Before Sunrise is ninety minutes of two strangers talking, and it is one of the most romantic films ever made.

Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) meet on a train from Budapest. Jesse has one night before his flight home from Vienna. He persuades Celine to get off the train and spend it with him. They walk through Vienna. They talk. That is the film.

Richard Linklater understands that real romantic connection is built from specific conversation. Jesse and Celine discuss death, past relationships, the nature of memory, poetry, what makes a life feel meaningful. It sounds like how actual articulate young people talk when they are trying to impress someone they have started to love.

The film was followed by Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013), both among the finest romance films in cinema history. But this first entry has something the others cannot have: the morning when everything is still possible.