Before Midnight (2013)
Average Rating: 8.7/10
Reviews Counted: 163
Fresh: 160 | Rotten: 3
Building on the first two installments in Richard Linklater's well-crafted Before trilogy, Before Midnight offers intelligent, powerfully acted perspectives on love, marriage, and long-term commitment.
Average Rating: 9.2/10
Critic Reviews: 38
Fresh: 36 | Rotten: 2
Building on the first two installments in Richard Linklater's well-crafted Before trilogy, Before Midnight offers intelligent, powerfully acted perspectives on love, marriage, and long-term commitment.
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Average Rating: 4.2/5
User Ratings: 22,938
Movie Info
Before Midnight is an upcoming American romance drama film and the sequel to Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004). Like its predecessors, the film was directed by Richard Linklater. As with the previous film, Linklater shares screenplay credit with both actors from the movies, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.(c) Official FB
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Cast
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Ethan Hawke
Jesse -
Julie Delpy
Celine -
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Jennifer Prior
Ella -
Charlotte Prior
Nina -
Xenia Kalogeropoulou
Natalia -
Walter Lassally
Patrick -
Ariane Labed
Anna -
Yiannis Papadopoulos
Achilleas -
Athina Rachel Tsanga...
Ariadni -
Panos Koronis
Stefanos -
Enrico Focardi
Child -
Manolis Goussias
Child -
Anouk Servera
Child -
Yota Argyropoulou
Hotel Clerk -
Serafeim Radis
Hotel Clerk
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Before Midnight Trailer & Photos
All Critics (163) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (160) | Rotten (3)
Hawke and Delpy remain as charming as ever, and their combined goofiness is more endearing than annoying.
Top CriticLove is messy here, life cannot be controlled, satisfaction is far from guaranteed. Romance is rocky at best. But romance still is.
Though "Before Midnight" is often uncomfortable to watch, it's never less than mesmerizing - and ultimately, a joy to walk with this prickly but fascinating couple again.
"Before Midnight" is heartbreaking, but not because of Jesse and Celine. It's the filmmakers' passions that seem to have cooled.
Before Midnight is fascinating to watch, and so long as Celine and Jesse are communicating, there's still hope.
How (Jesse and Celine) try to rekindle that flame is what drives Midnight, a film that feels so authentic it's like overhearing a conversation you're not sure you should be hearing.
Before Midnight feels like the natural extension of the series, and will be everything fans of it could have hoped for.
The trouble with those first two film was their souffle-light scenarios...Here, however, things are much juicier as infidelity, commitment, divorce, resentment and all the other soul-sapping things that clock in when you hit your 40s come into play.
...in the surprising third act, the film comes together as a plausible horror show of how good intentions and real affection can give way to vicious, realistic psychic combat. (
...Before Midnight bears too few similarities to its thoroughly superior predecessors.
The reason this film will hold your attention for two hours is because of the natural dialogue between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.
Before Midnight is like an old friend who has grown sharper and grumpier and saltier with life; and for students of cinema, the film is a masterclass in the use of the language and tools of this amazing artform to portray human nature
The beauty of this film - like the two before - is its natural flow of conversation and ability to engage and transport us into the moment
The release of each sequel is becoming an event, so it's particularly great to see Before Midnight not only meeting expectations but raising the bar.
It's a brave, challenging and essential installment in what is one of modern cinema's finest trilogies.
The beauty of this film - like the two before - is its natural flow of conversation and ability to engage and transport us into the moment
Before Midnight is no romance. It's a horror movie.
Takes its traditional romantic tale into more insightful territories.
Hawk and Delpy know just how to get under your skin. Their onscreen alter egos fit like a glove, and witnessing their ageing, nagging, toying love is a true privilege.
What lifts Linklater's trilogy above your average dialogue-heavy indie is not just the intelligence of the conversation but its frankness and humor.
There's not a hint of melodrama or falsity in the Before series.
The 'Before' trilogy is a vacation for me. I am taken away, and it is never for long enough. I genuinely feel lucky to have these movies.
I'm not sure this is the end of Richard Linklater's 'Before' trilogy. It's perfection just as it is, but then again, Linklater has nine more years to work on the sequel.
Loving words mix with personal attacks, the magic moments with the unintended slights, as we witness the occasional desperation of imperfect people doing the best they can when life moves beyond meet-cute and courtship. That's authentic.
Linklater and his players bring an end to the fantasy and welcome the thrilling ups and bitter downs of reality to this love story.
Like the first two films, it reflects the real world in a way that seems almost preternatural. It's just that, here, the real world is a harsher, more disappointing place.
Audience Reviews for Before Midnight
Super Reviewer
Great Film! Before Midnight is a different type of animal this time around. I didn't expect the team could top an already beautiful story but what they achieve in the newest installment is the most accurate and authentic portrayals of love since Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). The film is an absolute marvel, showcasing the very best dialogue and capturing the sheer essence of acting brilliance from stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Director Richard Linklater has also created the crowning work of his directorial career, showing incredible restraint and focus on two characters that still feel just as new and fresh as the day we met them. The film opens with a near fifteen minute take that gets its hook into you and never lets up. It's a cinematic sensation. The film is breathtakingly accurate and precise in capturing the love and relationship of couples, it will and should be studied by film schools and writers for years to come. Linklater bares his soul, frame after frame, showing confidence of his own idiosyncratic vision of this story and being as accessible to even the youngest of people. Go see this!
We meet Jesse and Celine nine years on in Greece. Almost two decades have passed since their first meeting on that train bound for Vienna.
Super Reviewer
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- Jesse: But i also know that you love me. And i'm okay with you being a complicated human being. I don't want to live a boring life, where two people own each other, where two people are institutionalized in a box that others created because that is a bunch of stifling bullshit.
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- Jesse: I'm giving you my whole life, okay? I got nothing larger to give. I'm not giving it to anybody else. If you're looking for permission to disqualify me, I'm not gonna give it to you. Okay? I love you. And I'm not in conflict about it, okay?
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- Jesse: I wish you would find the time. You somehow manage to find the time to complain about 8 hours a day. I mean, I love the way you sing, okay. I fucked up my whole life cause of the way you sing. Alright? If you took 1/8th of the energy that you spend on bitching, whinning and worrying, if you put that energy into plain scales you would be like... fucking Django Reinhardt.
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- Celine: But not knowing is not so bad. The point is to be looking, searching, to stay hungry.
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- Jesse: You have to be a little deluded to be motivated.
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- Jesse: You are the fucking mayor of crazy town.
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Guess the tomatometer | 2 months ago | 19 |
| Not necessarily the end | 2 months ago | 13 |
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