Plot Summary

Before Sunset continues the intimate journey of Jesse and Celine, two people bound by a connection that time has failed to erase. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy return as the American Jesse and the French Celine, whose brief but transformative encounter nine years earlier in Viyana shaped the course of their emotional lives. Although they had promised to reunite six months later, life intervened, and that promise was never fulfilled.

Years later, Jesse has become a novelist and is in Paris for a book signing, promoting a novel inspired by that unforgettable night. As the event draws to a close and his departure time approaches, Celine unexpectedly appears. Their reunion is charged with unspoken emotions, lingering regrets, and the weight of the lives they have built apart.

Both are no longer free in the way they once were. Jesse is trapped in an unhappy marriage, while Celine has a boyfriend and a life shaped by compromises. Yet, as they wander through Paris, talking with raw honesty about love, choices, politics, and missed chances, it becomes clear that their emotional bond remains profoundly alive.

With only a few hours before Jesse must leave, Before Sunset unfolds in real time, capturing the fragile intensity of two souls confronting what might have been—and what still could be. The film is a poignant meditation on love, timing, and the quiet ache of possibilities that refuse to fade.