One of my all-time favorites is Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy. I enjoy the second film, Before Sunset, best. But the premise of the original Before Sunrise is fantastic. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meet on a train.
Before Sunrise
Jesse (Hawke) is on his way to Vienna before flying home to the U.S. the next morning. He persuades Céline (Delpy) to get off the train with him in Vienna and spend the night walking around the city, because he has no money for a hotel and because this is their one chance to see what happens between them. His pitch is that years later she might regret not finding out.
Trains can be romantic, even if urban planner types fetishize them to the utmost degree. This is clearly wrong (and I’d point out that there are no kids until the third film, Before Midnight).
Hot take: You simply can't have a Before Sunrise experience on a plane.
More trains means higher birthrates.
— Mark R. Brown, AICP, CNU (@CompletedStreet) April 21, 2026
You cannot just choose to get off a plane somewhere along the way to your destination. It is accurate that trains generally make more stops. So two passengers, heading to different places, aren’t going to just take off together. However,
- They could go off together when the plane lands, whether it’s their destination or a connecting city.
- They could get off at an intermediate stop on an Alaska Airlines intra-Alaska milk run, or the United Island Hopper (but not at all the stops).
- Or just join the Mile High Club.
— aney stokes (@VideosIrish) September 10, 2023
Vienna is so much better than an airplane lavatory, though! Before Sunrise is built around pieces of the city – train station, streets, a record store booth, cafe, cemetery, ferris wheel. Each location changes the emotional backdrop and the conversation that they have. Moving around the city helps the conversation never feel static.
The city is neutral ground (but then again so is the lav). Neither Jesse nor Céline is from there, and they are free of family, friends, and routines. They can become more fully verbal versions of themselves, or the story they tell themselves or who they are and want to be.
Before Sunrise
They are wandering through an old European city full of history, art, and public spaces. They’ve not going to have the same inspired talks about love, time, or regret in an airport hotel bar. I do not mean to downplay the importance of hotels. A chance encounter at the Hyatt Regency Austin put Matthew McConaughey in Linklater’s Dazed and Confused and launched his career.
Spoiler: Paris works so well, too, when they re-connect nine years later in the second film. It’s not the train, though, that brings them together. And it doesn’t see them together for nine more years after that first night.
Nice appeal to nostalgia (and my fondness for choo-choos), Gary!
That said, most urban planners are heavily pushing for high speed trains, and this type of scenario doesn’t happen as much on high speed trains (or trains just below high speed, like the Amtrak regional). Those trains are more atmospherically similar to airplanes than conventional long distance trains. Everyone does their own thing, no one walks about, and then they get off. As someone who takes the northeast regional frequently, there’s just not a lot of opportunity for a meaningful conversation like this to happen
I did.
I was on “Wheel of Fortune” when I was 19 and won, among other things, a trip to Eastern Europe.
On the flight back from Vienna to California, I sat next to a stunning and charming 18 year old German lass named Petra.
We had a three year intercontinental romance. In those days, an overseas telephone call cost $1.00 a minute…and those were early 80’s dollars not the Sky Pesos of today.
It was among the best experiences of my life
I actually met and dated my seatmate from a flight from EWR – BOS. (Yeah, I had to work pretty quick!) Didn’t work out long term…but it counts right?
However, a buddy of mine met his seatmate on a flight to ATL. He was connecting to Tucson and she to somewhere else. They both had about a 3-hour layover. He had Sky Club access plus guest passes. So, they continued their conversation over drinks and wound up becoming a thing. So, it can happen…
Definitely plane romance can work. I met my husband on a plane to Tokyo. I was from Chicago, he was from Charlotte. We talked from Seattle to Tokyo, then he asked me to a yakitori dinner the following evening. The next day we toured and dinner again. We returned home and continued a long distance relationship until he had a job transfer to california. We got married moved to california and had 37 fabulous years before he passed.
A long time ago, I met a girl at a bar in Montreal airport. Turned out we were on the same flight to Dublin on Aer Lingus. I was going to school in Ireland at the time. Ended up sitting together on the plane and talked non stop throughout the flight. The FA tending to us was the niece of one of my teachers so we got a little “over served.” After we disembarked she invited me to stay at her (mom and dads) place . Her dad picked us up, no questions asked and had a great week together until I had to go back to school in Tipperary. (Rockwell College).
Wonderful relationship and good times.
I met my person mid-alr SFO-JFK. 28 years ago!
I found the interactions between Eva Marie Saint’s and Gary Grant’s characters on the train in North by Northwest spectacular. And, of course, you can find something other than love: Two Strangers on a Train.
This was a fun article. I’m of that era of movie going, and can’t recall ever hearing of these film trios. You’ve intrigued me and I’ll be searching them out sometime.
A more pertinent question might be whether you can murder people on planes the way you can on trains. Murder on the Orient Express is the most famous, but there are several others.
There are a few stories of murders on planes, but not as many as on trains. And there are a few on cruises, the most famous again being Christie’s Death on the Nile
Oh, and I forgot — Maclean had several murder mystery/thrillers set on ships, although only one was really a cruise ship
Once met a lady on a red-eye from CLE to LAX. On the flight her hair was in a bun. When we met for a date, her hair went down to her knees. The relationship only went on for a few dates, but was fun while it lasted.