Before Sunrise
September 3rd, 2025
Dan · Staff Recommendations
“For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.” – C.S. Lewis
On a Eurail train heading toward Vienna, a married couple’s argument jolts the train car quiet. An American traveler, Jesse, takes the opportunity to strike up a conversation with a young woman, Céline, a French student on her way to Paris. Inspired by something he doesn’t quite understand, Jesse offers Céline a sudden proposition: to get off the train with him in Vienna and wander the city together until sunrise.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Before Sunrise, Richard Linklater’s love letter of a film to those moments in our lives when we are lucky enough to sense something special is happening while it’s happening. We all have different versions of it, a first love, the summer after a graduation, reconnecting with someone from the past, where we recognize we will feel nostalgia for this moment in the future, but can somehow also feel it in the present, as if reminiscence, excitement, and hope somehow converge in the present moment.
What’s striking to me now about Before Sunrise is how “of a different time” the movie truly is. Instead of relying on conventional narrative, it offers a deliberate, slow pace, with almost a real-time feel. Certain plot points wouldn’t work today in an age where mobile phones and the internet have taken over our lives. The film offers an opportunity to remember what it was like before we were constantly distracted and superficially connected, when moments felt more ephemeral and precious, and we had the space and time to feel fully present in them.
I want to share a few movies that will reward you if, like Before Sunrise, you take the time to be present and gentle with the characters’ flaws, pretensions, and vulnerabilities: