Romance films have fascinated audiences since the beginnings 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 chance events. An American film released in 1995 called Before Sunrise explores similar themes of romance and chance. The French New Wave was a movement in French that emphasized simplicity of dialogue, new filming techniques, and realism. All of these themes are present in A Man and A Woman. 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 seen if the viewer has seen both. In addition to sharing the love story theme, Un Homme and Before share the element of chance. In Un Homme, the two main characters are unlikely to meet, due to different schedules, even though their children attend the same school. It is unlikely 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 romances depicted in the films. The main lovers in both films have melancholic romances that capture the hearts of the audience. A hallmark of the French New Wave was the use of minimal, improvised dialogue. In Un Homme, much of the screenplay's dialogue was composed on the spot, with the story being mainly a draft. The pinnacle of this improvisation occurs during the climax of Un Homme. The lead actress, Anook Aimee, was largely unaware that the director had chosen to have the main character end up together. The toilet...... middle of paper....... When we look at Un Homme and Before, the similarities are striking. It is easy to see the influence that the French New Wave had on American filmmakers thirty years later, by watching these two films. The unlikely circumstances of the characters' meeting, the artistic elements, the characters' reluctance to be together, and the existence of an extremely similar sequel show how remarkably likeable and similar these two films are to viewers of both. Sunrise." IMDb. IMDb.com, and Web. March 01, 2014. Hitchman, Simon. "FRENCH NEW WAVE: WHERE TO START." French New Wave film (Nouvelle Vague): where to start. NewWaveFilm.com, 2008 . Web. March 1, 2014. Lanzoni, Rémi Fournier. French cinema: from its beginnings to the present day. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Print “A man and a woman”. March 1. 2014.