Before Sunrise remains one of cinema’s great romantic sucker punches. Jesse and Céline meet on a train, spend one dreamy night wandering Vienna, fall into that dangerous zone between strangers and soulmates, then separate at dawn without exchanging contact information.

Their only lifeline is a promise to meet again six months later. In 1995, that uncertainty gave Richard Linklater’s romance its aching pulse. In 2026, apparently it looks like two attractive people suffering from a catastrophic failure to open Contacts. Ethan Hawke discovered exactly that when his daughter introduced the movie to friends.

Who could not understand why Jesse and Céline simply failed to swap numbers.

During GQ’s One More Question, Ethan Hawke recalled his eldest daughter showing Before Sunrise to friends and asking what they thought afterward. The verdict was unintentionally savage.

“Love that movie, but it was just so unrealistic,” Hawke remembered them saying.

Their central complaint was beautifully simple: why did Jesse and Céline have no phones, and why would they leave without sharing their numbers? 

Hawke had to explain something that apparently now requires archaeological context. Cell phones were not an everyday accessory when Before Sunrise was filmed in 1994.

“They thought we were making an artistic choice to have Jesse and Celine not have a phone,” he said. 

That misunderstanding says something wonderfully strange about how technology has aged the film. Jesse and Céline agreeing to meet at the same train station six months later once felt romantic, reckless, and terrifyingly fragile. Today, two people can preserve a connection through Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, email, three group chats, and probably a location-sharing request before dessert arrives.

Linklater himself has previously reflected on how different that story would be now, noting that the scarcity of connection gave the original film its urgency. The moment had to be seized because it could genuinely disappear. So Before Sunrise has accidentally become a period piece about a terrifying historical phenomenon: being unreachable.

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Hawke may be watching one classic become alien to younger viewers, but his current television work is staying firmly rooted in a very real place.

Ethan Hawke returned as Lee Raybon when The Lowdown Season 2 premiered October 14 on FX, with episodes also streaming on Hulu. Lee remains the self-described Tulsa “truthstorian,” rare-book dealer, and professional magnet for trouble whose obsession with corruption tends to end with somebody threatening him. 

Season 2 adds Tommy Lee Jones as Lee Raybon Sr., his estranged grifter father, which becomes particularly awkward because Lee has spent years telling daughter Francis that her grandfather is dead. Betty Gilpin also joins the eight-episode season, giving Sterlin Harjo’s noir another pair of heavyweight performers to unleash inside Tulsa. 

The city remains essential to the show’s personality. Hawke told GQ that filming in Tulsa was part of the attraction, praising the communities, musicians, artists, and local characters he encountered there. His enthusiasm was emphatic enough that he joked performers unwilling to shoot in Oklahoma did not deserve the opportunity. 

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What do you think about younger viewers finding Before Sunrise unrealistic because Jesse and Céline never exchanged numbers? Let us know in the comments.