls ranking it among the greatest romances ever made.
“Before Sunrise is as uneven as any marathon conversation might be, combining colorful, disarming insights with periodic lulls. The film maker clearly wants things this way, with both these young characters trying on ideas and attitudes as if they were new clothes”
Janet Maslin·The New York Times
“Small movies can be as daring as big ones, and Linklater, in his offhand way, is working without a net here. Before Sunrise may be the closest an American has come to the discursive talk gamesmanship of Eric Rohmer”
Owen Gleiberman·Entertainment Weekly
“Just once, for a single day, Jesse and Céline have given life the sort of shape and charge that until now they have found only in fiction, and may never find again”
Anthony Lane·The New Yorker
“Before Sunrise is not a big movie, or one with big ideas, but it is a cut above the banal twentysomething love stories you usually see at the movies. This one, at least, treats young people as real people”
Hal Hinson·The Washington Post
Genres
Comedy, Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
DirectorRichard Linklater
StarringEthan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Andrea Eckert, Hanno Pöschl, Karl Bruckschwaiger
ComposerFred Frith
Rent/Purchase