Best of the Decade #4: Before Sunset

Before Sunset may be the most written about movie in the still-brief history of this publication. Since many Reverse Shot writers are just a few years younger than Jesse and Celine, the reasons for the film’s galvanizing appeal are rather obvious. We were old enough to have appreciated the earnest intensity of Sunrise and its protagonists when it came out but young enough to buy into its starry-eyed idealism. And Sunset, with its jaded, desperate longing, expressed with expert grace, speaks directly to a generation of cinephiles who now find themselves with both feet planted in that terrifying territory called adulthood.