This year marks the 30th anniversary of Jesse and Céline meeting in Vienna with no phones, no photos, and no future. Richard Linklater's romantic comedy about their intense attention has never looked more attractive.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Jesse and Céline meeting in Vienna with no phones, no photos, and no future. Richard Linklater's romantic comedy about their intense attention has never looked more attractive.
If a charming stranger asked you to get off the train with them in a foreign city, would you? Let’s say this happened in the summer when you’re on holiday, and you’re young and full of wild belief that magical things happen all the time – so why not?
On 16th June 2025, known as ‘Before Sunrise Day’ among fans, it will be 30 years since a charmed encounter just like this took place on a train rolling into Vienna. Before Sunrise is an extreme case of the out-of-time encounter, as Jesse (Ethan Hawke) persuades Céline (Julie Delpy) to get off the train they’re both on, to walk around together until morning before parting ways. No one knows they’re doing this, and because it’s 1995 there are no text updates to friends from the loos, no location pins on social media, and not a single photo of them looking adorable in the vinyl shop or on the ferris wheel. But the most striking thing about watching Before Sunrise today is how intimate it feels to witness these two pay such focused attention to each other, never breaking the flow to document their aventure for their friends or even their future selves.
Starring a Gen X counterculture dreamboat Ethan Hawke in his greasy-haired prime, alongside Julie Deply as an otherworldly and slightly neurotic Parisian, Richard Linklater’s 1995 film has long since become a cult classic, even though it’s ostensibly a film in which nothing really happens. Two 20-somethings walk around Vienna at night, just talking. Maybe that’s the fantasy – to simply have someone’s undivided attention. Even before mobile phones became so ubiquitous that Erykah Badu serenaded her lover with the words “I can make you put your phone down”, having someone’s eyes on you like this would be pretty incredible. Whenever I re-watch this film, I’m so struck by the vanishing beauty of the uninterrupted moment that it makes me want to hurl my phone – and everyone else’s too – into the ocean.
I first saw Before Sunrise in the cinema as a young teenager, before I’d had so much as a first kiss. It was the first time I’d seen a girl and a boy talk like that – it was a formative experience, to put it mildly. I didn’t yet have strong ideas of what I wanted my future to be, but this film made me feel like life would be an adventure, full of exceptional people and enchanting moments, waiting to be experienced on beautiful summer evenings in European cities. My VHS copy got warped with repeat plays. I only watch the film once a year now, but each time I’m pleased to find that not only does it hold up, but there’s a genuine sincerity that never fails to brush away my cynicism. Even now, the hottest part is all that intense talking.
But is that just because Jesse and Céline know they only have one night? So great was their youthful belief in the generosity of the universe, sure to send them endless amazing dates in the future, that they decided not to exchange numbers – they don’t want to spoil their relationship by letting it fizzle out. Usually the obstacle in the “missed connections” film genre is external – at least one party is engaged or married (Lost in Translation, Sleepless in Seattle, Casablanca), there’s some medical issue like a coma or memory loss (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Forever Young), or time travel throws a spanner in the works (The Lake House, The Time Traveler's Wife). The decision to not exchange numbers is hard to watch for anyone who’s been alive in the era of Tinder, or indeed past age 22. But as a cinematic tool it really cranks up the emotional intensity, and as the pre-dawn light fills the screen you can practically feel the agony of the characters, not wanting the encounter to end. They’re desperately savouring every detail.
Before Sunrise spawned two sequels, starting with Before Sunset which is set in Paris nine years later – that’s how long it takes Jesse and Céline to find each other again. (While the fact that we can now dig up the life story of a Hinge match in less than ten minutes with just a first name and a profession is pretty invasive, it would admittedly have been useful here.) Completing the trilogy is Before Midnight, set in Greece a further nine years later, which is the married-with-kids chapter where the fairytale comes back down to earth somewhat. But as interesting as it is to watch Jesse and Céline grow and change together, nothing beats the tender optimism of Before Sunrise. That’s before they’ve realised, as Céline observes in Sunset, that “when you're young, you just believe there'll be many people you'll connect with. Later in life, you realise it only happens a few times.”
There’s a moment in Before Sunrise where Jesse tells Céline he’s going to take her picture, but he doesn’t have a camera so he just stops and looks at her, committing her to memory. “I remember that night better than I remember entire years,” he says in Sunset, and we believe him – he paid such close attention.
The message of Before Sunrise is not to manufacture scarcity, nor should you necessarily get off the train in a random city with the next stranger who asks (but if you do, definitely shoot off a quick text to alert someone). Instead, the real thrill of Before Sunrise, and the source of its ageless appeal, is how insanely hot it is when someone gives you their full attention, resisting the urge to text and Google and take photos. It’s a reminder to leave my phone in my bag and just focus on the person I’m with – even if I’m going to see them again tomorrow – because doing so really changes the atmosphere, leaving space for new connections to form.
I once spent a week in Berlin with someone who I’d known for a few short months, after meeting on a dating app. We took a chance on a full week’s holiday, walking around in the light European summer nights as it slowly dawned on us that this thing was something else – luckily, we were both old enough to realise. People knew where we were, but we were far from home and focused only on each other. My memories are a potent mix of sunshine and graffiti and sweat, interrupted by an agonising A&E visit after I got a UTI from all the fun (worth it). It’s now nine years later and we live together, and a lot has happened since then. But I remember that week better than I remember entire years.
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