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Richard Linklater is one of the most respected directors of our time, but moviegoers may admire him for a variety of reasons. There are early comedies like Slacker and Dazed and Confused; there's a romantic trilogy, starting with Before Sunrise, starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy; and crowd favorites like “School of Rock” and “Hit Man.” Linklater's Boyhood, a coming-of-age story filmed over the course of twelve years as its protagonist transitions from child to young man, is virtually without precedent. Linklater is releasing two new films almost simultaneously this month, both dramatizing historical moments in the lives of creative geniuses. In Blue Moon, Hawke plays Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart as his career is eclipsed by rival Oscar Hammerstein II. “My tagline for this movie, which they're not going to use on any posters, but it's my tagline: 'Forgotten but not gone,'” Linklater tells our film critic. Justin Chang. “It's so heartbreaking… to make a film about the end of someone's career.” In A New Suspense, written almost entirely in French, Linklater depicts the unconventional filming of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, his triumphant 1959 debut. “The most important film,” says Linklater, “is the one you make in your head.”
Justin Chang article about Richard Linklater was published on September 27, 2025.
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