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Created Feb 27, 2008 02:07AM PST • Edited Jun 03, 2013 06:34PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   A perfect romance for the highly verbal. After meeting on a train, the cynical American guy and the tartly romantic French gal talk and talk. By turns delirious, impudent and philosophical, their conversation turns a one night stand into more of a one-night-talk.

   The story concludes in Before Sunset.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Ethan Hawke captures well a guy we all know: the talented child of privilege from a broken home who becomes a slightly slippery adult.

   Julia Delpy nicely conveys a sweet intelligence, and does it in three languages.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    All hail Richard Linklater, a true auteur. He does avant-garde (Waking Life), comedy (The School of Rock), and perfect romance with Before Sunrise.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play Perfect 5.0

    Before Sunrise has to be one of the best ever two person conversation movies. Though radically different, only My Dinner with Andre compares to it in terms of intense extended dialogue. But that movie depended on Andre Gregory’s huge talent as a monologist. Before Sunrise is scripted, wonderfully so by Richard Linklater and Kim Krizan.

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    Partially funded by the city of Vienna, the movie is a beautiful postcard of an exquisitely romantic city.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.4

    They finally do do the deed, though off screen in this throwback romance of a movie.

17. Sex Titillating 1.8

18. Violence Gentle 1.0

19. Rudeness Polite 1.3

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

    Though entirely natural, the circumstantial reality is worth a comment. To wit, the movie takes place dead smack in the middle of the Clinton years, during the vacation from history that began when the Berlin Wall came down and ended when the Twin Towers were brought down. This came to mind when Ethan Hawke’s Jesse tossed off the throwaway line “I don’t really know if there is an enemy.” In the mid-90s, there wasn’t.

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0