Film

Before Sunrise

Before Sunrise is basically one long, glorious conversation: two strangers meet on a train, get off in Vienna, and talk until dawn. There's no plot beyond the ticking clock of a departing train — just intimacy built purely from words. For anyone who's ever fallen for someone through talk alone.

TMDb rating4.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love talky, character-driven romance where the pleasure is in listening to two people feel their way toward each other, the way Richard Linklater's own Before films do.

Skip it if you need plot to keep moving, since almost nothing happens beyond walking and talking, and a conversation that wanders can feel like a long evening with someone you have just met.

What it asks of you: It runs about an hour and forty minutes at an unhurried pace, with long takes and few cuts, so it rewards patience and close attention to what is said and left unsaid.

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

If you liked this

Before Sunset2004

The direct sequel, nine years later, unfolds in one real-time conversation through Paris that answers every question the first film left dangling — and asks much harder ones about romance meeting adulthood.

But Spoils the ambiguity of the first film's ending entirely — go in knowing you'll never wonder 'what if' quite the same way again.

Before Sunset poster

Lost in Translation2003

Two lonely strangers drift through a foreign city at night, talking their way into an intimacy neither expects. Same hushed, jet-lagged tenderness, same ache of a connection with a built-in expiration date.

But Slower and sadder than Before Sunrise — less flirtation, more melancholy, and by design almost nothing happens.

Lost in Translation poster

Weekend2011

A one-night stand between two men stretches into a whole weekend of confession and connection, shot with the same handheld intimacy and the same dread of a clock running out.

But Rawer and more sexually explicit than Linklater's film, with less romantic gloss and more anxious, unresolved talk.

Weekend poster

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

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Certified Copy2010

Same engine as Sunrise — two people, one day, wandering a foreign city in conversation — but Kiarostami uses it to interrogate identity and performance instead of falling in love.

Juliette Binoche and William Shimell wander Tuscany talking, and about halfway through, the film quietly rewrites who they even are to each other — the same walk-and-talk romance turned into a philosophical trick.

But Deliberately withholds answers about what's 'real' — if you need solid ground under a romance, this will frustrate you.

Certified Copy poster
More like this (8)

Two for the Road1967

Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn hitchhike and bicker across Europe in a film that jumbles timelines to show a whole relationship's rise and fall inside one witty, sun-drenched trip.

But The structure jumps around in time, which can disorient, and the tone is sharper and less starry-eyed than Sunrise.

Two for the Road poster

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind2004

A dazzling, heartbroken meditation on memory and first love, asking whether you'd choose to forget the person who wrecked you — and whether that's the same as never having met them.

But Its fractured, surreal structure is a big tonal leap from Sunrise's naturalism — this one plays with form as much as feeling.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind poster

In the Mood for Love2000

Wong Kar-wai's aching, gorgeously composed story of restraint between two neighbours who never quite act on what they feel — all longing, no consummation, dressed in the most beautiful clothes in cinema.

But Glacially paced and nearly wordless by comparison — if you loved Sunrise for the talking, this is almost its opposite.

In the Mood for Love poster

Blue Valentine2010

Cuts between a couple's giddy beginning and bitter unraveling, so you watch the exact kind of night Before Sunrise idealises curdle into something much harder to sit through.

But Genuinely bleak where Sunrise is hopeful — this is the hangover, not the high, and it doesn't pull any punches.

Blue Valentine poster

La La Land2016

A big, bittersweet musical romance built on the same idea — two people, a limited window, a city as third character — but dressed up in song and colour instead of pure talk.

But Broadway-scale spectacle and songs are a world away from Sunrise's stripped-down realism, if that's what actually drew you in.

La La Land poster

One Day2011

Revisits the same two people on the same date across twenty years, testing whether one missed-connection night can cast a shadow over a whole relationship — a sadder answer to Sunrise's dare.

But Leans on melodrama over naturalistic dialogue, with a structure built for sentiment rather than conversation.

One Day poster

Brief Encounter1945

The blueprint: a chance meeting, a ticking clock, strangers who know it can't last. Linklater's film modernises exactly this shape, minus the guilt and the corsets.

Two strangers meet in a train station café and fall into a doomed, unconsummated romance, all buttoned-up British restraint and a swelling Rachmaninoff score standing in for the words they won't say.

But Fifty years of repression sit between this and Sunrise's openness — expect stiff upper lips, not backpacker candour.

Brief Encounter poster

Waking Life2001

Made by the same director with the same two actors reprising the same characters mid-dream — literally the DNA of Sunrise's talk, poured into animated philosophy instead of romance.

Linklater's own rotoscope-animated fever dream features Hawke and Delpy reprising their Sunrise dialogue inside a dream, surrounded by dozens of strangers philosophising about consciousness, free will and time.

But Plotless and heady even by Linklater standards — this is a lecture hall of ideas, not a love story, animation and all.

Waking Life poster

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