In the film, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) meet on a Eurail train and disembark in Vienna to spend the night together.

Jesse is going to Vienna to catch a flight back to the United States, whereas Céline is returning to university in Paris after visiting her grandmother.

When they reach Vienna, Jesse asks Céline to disembark with him, saying that 10 or 20 years down the road, she might not be happy with her significant other and might wonder how her life would have been different if she had picked someone else.

After visiting a few landmarks in Vienna, they share a kiss at the top of the Wiener Riesenrad at sunset and start to feel a romantic connection.

As they continue to roam around the city, they begin to talk more openly with each other, with conversations ranging from topics about love, life, religion, and their observations of Vienna.

He found a cheap flight home, via Vienna, but it did not leave for two weeks so he bought a Eurail pass and traveled around Europe.

They are underlined by the poem "Delusion Angel", which evokes a longing for complete and unifying, possibly even redeeming, understanding between two partners in a world which is itself unknowable, and over which one can exercise no control.

It is reflected by the actions of Jesse and Céline, whose joint stream of consciousness, initiated by a previously unmeditated decision to leave the train together, allows them to temporarily detach themselves from the world, and enter a realm where only the other's company is of importance.

The people buried in the cemetery have found anonymity in death; by learning to know and understand one another, Céline and Jesse experience and embrace life, suspending their own mortality.

Critic Robin Wood has written that, after he published an essay on the film (in a 1996 issue of CineAction), Linklater wrote him to say that "neither he nor the two actors ever doubted that the date would be kept.

The site's critics consensus reads "Thought-provoking and beautifully filmed, Before Sunrise is an intelligent, unabashedly romantic look at modern love, led by marvelously natural performances from Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.

[23] Film critic Roger Ebert gave Before Sunrise three out of four and described Delpy as "ravishingly beautiful and, more important, warm and matter-of-fact, speaking English so well the screenplay has to explain it (she spent some time in the States)".

[24] In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote "Before Sunrise is as uneven as any marathon conversation might be, combining colorful, disarming insights with periodic lulls.

[26] In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Peter Rainer wrote "It's an attempt to make a mainstream youth movie with a bit more feeling and mysteriousness than most, and, in this, it succeeds".

[27] Marjorie Baumgarten, in her review for The Austin Chronicle, wrote "Before Sunrise represents a maturation of Linklater's work in terms of its themes and choice of characters".

[28] In his review for The New Yorker, Anthony Lane wrote "Just once, for a single day, Jesse and Céline have given life the sort of shape and charge that until now they have found only in fiction, and may never find again".

[29] Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A−" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote "Small movies can be as daring as big ones, and Linklater, in his offhand way, is working without a net here.

[33] In 2010 British newspaper The Guardian ranked Before Sunrise/Before Sunset #3 on its critics' list of 25 best romantic films of all time, and #2 in an online readers' poll.