Before Sunrise
恋人までの距離（ディスタンス）
The Moonlight essay
CinemaBefore Sunrise and the Freedom of a Conversation With No FutureRead the essayStoryline
The whole story, ending included.
One night walking through Vienna; Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013) return every nine years.
On 16 June 1994, on a train out of Budapest, a quarrelling Austrian couple drives a young Frenchwoman, Céline, to change seats, and she falls into conversation with the American across the aisle, Jesse. Céline is going back to university in Paris after visiting her grandmother. Jesse is getting off at Vienna to catch a flight home the next morning, with no money for a hotel. When the train pulls in, he asks her to get off with him and spend the night walking the city. Ten or twenty years from now, he argues, she might be unhappy in her marriage and wonder what life with someone else would have been like; this way she can find out that he is no different from the rest. She gets off.
They wander Vienna as it closes for the evening, talking about love, death and religion, and they kiss at the top of the giant Ferris wheel at sunset. By the Danube Canal a street poet offers to write them a poem around any word they choose; they pick 'milkshake', and he gives them 'Delusion Angel', which Jesse suspects he had written already. In a café they stage pretend phone calls to their friends, each confessing through the game what they feel. Céline admits that her last boyfriend left her six months ago, saying she loved him too much. Jesse admits that he came to Europe to see a girlfriend in Madrid, who ended it as soon as he arrived, and that his cheap flight home was really an escape.
They know they will probably never see each other again, and decide to make the most of the hours left. In a park, over a bottle of wine, they talk about whether to sleep together. Céline does not want to be a one-night stand; Jesse says that, given the choice, he would marry her rather than never see her again. It is implied that they make love there.
In the morning, at the station, with Céline's train about to leave, they decide not to exchange addresses or numbers. Instead they promise to meet on the same platform in six months. The train pulls out, and each travels on alone, with a quiet, private look.
Starring
Ethan Hawkeas Jesse
A young American at the end of a lonely trip through Europe, who talks a stranger off the train in Vienna.
Jesse’s story
Jesse came to Europe to see a girlfriend studying in Madrid, who ended it soon after he arrived; the cheap flight home he bought was, he admits later, really an escape. On the train from Budapest he talks Céline into getting off at Vienna with him, so that years from now she need not wonder what she missed. Through the night he plays the cynic: the street poet's verse was written in advance, and love is an escape for two people who do not know how to be alone. Yet in a park he tells her that, given the choice, he would marry her rather than never see her again. At the station they agree to exchange no addresses and to meet on the same platform in six months. He travels on alone.
Julie Delpyas Céline
A French student on her way home to Paris, curious and outspoken, who agrees to spend one night walking Vienna with him.
Céline’s story
Céline has been visiting her grandmother in Budapest, and she moves seats on the train to escape a quarrelling couple. She gets off at Vienna with Jesse. Through the night she takes him to a cemetery of nameless graves she first saw at thirteen, tells him that if there is a God, it lives in the little space between two people, and asks, 'isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?' She admits that her last boyfriend left her six months ago, saying she loved him too much, and in the park she tells Jesse she does not want to be a one-night stand. In the morning they agree to swap no addresses and to meet on that platform in six months. She travels on alone.
Dominik Castellas Street poet
A poet on the bank of the Danube Canal who writes the couple a poem around the word they give him.
Why it matters
Before Sunrise is made almost entirely of conversation, and its subject is what conversation can do between two strangers who know they have one night. Nothing is at stake except whether they will let themselves be known, and the film treats that as enough. Its issues are quiet ones: the intimacy of being listened to, the fear of becoming someone's passing story, the frankness that comes easily with a stranger who will be gone by morning, and a promise made with no way of keeping in touch. Richard Linklater won the Silver Bear for best director in Berlin, and in 2025 the film was chosen for the United States National Film Registry. It became the first part of a trilogy, with Before Sunset in 2004 and Before Midnight in 2013, each finding the couple nine years on. This first film ends on the platform, with the promise not yet kept or broken.