It is the lightness of this film which is still charming; Jesse and Céline are free from everything, free from work worries or family cares, but they are also free from the gravity of cause-and-effect, the world of consequences and responsibilities.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 31, 2025

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are incredible in this film. The chemistry they have in palpable and the energy is always flowing...

| Original Score: A+ | Aug 20, 2024

Utterly charming.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 19, 2024

One of the truly great American films of the 1990s.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Dec 5, 2023

You believe in the characters and you believe in their romance...

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 19, 2022

The charm—the midsummer enchantment—never feels forced; it steals up and wins you. A true romance.

| Jul 18, 2022

Capturing an effervescent mixture of the mid-90s, it's a striking, authentic observation of two people experiencing a romantically charged connection which would come to erode and inform the shape of their future.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 15, 2020

There are so many perfect moments in this film; it is hard to list them without excluding others.

| Aug 5, 2020

What a film like Before Sunrise champions is that some of the most meaningful moments in our lives can be sensual and ephemeral: a look, a touch, a feeling, a few short hours.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 1, 2020

The films have always been about the marvels and limitations of impersonation, since behind Jesse and Céline we see Hawke and Delpy, celebrities whose stars were bright already in the first film and have intensified, owing partly to this series...

| Mar 13, 2019

There's a vulnerable undercurrent beneath this film, one that beats and throbs with the stolen looks, brief touches and romantic under-the-stars kisses.

| Apr 20, 2015

Undoubtedly one of the most romantic movies of all time...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 22, 2013

...a bittersweet celebration of romantic frisson - the notion that our most precious moments of connection are often the fleeting ones.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 28, 2013

Two strangers quickly fall in love, discuss big ideas.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 28, 2013

Linklater captures romance at the sunset of gadget-free existence ... holy moments when no gadget or lens comes between us and our immediate company and surroundings.

| Original Score: A | Apr 8, 2013

The combination of optimism, tragedy, and the fuzzy warmth of new love is absolutely flawless.

| Original Score: 10/10 | Sep 10, 2012

| Original Score: A- | Sep 7, 2011

the film asks us to consider the very nature and purpose of our existence in a fragmentary, superficial and transient universe.

| Original Score: 90/100 | Jan 17, 2010

Linklater hasn't just crafted a detached portrait of a unique couple: he's painting a masterful examination of human nature, of that relationship we all want, but too often sadly see slip away.

| Original Score: 97/100 | Aug 16, 2009

A thought-provoking, likable, entertaining, beautiful, and well-acted piece of romance...

| Apr 29, 2009