Before Night Falls

Before Night Falls tells the story of Reinaldo Arenas, a Cuban writer born into rural poverty who joins the revolutionary cause as a young man and goes on to publish his first novel at twenty. His life changes as the Castro government turns against him: his writing is censored and his homosexuality makes him a target for persecution. He spends time in prison before leaving Cuba in the 1980 Mariel boatlift and settling in the United States, where he continues to write but faces further hardship in exile.

Julian Schnabel directed the film, his second feature after Basquiat (1996), and wrote the screenplay with Cunningham O'Keefe and Lázaro Gómez Carriles. Javier Bardem plays Arenas, heading a cast of seventy-four credited performers that includes Olivier Martinez, Johnny Depp, Andrea Di Stefano, Santiago Magill and John Ortiz. Jon Kilik and Matthias Ehrenberg produced the drama, a co-production between Mexico and the United States, which runs 134 minutes.

Released in 2000, the film took in about 9 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.1 from roughly 27,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.7 from 317 votes. A critics' rating of 6.9 from 100 reviews places it close to the audience scores. Schnabel went on to direct The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), At Eternity's Gate (2018) and In the Hand of Dante (2026).