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Synopsis

An American father, JESSE, (Ethan Hawke) is seeing off his son HANK (Seamus Davey–Fitzpatrick) at the Kalamata Airport in Greece. Hank’s returning to his mother and life in the U.S. after spending the “best summer ever” with Jesse and his family. The middle–schooler is more composed than his fortyish father, who hovers anxiously as their separation draws near.

Geography weighs heavily on Jesse. Outside the airport, he rejoins his family: CELINE (Julie Delpy) and their young twin daughters ELLA and NINA (Jennifer and Charlotte Prior). As they drive through the austerely beautiful rocky hillsides of Messinia, Jesse and Celine talk—about living so far from Hank, about her career as an environmentalist and hopes for a new job, about the swirl of ancient and modern Greece around them. Jesse hints at wanting to move back to America from their home in Paris, but Celine has done her U.S. time—they lived in New York for a spell—and has no wish to return. Their long history together bubbles between them.

Jesse’s a successful novelist, and they’re in Greece at a writer’s retreat, staying in the bucolic country villa of an older expat writer, PATRICK (Walter Lassally). Jesse’s given to flights of creative fancy which charm the assembled company, warmly hospitable Greek couples, but Celine—whose own past has played a starring role in Jesse’s semi–autobiographical novels—is perhaps a bit weary of serving as alluring French muse to Jesse’s fiction career.

As a treat, their Greek friends have gifted Jesse and Celine with a night at a luxurious seaside hotel while they babysit the twins. Feeling the undercurrent of friction between them, Celine wants to beg off, but their friends insist. They set off on foot through the spectacular countryside, meandering through meadows and villages, enjoying each others’ company, talking, teasing, debating, flirting.

What does a longterm couple do in a sleek hotel room besides throw off their worries, responsibilities, and clothes and make love? But for Jesse and Celine, realities intrude: the weight of children, work, ambitions, disappointments; the ebb and flow of romantic love ; the strains of an evolving, deepening relationship. Their idyllic night tests them in unexpected ways.

Jesse and Celine first met in their twenties in BEFORE SUNRISE (1995), reunited in their thirties in BEFORE SUNSET (2004), and now, in BEFORE MIDNIGHT, they face the past, present and future; family, romance, and love. Before the clock strikes midnight, their story again unfolds.

Richard Linklater

Writer, Director, Producer

In addition to his work listed in the following filmography, Richard Linklater also serves as the Artistic Director for the Austin Film Society, which he founded in 1985 to showcase films from around the world that were not typically shown in Austin. The Austin Film Society has given out over $1,200,000 in grants to Texas filmmakers and in 1999, received the DGA Honor which was given by the Directors Guild of America in recognition of its support of the arts.

FILMOGRAPHY

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN TO PLOW BY READING BOOKS (1988); SLACKER (1991); DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993); BEFORE SUNRISE (1995); SUBURBIA (1997); THE NEWTON BOYS (1998); WAKING LIFE (2001); TAPE (2001); LIVE FROM SHIVA’S DANCE FLOOR (2003); SCHOOL OF ROCK (2003); BEFORE SUNSET (2004); $5.15/Hr. (2004) (TV); BAD NEWS BEARS (2005); A SCANNER DARKLY (2006); FAST FOOD NATIONINNING BY INNING: A PORTRAIT OF A COACH (2008); ME AND ORSON WELLES (2009); BERNIE(2012); UP TO SPEED (2012)[TV];

Ethan Hawke

Writer, Actor (Jesse)

Ethan Hawke has collaborated with filmmaker Richard Linklater on multiple occasions, including FAST FOOD NATION; WAKING LIFE; THE NEWTON BOYS and TAPE. Marking their most celebrated collaboration, Hawke starred opposite Julie Delpy in the critically acclaimed film BEFORE SUNRISE, its sequel BEFORE SUNSET, and most recently in the third film in this series, BEFORE MIDNIGHT. The trio co–wrote the screenplays for BEFORE SUNSET and BEFORE MIDNIGHT. In 2004, their BEFORE SUNSET screenplay received an Academy Award® nomination for Adapted Screenplay, a Writers Guild Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and an IFP Spirit Award nomination for Best Screenplay. Hawke has played an ongoing part in Linklater’s UNTITLED 12–YEAR PROJECT.

Ethan Hawke’s screen career was launched by his 1989 starring role in the Academy Award winning drama DEAD POETS SOCIETY. Twenty–four years, and several Tony® and Oscar® nominations later, Hawke has emerged a multifaceted artist–film and theater actor, novelist, screenwriter and director. As a film actor, Hawke has starred in over forty films, including; EXPLORERS; DAD; REALITY BITES; WHITE FANG; WATERLAND; ALIVE; RICH IN LOVE; GATTACA; GREAT EXPECTATIONS; HAMLET; ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13; TAKING LIVES; BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD, WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU AND BROOKLYN’S FINEST. In 2002, Hawke received Academy Award® and Screen Actors Guild® Supporting Actor nominations for his work in Antonie Fuqua’s TRAINING DAY opposite Denzel Washington.

Behind the lens, in 2001, Hawke made his directorial debut with his drama CHELSEA WALLS. The film tells five stories set in a single day at the Chelsea Hotel and stars Uma Thurman, Kris Kristofferson, Rosario Dawson, Natasha Richardson, and Steve Zahn. Additionally, he directed Josh Hamilton in the short film STRAIGHT TO ONE, a story of a couple, young and in love, living in the Chelsea Hotel.

In 1996, Hawke wrote his first novel, The Hottest State, published by Little Brown and now in its nineteenth printing. In his sophomore directorial endeavor, Hawke adapted for the screen and directed the on–screen version of THE HOTTEST STATE and also directed a music video for the film. In 2002, his second novel, Ash Wednesday, was published by Knopf and was chosen for Bloomsbury’s contemporary classics series. In addition to his work as a novelist, Hawke wrote an in–depth and celebrated profile of icon Kris Kristofferson for Rolling Stone in April 2009.

On stage, Hawke most recently appeared playing the title characters in “Clive” (by Jonathan Marc Sherman, The New Group, 2013), which Hawke also directed; and “Ivanov” (by Anton Chekhov, Classic Stage Company, 2012). Hawke first appeared in Chekhov’s “The Seagull” on Broadway at the Lyceum Theater in 1992. Over a long career in theater, Hawke has appeared in Shakespeare’s “Henry IV”; Sam Shepard’s “Buried Child” (Steppenwolf); “Hurlyburly” by David Rabe, for which he earned a Lucille Lortel Award Nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor and Drama League Award Nomination for Distinguished Performance (The New Group); and Tom Stoppard’s “The Coast of Utopia” for which he was honored with a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Play and Drama League Award nomination for Distinguished Performance (Lincoln Center). The inaugural season of The Bridge Project’s double billings of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” and Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale” garnered Hawke a Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play (Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Old Vic). More recently Hawke has been seen in Scott Elliott’s “Blood from a Stone” (The New Group) which garnered him a 2011 Obie Award. Also for theatre, in 2007, Hawke made his Off–Broadway directing debut with the world premiere of Jonathan Marc Sherman’s dark comedy, “Things We Want.” In 2010, Hawke directed Sam Shepard’s “A Lie of the Mind,” for which he received a Drama Desk Nomination for Outstanding Director of a Play; as well as recognition in the New York Times and The New Yorker top ten lists of the leading theatre productions in 2010.

For television, Hawke most recently appeared in the television adaption of MOBY DICK that aired on Encore. He starred as the stalwart and experienced first officer Starbuck, the only member of the crew who dares to oppose Captain Ahab (William Hurt).

Several recent film projects include Pawel Pawlikowski’s THE WOMAN IN THE FIFTH, in which Hawke stars opposite Kristin Scott Thomas as a college lecturer who flees to Paris after a scandal costs him his job. The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and was released by ATO. Hawke also starred in Scott Derrickson’s horror–thriller box office hit SINISTER which was released by Summit October. With a budget of $3 million, it has grossed over $48 million worldwide. He is also currently directing an untitled documentary about an 85 year old piano maestro, Seymour Bernstein.

Hawke recently wrapped production on two more upcoming projects: FIRST, THE PURGE, written and directed by James DeMonaco, will be released by Universal on May 31, 2013. Additionally, he will star in GETAWAY, directed by Ron Levy which will be released by Warner Bros in 2013.

Ethan Hawke was born in 1970 to teen–age parents in Austin, Texas. At the age of thirteen he performed in his first professional play and from a very young age has committed himself entirely to the arts. At the age of twenty one, Hawke founded Malaparte Theater Co., which remained open for more than five years giving young artists a home to develop their craft.

Hawke is happily married with four children.

Julie Delpy

Writer, Actor (Celine)

Julie Delpy has made a name for herself as an accomplished actress, screenwriter, director, and writer in Europe and the U.S. Delpy co–wrote and stars in her most recent film, BEFORE MIDNIGHT, which premiered in 2013 at the Sundance Film Festival. The film is a follow up to its successful predecessors, BEFORE SUNRISE (1995) and BEFORE SUNSET (2004), which earned Delpy an Oscar nomination for co–writing with Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater.

Prior to that, in 2012 Delpy wrote, directed and starred in 2 DAYS IN NEW YORK, a follow up to her critically acclaimed 2007 film, 2 DAYS IN PARIS. The latter film was made independently in Paris, and after rave reviews in Berlin, received global distribution.

Since the tender age of 14, Delpy has worked with some of the world’s most esteemed and intellectual directors, including Jean–Luc Godard for DETECTIVE, Agneiszka Holland for EUROPA EUROPA, Krzysztof Kieslowski for the trilogy “Trois Couleurs,” and Roger Avary for KILLING ZOE as the lead opposite Eric Stoltz. Her list of directors is as versatile as her talents and films. Other film credits include Bertrand Tavernier’s THE PASSION OF BEATRICE, Carlos Saura’s THE DARK NIGHT, and Voker Schlondorff’s VOYAGER.

Delpy has continued to transition seamlessly from acting, composing, writing and directing, with memorable film roles such as: Focus Features BROKEN FLOWERS starring alongside Bill Murray, which was written and directed by Jim Jarmusch; and 2009’s THE COUNTESS, which Delpy also composed, wrote and directed. She also won the director’s prize at San Sebastian film festival for her film THE SKYLAB in 2011.

Delpy’s affinity for acting, which she attributes to her parents, both of whom are actors, is what inspired her to begin directing. In 1997, Julie made her directorial debut with the short film, BLAH BLAH BLAH which was shown at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival.

Delpy truly enjoys immersing herself in the creative process and looks forward to contributing in all aspects of future projects. She currently resides in Los Angeles and Paris. She is fluent in French, English and Italian.

Christos V. Konstantakopoulos

Producer

Christos V. Konstantakopoulos is President and Founder of the international film company Faliro House Productions. He has been involved in producing such award winning films as TAKE SHELTER by Jeff Nichols; ATTENBERG by Athina Rachel Tsangari; L by Babis Makridis; and SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME by Bob Byington. Upcoming films include BEFORE MIDNIGHT by Richard Linklater; ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE by Jim Jarmusch; KNIGHT OF CUPS by Terrence Malick; and THE LIGHT OF GREY by Yannis Economides.

Sara Woodhatch

Producer

Sara Woodhatch’s film credits include: NOTTING HILL, LOVE ACTUALLY, ABOUT A BOY, BRIDGET JONES DIARY, and DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS? She is currently producing under the Faliro House umbrella and has a long–standing relationship with Castle Rock Entertainment.

Jacob Pechenik

Executive Producer

Jacob Pechenik is the President of Venture Forth, a specialty film finance and production company that supports forward–thinking films in collaboration with innovative and independent filmmakers. Most recently, Mr. Pechenik has financed Xan Cassavetes’s 2012 vampire noir, KISS OF THE DAMNED, Atom Egoyan’s DEVIL’S KNOT, and James Gray’s THE IMMIGRANT. Upcoming projects include HATESHIP, FRIENDSHIP with Kristen Wiig and Guy Pearce, THE SKELETON TWINS starring Wiig alongside Bill Hader, and SOLACE, starring Anthony Hopkins and Colin Farrell.

Martin Shafer

Executive Producer

Martin Shafer is the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Castle Rock Entertainment. Prior to BEFORE MIDNIGHT, Castle Rock most recently produced BERNIE and FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS.

Other titles produced include BEFORE SUNRISE and BEFORE SUNSET, DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE MORGANS?, FLIPPED, FRACTURE, MUSIC AND LYRICS, NO RESERVATIONS, SLEUTH, MICHAEL CLAYTON, and THE POLAR EXPRESS. The company has also produced such critically acclaimed films as WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, A FEW GOOD MEN (which was nominated for four Academy Awards), ABSOLUTE POWER, CITY SLICKERS, IN THE LINE OF FIRE, HONEYMOON IN VEGAS, and MISERY, for which Kathy Bates won the Academy Award for Best Actress; THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (nominated for seven Academy Awards), and THE GREEN MILE (nominated for four Academy Awards). The company also produced the enormously popular hit television show “Seinfeld.” In 1995, Castle Rock Entertainment received the Excellence in Filmmaking Award at ShoWest.

Prior to forming Castle Rock, Shafer was President of Production for Embassy Pictures and served as Executive Vice President of Production at Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. In October 2000, Shafer received the Lifetime Achievement Award at Show East.

Shafer’s latest project is the upcoming “Untitled Marc Lawrence Romantic Comedy” starring Hugh Grant and Marisa Tomei, set to shoot in April 2013.

Liz Glotzer

Executive Producer

Liz Glotzer joined Castle Rock Entertainment at its inception, and was promoted to President in 1996. During her tenure, Castle Rock has produced over 75 films including: WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, MISERY, HONEYMOON IN VEGAS, IN THE LINE OF FIRE, DOLORES CLAIBORNE, A FEW GOOD MEN, CITY SLICKERS, BEST IN SHOW, MISS CONGENIALITY, THE POLAR EXPRESS, FRACTURE, and MICHAEL CLAYTON.

Castle Rock Entertainment is known for producing a broad range of movies, from independent releases such as LONE STAR, the BEFORE SUNRISE trilogy, and BERNIE, to studio fare such as MISS CONGENIALITY, THE GREEN MILE and FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS.

In addition to supervising all aspects of production and development for the company, Glotzer has produced or executive produced fifteen movies including THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, FRACTURE, BERNIE, MUSIC & LYRICS, FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS, and the upcoming Untitled Marc Lawrence comedy, starring Hugh Grant and Marisa Tomei that is set to shoot in April 2013.

Prior to joining Castle Rock, she was an executive at the Samuel Goldwyn Company.

John Sloss

Executive Producer

John Sloss is the founder of Cinetic Media and a co–founder of FilmBuff. He is the founder of and a partner in the entertainment law firm Sloss Eckhouse LawCo LLP. He co–founded Producers Distribution Agency, the theatrical distributor of EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP, SENNA, THE WAY and BROOKLYN CASTLE.

Through Cinetic Media, Sloss has facilitated the sale and/or financing of well over 300 films including BEFORE MIDNIGHT, PRINCE AVALANCHE, AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY, SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED, FRIENDS WITH KIDS, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, RED STATE, THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, PRECIOUS, I’M NOT THERE, NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, and SUPER–SIZE ME. Sloss has executive produced over 60 films including BEFORE MIDNIGHT, BERNIE, and the Academy Award®–winning THE FOG OF WAR and BOYS DON’T CRY.

Prior to founding Sloss Law Office in 1993, Sloss was a partner at the international law firm Morrison & Foerster. Sloss received his J.D. and B.A. from the University of Michigan. He lives in New York with his daughter Loulou and son Henry.

Christos Voudouris

Director of Photography

Born in Paris, Christos Voudouris holds both French and Greek nationality, speaks French, Greek, English, Spanish and Italian, and has shot feature films, short films, television documentaries, and hundreds of TV ad commercials in more than 40 countries around the world.

After earning his French Baccalaureat and participating in photography clubs in France, Voudouris moved to Greece, where he studied chemical engineering at Athens Polytechnic School and worked at a still photographer’s studio. He studied film photography at Athens Stavrakos School of Cinematography, starting work as assistant camera in feature films and commercials with Director/Director of Photography Georges Panousopoulos. From 1991, Christos worked as DP on over 700 commercials worldwide. He began his feature film DP career in 1992 with THE CHARIOTEER directed by Alexis Damianos. Among his other feature film DP credits are LYSSIPOS, a feature documentary directed by Nikos Franghias; and TERRA INCOGNITA, directed by Yannis Tipaldos, which won the Greek National Award in 1993.

Most recently, prior to his work as DP on BEFORE MIDNIGHT, Christos photographed ALPS (2011), directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, which won numerous international film festival awards including Osella Award at the Venice Film Festival 2011 (also nominated for the Golden Lion Award at Venice); First Award in Sydney Film Festival 2012; Fipresci Award 2012; official selection at Toronto Film Festival, and other honors.

Christos has also won prestigious awards for short films, television productions, and countless honors for his advertising work for top–level international brands, working with numerous acclaimed directors.

Anna Georgiadou

Set Designer

Anna Georgiadou has worked as an Art Director and Set Designer in Greek cinema and television since 1998. She studied architecture at the Polytechnic School of Thessaloniki and theatre design in London at Motleys Theatre Design Course in the 1980s, and worked as an architect in Athens and as a theatre designer in London and Athens. Among her film credits are the feature films APLES and KINETA directed by George Lanthimos; ONEIRO TOU SKILOU directed by Agelos Frazis; and O KALITEROS MOU FILOS by G. Lanthimos and G. Lazopoulos; and short films URANISCO DISCO by G. Lanthimos and FAKIRIS by B. Makridis.

Sandra Adair, A.C.E.

Editor

Sandra Adair, A.C.E., is an award winning feature film editor who resides in Austin, Texas, having moved there from Los Angeles in 1991. Adair has enjoyed an ongoing artistic collaboration with film director Richard Linklater, having edited 17 films for him over the past 20 years, beginning with Dazed and Confused. Sandra edited Linklater’s Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight

trilogy starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, as well as the two animated films Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, the recent comedy hit Bernie, and many others. She was nominated for an Eddie Award for Best Editing of a Musical or Comedy by the American Cinema Editors for School of Rock, starring Jack Black. Sandra has also won numerous awards for her documentary editing work on the feature doc Shepard and Dark, which is headed to the Cannes Film Festival this year. Some of her other recent credits include Everything Must Go, starring Will Ferrell for director Dan Rush, and the environmental documentary feature, Sushi: The Global Catch. Sandra has experience on studio features, indies, documentaries and TV series. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and American Cinema Editors and remains very active in the local film community in Austin, TX, as a mentor to young filmmakers and as a member of the Austin Film Society.

Vince Palmo

Co–Producer

Vincent Palmo, Jr. is a member of both the DGA and the WGA. He has been an assistant director off and on for Richard Linklater for over 20 years. Along with wife, Holly Gent Palmo, he co–wrote and co–produced Linklater’s “Me and Orson Welles.” He lives in Austin with Holly and their three children. Since shooting in Greece he really misses grilled talagani and pastelli.

Athina Rachel Tsangari

Co–Producer

Athina Rachel Tsangari’s introduction to cinema began with a small role in Richard Linklater’s seminal film SLACKER. She attended NYU’s Performance Studies program, then studied film directing at the University of Texas at Austin. Her first short film FIT was a finalist for the Student Academy Awards. Her graduate thesis feature, THE SLOW BUSINESS OF GOING (2001), a lo–fi–sci–fi road movie, was shot in nine cities around the world. The 2002 Village Voice Critics Poll listed it as one of the year’s “best first films”, it garnered several directing awards, and it now belongs in MoMA’s permanent film collection. While a film student in Austin, she co–founded and was the artistic director of the groundbreaking Cinematexas International Short Film Festival, which ran for ten years (1997–2007). In 2004, she was invited to serve as the projections designer and video director for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games Opening & Closing Ceremonies. She has been working as a projections designer ever since. In 2009, she created Reflections, an outdoors series of mega–scale HD projections, commissioned for the inauguration of the Bernard Tschumi–designed Acropolis Museum in Athens.

Her sophomore feature ATTENBERG premiered in main competition at the 2010 Venice Film Festival, where it won the Coppa Volpi Award for Best Actress for its protagonist, Ariane Labed, and went on to win 13 more awards at festivals worldwide. It was Greece’s Best Foreign Language Film submission to the 2011 Academy Awards, and runner–up for the Lux prize for Best European film.

She founded Haos Film in 2005, a filmmaker–run production & post–production studio based in her native city of Athens, Greece. Among her credits as producer are three films directed by Yorgos Lanthimos: KINETTA (2005), DOGTOOTH (Un Certain Regard prize winner at Cannes 2009, and a finalist for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2010 Academy Awards), and ALPS (2011 Venice FF, Osella Award for Best Screenplay.) She was a co–producer on Richard Linklater’s BEFORE MIDNIGHT (third installment of the “Before Sunrise” series, shot in Messinia, Greece) where she also appeared in a small acting role.

The script for her upcoming sci–fi comedy DUNCHARON (co–written with her longtime collaborator Matt Johnson) was awarded the “ARTE France Cinema” Award for best European project in development, at Rotterdam’s CineMart 2012.

Her latest film THE CAPSULE, commissioned by the Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, premiered at the 2012 Locarno, 2012 Toronto and 2013 Sundance film festivals to critical acclaim.

She recently served as a jury member at the 2013 Berlinale international competition, headed by jury president Wong Kar Wei. She serves as a creative advisor at the Sundance Feature Film Program Directing lab, and at the Sundance Istanbul and Jordan screenwriter labs.

She is a co–founder and Chair of the Athens New School film program, the first film school of its kind in Greece, inspired and informed by her experience as a graduate student and lecturer at UT Austin’s Radio TV Film program.

Graham Reynolds

Composer

Called the quintessential modern composer by the London Independent, Austin–based composer–bandleader Graham Reynolds creates, performs, and records music for film, theater, dance, rock clubs and concert halls with collaborators ranging from Richard Linklater and Jack Black to DJ Spooky and Ballet Austin. Heard throughout the world in films, on TV, on stage, and on the radio, from HBO to Showtime, Cannes Film Festival to the Kennedy Center, and BBC to NPR, he recently scored Bernie featuring Jack Black as well as the Hulu TV series Up To Speed, and his score to the Robert Downey, Jr. feature A Scanner Darkly was named Best Soundtrack of the Decade by Cinema Retro Magazine. With Golden Arm Trio, Reynolds has repeatedly toured the country and released four critically acclaimed albums. As Co–Artistic Director of Golden Hornet Project with Peter Stopschinski, Reynolds has produced more than fifty concerts of world–premier alt–classical music by more than sixty composers, as well as five symphonies, two concertos and countless chamber pieces of his own. With Forklife Danceworks, Reynolds has scored pieces involving 18 trash trucks, 200 two–steppers, and a solo piece for traffic cop. A company member of the internationally acclaimed Rude Mechs and resident composer with Salvage Vanguard Theater, Reynolds last released two albums simultaneously: The Difference Engine: A Triple Concerto and DUKE! Three Portraits of Ellington on Innova Records with distribution by Naxos, the world’s biggest classical label. Find out more at grahamreynolds.com.

Reviews
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CRITICS PICK

"Before Midnight" is a wonderful paradox: a movie passionately committed to the ideal of imperfection that is itself very close to perfect."

- A.O. Scott, NY TIMES


HIGHEST RATING

"The characters are so complex that talking about them is like talking about real people...The delightful conversations of the previous movies have given way to arguments...impressively written and unprecedented in American cinema."

- Mike LaSalle, SF CHRONICLE


5 STARS HIGHEST RATING

"A wonderful movie...What they're saying is so genuine, so real, you can't turn away."

- Bill Goodykoontz, THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC


"In Richard Linklater's "Before Midnight," we see an extended sequence more daring and in some ways just as thrilling as anything we're likely to experience in any 2013 movie about super-humans who can fly or futuristic galaxies filled with glorious and dangerous sights...A rich, smart, funny, sometimes acidic portrayal of a couple who can be spectacular when they're in tune — and toxic when they're at each other's throats."

- Richard Roeper, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES


"A beautiful film"

- Michael Phillips, CHICAGO TRIBUNE


"This articulate movie is a wonder to behold."

- Matt Pais, RED EYE CHICAGO


"If I were only allowed to see one movie this year, I'd want it to be Before Midnight. If I were only allowed two trips to a theater this year, I'd see it twice."

- Mary Pols, TIME.COM


4 STARS HIGHEST RATING

"Midnight strikes perfection...Finding romance is easy. Staying together is hard. Making a movie this warm, funny, and rigorously truthful about lovers trying to remain partners is even harder."

- Farran Smith Nehme, NY POST


5 STARS HIGHEST RATING

"The great cinematic love story of this era"

- Joe Nuemaier, NY DAILY NEWS


GRADE A HIGHEST RATING

"Before Midnight" confounds expectations in powerful and even haunting ways..."Before Midnight" is happy, sad, bitter, tragic, and redemptive, but it is never predictable...Linklater stages the escalating relationship war with a casual, flowing virtuosity, and he taps into Jesse and Celine's competitive tensions in a way that reflects the divisive spirit of our era. This deeply bittersweet movie suggests that our long-term relationships sustain themselves over time by dying in order to be reborn. "Before Midnight" is enchanting entertainment that's also the most honest and moving film about love in years."

- Owen Gleiberman, ENTERTAINEMENT WEEKLY


4 OUT OF 4 STARS

"Whatever a modern love story is, Before Midnight takes it to the next level. It's damn near perfect. Richard Linklater, who wrote the script with the actors, infuses the movie with the ardent, awkward freshness of a first kiss...The defining movie love story of a generation, flush with humor, heartbreak and ravishing romance...An award-caliber screenplay...Heads up, Oscar, this one's a keeper."

- Peter Travers, ROLLINGSTONE


5 OUT OF 5 STARS

"A glorious movie...You won't want to miss. Magnificent."

- Joshua Rothkopf, TIME OUT NY


"Stunningly brilliant. Arguably the best third entry in a trilogy, ever."

- Marlow Stern, NEWSWEEK


"Simply great...The exchanges are never less then brilliant, the jokes pop out with unmatched speed and there are no dead silences."

- Roger Ebert, SUNTIMES.COM


"I'm convinced that "Before Midnight" is Richard Linklater's masterpiece, a genuinely perfect thing."

- David Ehrlich, FILM.COM


"There is so much to praise here that it's hard to know what to single out."

- Christopher Kelly, TEXAS MONTHLY


Grade A+

"Before Midnight" is the rare cinematic achievement that implicates alert viewers in its mission to understand the mysteries of intimate connections."

- Eric Kohn, INDIEWIRE


"It does not take place in real time. It is set on a beautiful island in Greece. Oh, and it's perfect...Hopefully you'll be as surprised and delighted and moved as I was."

- Katey Rich, CINEMABLEND


"Funny, heartbreaking, honest, Before Midnight is a triumph, solidifying this as quite possibly the greatest and most satisfying trilogy ever made."

- Adam Chitwood, COLLIDER


5 STARS

"There's truth in the stunning dialogue of Before Midnight that has rarely been found in any films about married life...What's so breathtaking about Before Midnight is the honesty of this truly stunning script from Hawke, Delpy, and Linklater."

- Brian Tellerico, FILM THREAT


"I fell for this movie just like everyone else. As I said the moment it ended, I could not stop smiling the entire movie. Richard Linklater nailed it. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy take it right to where it needed to be, and bring us on another extraordinary, gorgeous, emotional, honest, intimate journey into the lives of two soul mates. This movie is perfect, I truly mean it. This is cinema at its finest."

- Alex Billington, FIRST SHOWING


"One of the great movie romances of the modern era achieves its richest and fullest expression...Exquisite, melancholy, hilarious and cathartic...A wise and wondrously intimate picture."

- Justin Chang, VARIETY