Backdrop fallback

Before Night Falls

Before Night Falls

Share

Before Night Falls

2000

2h 14m

6.7(317 votes)

Drama

Overview

Spanning several decades, this powerful biopic offers a glimpse into the life of famed Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas, an artist who was vilified for his homosexuality in Fidel Castro's Cuba.

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Javier Bardem

Javier Bardem

Reinaldo Arenas

Olivier Martinez

Olivier Martinez

Lazaro Gomez Carilles

Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp

Bon Bon / Lieutenant Victor

Andrea Di Stefano

Andrea Di Stefano

Pepe Malas

Santiago Magill

Santiago Magill

Tomas Diego

John Ortiz

John Ortiz

Juan Abreu

Héctor Babenco

Héctor Babenco

Virgilio Pinera

Francisco Gattorno

Francisco Gattorno

Jorge Camacho

Marisol Padilla Sánchez

Marisol Padilla Sánchez

Margarita Camacho

Michael Wincott

Michael Wincott

Herberto Zorilla Ochoa

Creative team

Directed by: Julian Schnabel
Written by: Cunningham O'Keefe
Lázaro Gómez Carriles
Produced by: Jon Kilik

Similar Movies

Summer to Winter

Summer to Winter

Tam, an introvert, finds solace in his unlikely friendship with the optimistic Kimhan by the sea, but as they grow close, their future together remains uncertain.

Sweet Boy

Sweet Boy

Lonely and living with his hardworking single mom, a studious teen begins to grasp the ideas of sex and his sexuality until a stranger makes a move.

Vive L'Amour

Vive L'Amour

Three lonely young denizens of Taipei unknowingly share an apartment: May, a real estate agent who uses it for her sexual affairs; Ah-jung, her current lover; and Hsiao-kang, who's stolen the key and uses the apartment as a retreat.

Spun

Spun

Over the course of three days Ross, a college dropout addicted to crystal-meth, encounters a variety of oddball folks - including a stripper named Nikki and her boyfriend, the local meth producer, The Cook - but all he really wants to do is hook up with his old girlfriend, Amy.

B&B

B&B

Gay Londoners Marc and Fred plan for a weekend of mischief, baiting the Christian owner of a remote Christian B&B. Events take a deadly turn when another guest arrives, who they think might have something more sinister in mind.

Hardcore

Hardcore

A German tourist solicits two Israeli men for kinky sex. The Israelis feel pressure to fulfill the German's violent sexual fantasies.

I Don't Want to Sleep Alone

I Don't Want to Sleep Alone

Rawang, an immigrant from Bangladesh living in awful conditions, takes pity on a Chinese man, Hsiao-kang, who is beaten up and left in the street. Rawang lovingly nurses him on a mattress he found. When he is almost healed, Hsiao-kang meets the waitress Chyi. His love for Rawang is put to the test.

Bad Lieutenant

Bad Lieutenant

While investigating a young nun's rape, a corrupt New York City police detective, with a serious drug and gambling addiction, tries to change his ways and find forgiveness.

Do Fish Do It?

Do Fish Do It?

16-year old Jan is absent-mindedly strolling through the streets when he's run over by roller-skating Nina. As fast as she has stormed into his life, however, she rushes off again. Nina is 15 years old and full of crazy ideas. She lives together with her brother, her father and his new girlfriend. Her mother isn't in touch much. That's why there is the unconventional Angel whose own daughter disappeared years ago and who is Nina's best friend and substitute mother.

Sea of Love

Sea of Love

Seen-it-all New York detective Frank Keller is unsettled - he has done twenty years on the force and could retire, and he hasn't come to terms with his wife leaving him for a colleague. Joining up with an officer from another part of town to investigate a series of murders linked by the lonely hearts columns he finds he is getting seriously and possibly dangerously involved with Helen, one of the main suspects.

Longsince

Longsince

In 1980s Apartheid South Africa, a woman's tenuous relationship with her boyfriend is threatened by memories of a past lover, and the possibility of their re-entry into her life.

Sally Leapt Out of a Window Last Night

Sally Leapt Out of a Window Last Night

In 18th-century Ireland, Sally and Eleanor scandalise society by eloping, to escape the fate that their families have planned for them. Based on a true story. Iris Prize nominee.

Return to Earth

Return to Earth

The story of Buzz Aldrin, the second astronaut to walk on the moon, and the problems he had after his return to Earth, including the breakup of his marriage, a nervous breakdown and his hospitalization for psychiatric problems.

Die Frau vom Checkpoint Charlie

Die Frau vom Checkpoint Charlie

Based on a true story, Miguel Alexandre's two-part drama focuses on an East German woman and the fight for her children. Spring 1982: Sara Bender, living with her daughters Silvia and Sabine in the East German town of Erfurt, wants to marry her colleague Peter, but shortly before the wedding, her father is killed in a road accident. As the funeral takes place in West Germany, she isn't allowed to got there, so she starts planning to leave her communist home country forever. Trying to flee via Romania, she is caught by the secret service. After years in jail, Sara is ransomed by the West German government, but without her daughters. To draw the world's attention on her desperate situation, she starts demonstrating at the Berlin border crossing Checkpoint Charlie

The Deer Hunter

The Deer Hunter

Three steelworkers enlist in the army and are sent to Vietnam, one leaving behind a rushed marriage, the others a shared love. What they encounter during the war changes their lives forever.

Rob Roy

Rob Roy

In the highlands of Scotland in the 1700s, Rob Roy tries to lead his small town to a better future, by borrowing money from the local nobility to buy cattle to herd to market. When the money is stolen, Rob is forced into a Robin Hood lifestyle to defend his family and honour.

The Hairdresser's Husband

The Hairdresser's Husband

Antoine has always been fascinated by a hairdresser's delicate touch, the beguiling perfume, and the enticing figure of a woman with an opulent bosom. After all, he had always known he would marry one, completing his idealized love fantasy.

Angel

Angel

Edwardian England. A precocious girl from a poor background with aspirations to being a novelist finds herself swept to fame and fortune when her tasteless romances hit the best seller lists. Her life changes in unexpected ways when she encounters an aristocratic brother and sister, both of whom have cultural ambitions, and both of whom fall in love with her.

Mona Lisa Smile

Mona Lisa Smile

Katherine Watson is a recent UCLA graduate hired to teach art history at the prestigious all-female Wellesley College, in 1953. Determined to confront the outdated mores of society and the institution that embraces them, Katherine inspires her traditional students, including Betty and Joan, to challenge the lives they are expected to lead.

Nekromantik

Nekromantik

An employee of Joe's Streetcleaning Agency, a company that cleans up after grisly accidents, Rob brings home an entire decomposing corpse, much to the delight of his girlfriend, Betty.

Recommended Movies

Joe Bell

Joe Bell

The true story of a small town, working class father who embarks on a solo walk across the U.S. to crusade against bullying after his son is tormented in high school for being gay.

Wasp Network

Wasp Network

Havana, Cuba, 1990. René González, an airplane pilot, unexpectedly flees the country, leaving behind his wife Olga and his daughter Irma, and begins a new life in Miami, where he becomes a member of an anti-Castro organization.

Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon

Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon

In the 1960s, British painter Francis Bacon surprises a burglar and invites him to share his bed. The burglar, a working class man named George Dyer, accepts. After the unique beginning to their love affair, the well-connected and volatile artist assimilates Dyer into his circle of eccentric friends, as Dyer's struggle with addiction strains their bond.

The Normal Heart

The Normal Heart

The story of the onset of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City in the early 1980s, taking an unflinching look at the nation's sexual politics as gay activists and their allies in the medical community fight to expose the truth about the burgeoning epidemic to a city and nation in denial.

The Double

The Double

An awkward office drone becomes increasingly unhinged after a charismatic and confident look-alike takes a job at his workplace and seduces the woman he desires.

The Chronology of Water

The Chronology of Water

Plagued by an abusive childhood, a woman finds escape in competitive swimming, sexual experimentation, toxic relationships, and addiction before ultimately finding her voice through writing.

Death and the Maiden

Death and the Maiden

A political activist is convinced that her guest is a man who once tortured her for the government.

Marty Supreme

Marty Supreme

Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness.

Dallas Buyers Club

Dallas Buyers Club

Loosely based on the true-life tale of Ron Woodroof, a drug-taking, women-loving, homophobic man who in 1986 was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and given thirty days to live.

Modigliani

Modigliani

Set in Paris in 1919, biopic centers on the life of late Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani, focusing on his last days as well as his rivalry with Pablo Picasso. Modigliani, a Jew, has fallen in love with Jeanne, a young and beautiful Catholic girl. The couple has an illegitimate child, and Jeanne's bigoted parents send the baby to a faraway convent to be raised by nuns.

Uncle Frank

Uncle Frank

In 1973, when Frank Bledsoe and his 18-year-old niece Beth take a road trip from Manhattan to Creekville, South Carolina for the family patriarch's funeral, they're unexpectedly joined by Frank's lover Walid.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Dito Montiel, a successful author, receives a call from his long-suffering mother, asking him to return home and visit his ailing father. Dito recalls his childhood growing up in a violent neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., with friends Antonio, Giuseppe, Nerf and Mike.

The Debt

The Debt

Rachel Singer is a former Mossad agent who tried to capture a notorious Nazi war criminal – the Surgeon of Birkenau – in a secret Israeli mission that ended with his death on the streets of East Berlin. Now, 30 years later, a man claiming to be the doctor has surfaced, and Rachel must return to Eastern Europe to uncover the truth. Overwhelmed by haunting memories of her younger self and her two fellow agents, the still-celebrated heroine must relive the trauma of those events and confront the debt she has incurred.

Bringing Out the Dead

Bringing Out the Dead

Once called "Father Frank" for his efforts to rescue lives, Frank Pierce sees the ghosts of those he failed to save around every turn. He has tried everything he can to get fired, calling in sick, delaying taking calls where he might have to face one more victim he couldn't help, yet cannot quit the job on his own.

Shelter

Shelter

Hannah and Tahir fall in love while homeless on the streets of New York. Shelter explores how they got there, and as we learn about their pasts we realize they need each other to build a future.

The Basketball Diaries

The Basketball Diaries

A high school basketball player’s life turns upside down after free-falling into the harrowing world of drug addiction.

Alpha Dog

Alpha Dog

Johnny Truelove likes to see himself as tough. He's the son of an underworld figure and a drug dealer. Johnny also likes to get tough when things don't go his way. When Jake Mazursky fails to pay up for Johnny, things get worse for the Mazursky family, as Johnny and his 'gang' kidnap Jake's 15 year old brother and hold him hostage.

Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver

Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.

You Don't Know Jack

You Don't Know Jack

Controversy and legal problems follow Dr. Jack Kevorkian as he advocates assisted suicide.

The Saint of Fort Washington

The Saint of Fort Washington

Matthew, a young schizophrenic, finds himself out on the street when a slumlord tears down his apartment building. Soon, he finds himself in even more dire straits, when he is threatened by Little Leroy, a thug who is one of the tough denizens of the Fort Washington Shelter for Men. He reaches out to Jerry, a streetwise combat veteran, who takes Matthew under his wing as a son. The relationship between these two men grows as they attempt to conquer the numbing isolation of homelessness.