10 Trilogies That Actually Get Better With Each Movie

There are very few, if any, film trilogies like Richard Linklater's Before Trilogy. Set in real time, nine years apart from each other, the story follows Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine's (Julie Delpy) lives in three intervals across an 18-year period, in 1995, 2004, and 2013.

With each picture so far apart, and the characters at very different points in their lives, the chapters of this particular story are very different and clearly defined. The two meet and spend a passionate and hopeful night together in Vienna during Before Sunrise, before a nine-year gap where they never saw or spoke to each other again.

Before Sunset then brings them back together, both further along with their lives, more mature, but still feeling the profound effects of their chance meeting almost a decade earlier. Rather than hopeful, this chapter is a tale of regret and wondering what could have been.

There could be an argument made for Sunset being the best of the Before movies, but Before Midnight offers something completely different. Nine years later, Jesse and Celine are married and focus on how they resent their relationship and what could have been if they had stayed apart. It's a much tougher watch, it's a more honest and raw look at long-term relationships, and it is brave in its depiction of such.

Fans of the series eagerly awaited to see whether Jesse and Celine would return another nine years later in 2022, but thankfully it seems that Linklater knew when to finish the story.