Sightlines · reception
How Blue Moon was received
2025 · Richard Linklater · Blue Moon on Sightlines
The arc
Premiered at Berlinale in February 2025 to warm reviews, then got a quiet fall arthouse rollout from Sony Pictures Classics — it's already being talked about as the smaller, more personal half of Linklater's remarkable two-film 2025, opposite Nouvelle Vague.
What’s debated
The recurring fan debate: is this minor, modest Linklater or is Ethan Hawke's turn as Lorenz Hart quietly one of his career-best performances — and which of Linklater's two 2025 films is actually the keeper?
Its footprint
It lives as a new chapter in the Linklater–Hawke lore — their ninth collaboration in three decades — with Hawke startlingly transformed, balding comb-over and all, into lyricist Lorenz Hart, a jolt for anyone who knows him as Jesse from the Before films.
Where it stands
Too new for canon but already filed by Letterboxd talkers alongside the great one-night, one-room hangout films — a 'for the Linklater heads' picture people keep calling secretly one of his most personal.
Did you know? Andrew Scott won the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the 2025 Berlinale for playing Richard Rodgers — the film's first major prize, landing months before its US release.