---
title: "Blue Moon (2025) review"
description: "Linklater made another movie where people just talk. I'm always going to show up for that."
url: https://www.joekarlsson.com/reviews/blue-moon-2025/
---

![A still from Blue Moon (2025)](https://www.joekarlsson.com/images/reviews/blue-moon-2025/backdrop.webp)

# Blue Moon (2025)

Dec 8, 2025 | Rated 3.5 out of 5 | Dir. Richard Linklater

Linklater made another movie where people just talk. I’m always going to show up for that.

I’ve never seen Oklahoma. I’d love to someday. I have nothing against theater - I just don’t know much about Rodgers and Hart or the 1940s theater scene. I came into this pretty blind on the historical context.

But I love Ethan Hawke and I love Richard Linklater, and I’m always down for a movie where not a lot happens except people talking in a bar. That’s the Linklater sweet spot, and Blue Moon fits right in.

This feels like a stage play - confined space, long conversations, theatrical rhythms. Hawke crushed it. His character is an artist looking back on his legacy with full awareness that he’s washed up, and there’s something painfully honest about watching him navigate that. The confused sexual dynamics between the characters are fascinating, and Margaret Qualley is wonderful in this.

I don’t know if there’s quite enough juice here to personally resonate with me or pull me back for a rewatch. But as a continuation of Linklater’s sad, funny, talky hangout movies - the lineage that includes Before Sunrise, Dazed and Confused, Everybody Wants Some - this fits comfortably in the canon. If that energy is what you’re looking for, you’re going to love it.

Also, Stuart Little gets a name drop. Appreciated that.

Also on [Letterboxd](https://letterboxd.com/joekarlsson/film/blue-moon-2025/)

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Joe  
Karlsson

I write about my homelab, AI tools, databases, and the weird stuff I build on the side.

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