Film

Before Midnight

Name: Before Midnight
Genre: Romance, Drama
Released: 2013
Cast: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Jennifer Prior, Charlotte Prior

The final part of Linklater's trilogy follows Jesse and Céline in their forties, nine years into marriage and parenthood. It's a film of long conversations that gradually strip away romance to expose the small resentments, compromises, and genuine love underneath. For anyone who's felt the gap between who you thought you'd be and who you've become.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you relish talky, observant films where a long walk through a Greek town carries more weight than any plot, and you don't mind sitting with two people who know each other too well.

Skip it if you want momentum, a clear story engine, or a light runtime; much of it is two people arguing over dinner, and the quarrels run long.

What it asks of you: It runs just under two hours of mostly unbroken talk, with long takes that hold still and let silences and small irritations pile up at a deliberate pace.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Before Sunset2004

The second chapter of this trilogy and arguably the richest. Jesse and Céline reunite in Paris nine years after their Vienna night, and Linklater stretches a single walk through the city into something achingly alive about time, choices, and whether lightning can strike twice.

But If you haven't seen Before Sunrise, you'll miss the weight of history that makes Sunset sing. The whole film is basically talking, which requires patience.

Before Sunrise1995

The beginning. Jesse and Céline meet on a train and spend one night walking Vienna, discovering each other through conversation. It's the purest distillation of what Linklater does: the thrill of genuine connection between two people who might matter to each other forever.

But Shot in 1995 with a shoestring budget, it looks like it. If you need plot momentum or conventional romance, this will feel static and slow.

Boyhood2014

Linklater's other masterpiece—filmed over twelve years, following a boy from childhood to manhood. Like Before Midnight, it's about time's accumulation, the gap between expectation and reality, and the small moments that actually matter in a life.

But Three hours, minimal plot, and the emotional register is quiet and sometimes bleak. It's asking you to sit with ordinariness until it becomes profound.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Before Midnight

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A Separation2011

Both films watch a marriage crack open and refuse easy judgment. They understand that loving someone and resenting them can coexist.

Asghar Farhadi's Iranian masterpiece about a marriage dissolving. Like Before Midnight, it finds the moral complexity in ordinary dissolution—neither person is a villain, both are trapped. It's almost unbearably honest about love curdling into resentment.

But It's heavier than Before Midnight, with genuine legal and social stakes. The tone is grave throughout; there's no lightness or humor to cut the weight.

Lost in Translation2003

Sophia Coppola captures the specific loneliness of two people who care about each other but can't quite bridge the distance—emotional, temporal, circumstantial. It's the melancholy version of connection, and it lingers.

But Almost nothing happens. If you're looking for narrative propulsion or even clear dialogue, you'll find yourself adrift. Some find it precious.

Slacker1990

Linklater's debut: a day in Austin with no plot, just conversations between people thinking and talking about life, meaning, relationships. It invented the template he's refined ever since. Feels like eavesdropping on smart friends.

But Genuinely plotless and deliberately scattered. The camera drifts from person to person. If you need a story to hold you, it's maddeningly diffuse.

Waking Life2001

Linklater again, but animated and dreamlike. A man drifts through a city having philosophical conversations, questioning reality and consciousness. The same conversational DNA as Before Midnight, but metaphysical rather than relational.

But The rotoscope animation is deliberately unsettling to some. It's very much a film for people who love ideas more than plot, and it can feel pretentious.

The Dinner2017

Both are chamber pieces about people in relationships having conversations that slowly reveal what actually matters. Before Midnight is about fidelity; The Dinner is about complicity. One is intimate, the other is sinister.

A single dinner between two couples—one of whom is a political candidate—spirals into moral reckoning. Like Before Midnight, it's mostly dialogue, but the stakes are darker: these are people with secrets, and civility is a performance.

But It's considerably darker than Before Midnight and significantly less kind to its characters. The tone is queasy and uncomfortable rather than wry. Some find it manipulative.