Synopsis

While traveling by train through Europe, American tourist Jesse persuades French student Celine to leave the train with him in Vienna. With only one night before his flight home, the strangers wander through the city, visiting cafes, parks, and landmarks while discussing love, death, memory, and the possibility of a future together.

Factoids & Trivia

• The story grew partly from a real encounter in which the filmmakers spent a night walking around Philadelphia with a woman named Amy Lehrhaupt.

• The screenplay was written by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy contributed ideas to their characters and dialogue, but were not credited as writers on this first film.

• The film was shot in Vienna from June 27 through July 30, 1994. Locations include the Riesenrad Ferris wheel, Cafe Sperl, the Cemetery of the Nameless, and the record store used for the listening-booth scene.

• The story takes place on June 16, known as Bloomsday, linking the couple's all-night walk to James Joyce's *Ulysses* and its famous single-day structure.

• Jesse's "time travel" pitch, used to persuade Celine to leave the train, emerged from controlled improvisation during development of the scene.

• The film became the first entry in a trilogy whose installments were released nine years apart, allowing the characters and performers to age together on screen.

• In 2025, *Before Sunrise* was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.