Joel Daniel Coen and Ethan Jesse Coen, together known as the Coen brothers, are an American filmmaking duo. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody. Among their most acclaimed works are Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), No Country for Old Men (2007), A Serious Man (2009), True Grit (2010) and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013).
Peter Lindsay Weir is an Australian retired film director. He is known for directing films crossing various genres over forty years with films such as Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Gallipoli (1981), The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Witness (1985), Dead Poets Society (1989), Fearless (1993), The Truman Show (1998), Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), and The Way Back (2010). He has received six Academy Award nominations. In 2022, he was awarded the Academy Honorary Award for his lifetime achievement career. In 2024, he received an honorary life-time achievement award at the Venice Film Festival.
Dead Poets Society is a 1989 American coming-of-age drama film directed by Peter Weir and written by Tom Schulman. The film, starring Robin Williams, is set in 1959 at a fictional elite boarding school called Welton Academy, and tells the story of an English teacher who inspires his students through his teaching of poetry.
Julie Delpy is a French and American actress, screenwriter, and film-director. She studied filmmaking at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and has directed, written, and acted in more than 30 films, including Europa Europa (1990), Voyager (1991), Three Colours: White (1993), the Before trilogy, An American Werewolf in Paris (1997), and 2 Days in Paris (2007).
Alan Wolf Arkin was an American actor, filmmaker and musician. In a career spanning seven decades, he received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award as well as nominations for six Emmy Awards.
Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, author, and film director. He made his film debut in Explorers (1985), before making a breakthrough performance in Dead Poets Society (1989). Hawke starred alongside Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater's Before trilogy from 1995 to 2013. Hawke received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Training Day (2001) and Boyhood (2014) and two for Best Adapted Screenplay for co-writing Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013). Other notable roles include in Reality Bites (1994), Gattaca (1997), Great Expectations (1998), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), Maggie's Plan (2015), First Reformed (2017), The Black Phone (2021), and The Northman (2022).
Waking Life is a 2001 American adult animated drama film written and directed by Richard Linklater. The film explores a wide range of philosophical issues, including the nature of reality, dreams and lucid dreams, consciousness, the meaning of life, free will, and existentialism. The series of insightful philosophical discussions at the core of the film are progressed by a young man who wanders through a succession of dreamlike realities wherein he encounters a series of interesting characters.
Bruce Allen Davison is an American actor who has appeared in more than 270 films, television and stage productions since his debut in 1968. His breakthrough role was as Willard Stiles in the 1971 cult horror film Willard. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and won a Golden Globe Award and an Independent Spirit Award for his performance in Longtime Companion (1989).
Richard Stuart Linklater is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is known for making films that deal thematically with suburban culture and the effects of the passage of time. His films include the comedies Slacker (1990) and Dazed and Confused (1993); the Before trilogy of romance films: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013); the music-themed comedy School of Rock (2003); the adult animated films Waking Life (2001), A Scanner Darkly (2006), and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022); the coming-of-age drama Boyhood (2014); the comedy film Everybody Wants Some!! (2016); and the romantic comedy Hit Man (2023).
Before Sunrise is a 1995 romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater and co-written by Linklater and Kim Krizan, and is the first installment in the Before trilogy. In the film, Jesse and Céline meet on a Eurail train and disembark in Vienna to spend the night together.
Before Sunset is a 2004 American romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, from a story by Linklater and Kim Krizan. It is the first film by Warner Independent Pictures. The sequel to Before Sunrise (1995) and the second installment in the Before trilogy, Before Sunset follows Jesse (Hawke) and Céline (Delpy) as they reunite nine years later in Paris.
Boyhood is a 2014 American epic coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Richard Linklater, and starring Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, and Ethan Hawke. Filmed from 2002 to 2013, Boyhood depicts the childhood and adolescence of Mason Evans Jr. (Coltrane) from ages six to eighteen as he grows up in Texas with divorced parents. Richard Linklater's daughter Lorelei plays Mason's sister, Samantha.
2 Days in Paris is a 2007 romantic comedy-drama film written, co-produced, edited, scored and directed by Julie Delpy, and stars Delpy, Adam Goldberg and Daniel Brühl. It was followed by the 2012 sequel 2 Days in New York.
Nicole Maria Burdette is an American playwright and actress. She is also an assistant professor at The New School for Drama.
Stephen Belber is an American playwright, screenwriter and film director. His plays have been produced on Broadway and in over 50 countries. He directed the film adaptation of his Broadway play Match, starring Patrick Stewart. He created the Netflix series The Madness, starring Colman Domingo, Marsha Stephanie Blake, and John Ortiz and wrote and directed What We Do Next, starring Michelle Veintimilla, Karen Pittman, and Corey Stoll. He also wrote and directed the film Management, starring Jennifer Aniston, Steve Zahn and Woody Harrelson, and wrote the HBO film O.G., starring Jeffrey Wright, Theothus Carter, and William Fichtner. Belber was an actor and associate writer on The Laramie Project, as well as a co-writer of The Laramie Project, Ten Years Later.
Shelby Shook Gaines is an American composer, musician, and writer. He is the son of novelist Charles Gaines and artist Patricia Ellisor Gaines.
Before Midnight is a 2013 American romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. The sequel to Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), it is the third installment in the Before trilogy. The film follows Jesse (Hawke) and Céline (Delpy), now a couple, as they spend a summer vacation in Greece with their children.
Cymbeline is a 2014 American crime thriller film written, produced, and directed by Michael Almereyda, based on the play of the same name by William Shakespeare. The film stars Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, Milla Jovovich, John Leguizamo, and Dakota Johnson.
Ron Cephas Jones was an American actor, best known for his role as William Hill in the drama series This Is Us (2016–2022), which earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award; along with four consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning twice for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2018 and 2020.
The Before Trilogy consists of three American romance films directed by Richard Linklater, and starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Beginning with Before Sunrise (1995), and continuing with two sequels, Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013). The films were all written by Linklater, along with Kim Krizan on the first film, and with Hawke and Delpy on the last two.
