Romantic films have fascinated audiences since the birth of cinema. In France, during the French New Wave, a film called Un Homme et Une Femme debuted in 1966. This film tells the story of a widow and a widower who meet and fall in love through a series of random events. An American film released in 1995 titled Before Sunrise explores similar themes of romance and chance. The French New Wave was a movement in French that emphasized simple dialogue, new filming techniques, and realism. All these themes are present in Un Homme et Une Femme. Likewise, Before Sunrise explores these same ideas with similar mechanics to tell a more modern love story. The similarities between these two films can be immediately observed if the viewer has seen both. In addition to sharing the theme of love story, Un Homme and Before share the element of chance. In Un Homme, the two main characters rarely meet, due to their different schedules, even though their children attend the same school. It is doubtful that the two will ever meet. In Before, the main characters come from different parts of the world on vacation, take the same train and meet by chance. These chance encounters add an element of fantasy to the love stories portrayed in films. The main lovers in both films have melancholic love stories that capture the hearts of the audience. A characteristic of the French new wave was the use of minimal, improvised dialogue. In Un Homme, much of the dialogue in the screenplay was made up on the spot and the story was mostly a draft. The peak of this improvisation was during the climax of Un Homme. The lead actress, Anook Aimee, was largely unaware that the director had chosen to have the main characters end up together. The toilet... in the center of the card... Looking at Un Homme and Before, the similarities are striking. It's easy to see the influence the French New Wave had on American filmmakers thirty years later when you watch these two films. The unlikely circumstances of the characters' encounters, the artistic elements, the characters' reluctance to be together, and the existence of an extremely similar sequel show how these two films are remarkably likeable and similar to viewers of both. Sunrise." IMDb. IMDb.com and Web. 01 March 2014.Hitchman, Simon. "FRENCH NEW WAVE: WHERE TO START." French New Wave Film (Nouvelle Vague): Where to Start. NewWaveFilm.com, 2008. Web . 01 March 2014. Lanzoni, Rémi Fournier. French Cinema: From the Beginning to the Present. 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. "A Man and a Woman.". 2014.