Before Sunrise (1995)

Before Sunrise arrived in 1995 as something of a quiet outlier in mainstream American cinema: a low-budget, dialogue-driven romance shot almost entirely on location in Vienna, with no real plot to speak of beyond two strangers deciding to spend a single night together before going their separate ways. The premise is deceptively simple. Jesse (Ethan Hawke), an American travelling through Europe, meets Céline (Julie Delpy), a French student heading back to Paris, on a train. He persuades her to disembark with him in Vienna, and the film follows them through the city over the course of one evening, talking. That is more or less all that happens, and the film is well aware of that fact. Produced by Castle Rock Entertainment alongside the smaller Detour Filmproduction and Filmhaus Films, it was made on a modest scale, and Vienna itself does a fair amount of heavy lifting as a backdrop, lending the film a certain polished but unremarkable European-art-film quality that clearly resonated with audiences and critics at the time.

Richard Linklater was already establishing himself as a filmmaker with a particular interest in conversation, memory, and the texture of ordinary time passing. His earlier Dazed and Confused (1993) had shown a similar willingness to let characters simply exist and talk without forcing the narrative forward, and Before Sunrise sits comfortably alongside that approach. Linklater co-wrote the screenplay with Kim Krizan, and the two leads, Hawke and Delpy, are given an enormous amount of space to carry the film on the strength of their performances and the rhythms of their conversation alone. Ethan Hawke, who had already appeared in Dead Poets Society (1989), brings a certain restless, American-abroad energy to Jesse, while Julie Delpy brings a more considered quality to Céline. The supporting cast, including Andrea Eckert and Hanno Pöschl, are largely incidental, appearing in brief vignettes as the pair wander the city. The film's critical reputation has only grown in the years since its release, and it sits today near the very top of user-ranked lists on platforms such as Letterboxd, widely regarded by its admirers as one of the more honest and affecting romances of the decade.

A-Z World Movie Tour Austria This film... is number 130 of all time on letterboxd. I'm sorry but how the hell is this ranked so highly? This movie is just 100 minutes of pretentious, nonsensical, boring conversations between two cringe inducing people. Everything they bump into is, for them, this astounding, beautiful and deeply meaningful experience. In actual fact it's an older woman belly dancing, or a poetry writing bum. Ethan Hawke is literally just entirely unlikeable in this. This is actively a bad movie. I watched a made for TV movie called Love in Aruba which is better than this. That tells you all you need to know.

I'll be honest, I went in expecting to understand the fuss, and I came out baffled that the fuss exists at all. There is clearly an audience for whom this kind of rambling, self-consciously philosophical night-in-a-city romance is precisely what cinema should be doing, and fair enough to them. But for me, admiration for a film's restraint only goes so far when the material underneath that restraint isn't earning its keep. If you're the sort of person who found yourself similarly unmoved by this one, it might be worth checking out what Linklater does with a bit more energy and actual wit in School of Rock (2003), or having a look at how Ethan Hawke fares in rather different company over in Training Day (2001). Sometimes a film's reputation is the most interesting thing about it.

Rating: ★  | Year: 1995  | Watched: 2025-05-26

View on Letterboxd →

Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Before Sunrise (1995) on YouTube

Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

Related on Movies With Macca

More from Richard Linklater: School of Rock (2003) · Dazed and Confused (1993)
More with Ethan Hawke: Dead Poets Society (1989) · The Purge (2013) · Training Day (2001)
More from Austria: Angst (1983) · Alive! (2009)
More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
More romance: The Eagle (1925) · The Last Picture Show (1971) · The General (1926) · The Docks of New York (1928)