Hans Maes is Senior Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Art at the University of Kent, UK, and the author of Conversations on Art and Aesthetics (2017).Katrien Schaubroeck is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and the author of The Normativity of What We Care About (2013).

• Introduction Hans Maes and Katrien Schaubroeck 1. The Poetry of Day-to-Day Life Michael Smith 2. Time and Transcendence in the Before Trilogy Marya Schechtman 3. A Trilogy of Melancholy: On the bittersweet in Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before Midnight Hans Maes 4. ‘Relational vertigo’ in Before Midnight Christopher Cowley 5. Epic Intimacy Murray Smith 6. ‘Romantic or Cynic’: Romantic Attraction as Justification Diane Jeske 7. The Many Faces of Conversation in the Before Trilogy Kalle Puolakka 8. Love, Death and Life’s Summum Bonum: The Before Trilogy as Memento Mori Anna Christina Ribeiro 9. Falling in Love with a Film (Series) Katrien Schaubroeck and Hans Maes 10. Romance, Narrative, and the Sense of a Happy Ending in the Before Series James MacDowell 11. "We Are Everything and We Are Nothing." An interview with Julie Delpy Hans Maes and Katrien Schaubroeck. Index

"No matter how in love you were at 20, no matter how beautiful it was at 30, no matter how conflicted you were at 40: you are going to die. This is the sad reality for all of us. It is revolting, it is upsetting, it is wrong, it is unfair. But it is the human condition."Julie Delpy, actor and screenwriter of the Before trilogy"The collection follows a recognisable approach of analytically-inflected film-philosophy, and the results are illuminating and rewarding. At its best, such an approach provides a vocabulary and a framework that helps one better to articulate one’s existing experience of the film, while also managing to help one to view the film from a fresh angle, which reveals new connections and points of emphasis."-James Zborowski, Film-Philosophy