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Passes the Bechdel test

Before Midnight

2013. Directed by Richard Linklater, written by Richard Linklater and Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke.

The Bechdel test

Bechdel score

3 / 3

Passes

  1. Yes 1. At least two women
    6 women characters. 5 of them speak.
  2. Yes 2. Who talk to each other
    In 3 scenes out of 24.
  3. Yes 3. About something besides a man
    In those scenes, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.

Second opinion

Agree bechdeltest.com readers give it 3 out of 3.

Poster for Before Midnight

The film

It has been nine years since we last met Jesse and Celine, the French-American couple who once met on a train in Vienna. They now live in Paris with twin daughters, but have spent a summer in Greece on the invitation of an author colleague of Jesse's. When the vacation is over and Jesse must send his teenage son off to the States, he begins to question his life decisions, and his relationship with Celine is at risk.

Released
14 Jun 2013
Genres
Drama, Romance
Rated
R
IMDb
7.9 / 10
Metascore
94 / 100
Awards
Nominated for 1 Oscar. 20 wins & 65 nominations total
Elsewhere
View on IMDb

Starring, by lines spoken

  • Women
  • Men
  • Not in the cast list
  • Bigger name, more lines
  1. Jesse 528 lines, man
  2. Celine 494 lines, woman
  3. Stefanos 65 lines, man
  4. Ariadni 34 lines, woman
  5. Hank 32 lines, man
  6. Anna 21 lines, woman
  7. Achilles 19 lines
  8. Patrick 17 lines, man
  9. Sofia 12 lines
  10. Ella 4 lines
Full cast, 18 people
  • Ethan Hawke as Jesse
  • Julie Delpy as Céline
  • Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick as Hank
  • Jennifer Prior as Ella
  • Charlotte Prior as Nina
  • Xenia Kalogeropoulou as Natalia
  • Walter Lassally as Patrick
  • Ariane Labed as Anna
  • Yiannis Papadopoulos as Achilleas
  • Athina Rachel Tsangari as Ariadni
  • Panos Koronis as Stefanos
  • Enrico Focardi as Child
  • Manolis Goussias as Child
  • Anouk Servera as Child
  • Yota Argyropoulou as Hotel Clerk
  • Serafeim Radis as Hotel Clerk
  • John Sloss as Airport Traveller in Opening Scene (uncredited)
  • Tety Kalafati as Air Stewardess (uncredited)

Who talks, scene by scene

Lines of dialogue in every 1 scene, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 4% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.

Women

Men

Scene 1 Scene 24

Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.

Show the numbers
ScenesWomen's linesMen's lines
1 to 100
2 to 2067
3 to 310
4 to 4113106
5 to 586
6 to 600
7 to 700
8 to 800
9 to 920
10 to 10019
11 to 1180
12 to 12033
13 to 1300
14 to 14167
15 to 1501
16 to 16100101
17 to 176260
18 to 183736
19 to 191110
20 to 202823
21 to 2110
22 to 22811
23 to 23122121
24 to 243941

The evidence

  • Straight from the script
  • Counted from the script and the credits

Tap an exhibit to open it.

Exhibit A: the passing scenes

The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.
CELINE: I mean, I love it here. This place is amazing. These tomatoes are so amazing. I can... I can smell them! They smell so good. ARIADNI: Yeah, Patrick is very proud of them. CELINE: I know it's stupid but when we were about to leave Paris I was a little nervous to come here. And now that we're about to leave, I don't wan… NATALIA: Why were you nervous?
CELINE: In France we stuff the tomatoes with tomatoes and the peppers with peppers. ARIADNI: Oh, really? Because we use the same stuffing for both, because of the way it reacts differently, in terms of taste. Oh, and Celine, make sur… CELINE: Okay okay, yeah.
CELINE: Okay, negotiating, that's what you call it? Wow, Negotiating with knives. ARIADNI: Exactly. CELINE: Not bad.
CELINE: Wow, so you found a system that works for you. ARIADNI: Mm-hm. CELINE: I thought it was called a relationship. But I like "system", that's pretty good. That's ready, right?
CELINE: And you, what's your system? CELINE: What about this system? ANNA: Not bad.

Exhibit B: every 100 lines

Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 46 are women's.

556 lines from women, 642 from men.

  • Women
  • Men

Exhibit C: who's in it

6 women and 6 men in the cast. 5 women and 4 men from it get lines.

Characters

With lines

  • Women
  • Men

Exhibit D: who gets heard

The first woman speaks at line 68 of 1,246. The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 67 lines.

Every line of dialogue, first to last

  • First line by a woman
  • Longest stretch with no woman speaking

Words spoken

Women speak 49% of the words (7,852), men 51% (8,030). Women have 46% of the lines, so their lines run longer than men's.

Exhibit E: the test the other way

Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.

Conversations between two named characters

Exhibit F: behind the camera

3 of the 11 people in these jobs are women. Across the whole crew, 30% of the people whose gender is listed are women.

Directed by
Richard Linklater (man)
Written by
Julie Delpy (woman), Ethan Hawke (man), Richard Linklater (man)
Produced by
Sara Woodhatch (gender not listed), Christos V. Konstantakopoulos (man), Richard Linklater (man)
Shot by
Christos Voudouris (man)
Edited by
Sandra Adair (woman)
Music by
Graham Reynolds (man)
Costumes by
Vassilia Rozana (woman)

The crew, department by department

  • Sound

    0 women, 9 men, 5 not listed

  • Production

    3 women, 9 men, 1 not listed

  • Costume & Make-Up

    2 women, 0 men, 3 not listed

  • Writing

    2 women, 3 men

  • Directing

    1 women, 3 men

  • Camera

    1 women, 2 men

  • Other crew

    0 women, 2 men, 1 not listed

  • Art

    2 women, 0 men

  • Women
  • Men
  • Gender not listed on TMDB

Exhibit G: how old the stars were

Women: 49 on average. Men: 42 on average. The top-billed cast, at the film's release.

Women

Ariane Labed 28, Julie Delpy 43, Athina Rachel Tsangari 47, Xenia Kalogeropoulou 76

Men

Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick 14, Yiannis Papadopoulos 24, Ethan Hawke 42, Walter Lassally 86

Exhibit H: the money

It made 3.7 times what it cost.

Budget
$3 million
Box office
$11.2 million

From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.

About this analysis

Our parser read the script: 24 scenes and 1,246 lines of dialogue. The bechdeltest.com rating comes from that site’s readers. How the test works

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