Indie 90s: Before Sunrise (1995)
Director: Richard Linklater Run Time: 101 min. Rating: R Release Year: 1995
Starring: Andrea Eckert, Erni Mangold, Ethan Hawke, Haymon Maria Buttinger, Julie Delpy
Country: Austria, United States
Language: English, German, French
Indie 90s: The Revolution That Changed Cinema
The ’90s didn’t just give us great movies, it changed what movies could be. Independent filmmakers that were breaking the rules, finding new voices, and reshaping American cinema.
Our Indie 90s series features twenty-two films in all — all independent, all revolutionary.
About the film:
On his way to Vienna, American Jesse meets Celine, a student returning to Paris. After long conversations forge a surprising connection between them, Jesse convinces Celine to get off the train with him in Vienna. Since his flight to the U.S. departs the next morning and he has no money for lodging, they wander the city together, taking in the experiences of Vienna and each other. As the night progresses, their bond makes separating in the morning a difficult choice.
“Before Sunrise is so much like real life—like a documentary with an invisible camera— that I found myself remembering real conversations I had experienced with more or less the same words.”
The first installment in Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy, Before Sunrise, premiered at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival and won the Silver Bear at the 1995 Berlin International Film Festival.
About the filmmaker:
Richard Linklater is an influential American film director, producer, and screenwriter whose bold anti-narrative approach to storytelling explores the subtleties of everyday life and redefined realism and time in cinema. His films have screened at Sundance, Venice, Berlin, Tribeca, SXSW, and other major film festivals. Filmed over 12 years, his feature film Boyhood (2014) received universal praise and earned Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.
Among many other acclaimed films, Linklater directed the era-defining breakthrough Slacker (1990), the “Before” trilogy – consisting of Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013) – comedies Dazed and Confused (1993) and School of Rock (2003), the remake Bad News Bears (2005), dark satire Fast Food Nation (2006), and animated features Waking Life (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Apollo 10 1⁄2: A Space Age Childhood (2022). His latest features include Hit Man (2023), Blue Moon (2025), and Nouvelle Vague (2025).
Before Sunrise (1995) previously screened at the Film Center as part of our 2024 Summer of Love.
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