Twelve years ago this month, Richard Linklater released a movie unlike any other. Boyhood, filmed in secret over 12 years with the same cast, followed a Texas kid named Mason Jr. (Ellar Coltrane) from first grade to his first day of college — no makeup tricks, no digital de-aging, just time itself doing the work. Made for $200,000 a year on a handshake deal with IFC, it premiered as a surprise addition at Sundance in 2014, earned universal acclaim, won Patricia Arquette an Oscar, and is routinely cited among the greatest films of the century.
Now, on the film’s 12th anniversary — a span chosen to mirror the 12 years of production — Boyhood returns to theaters July 31 via IFC, following a cast reunion and Q&A in Linklater’s hometown of Austin.
For the season nine finale of The Hollywood Reporter‘s It Happened in Hollywood podcast, the director — fresh off 2025’s twin charmers Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague and midway through his 20-year adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along — discussed watching Boyhood for the first time since 2014, the flash of inspiration that solved a 25-year-old creative problem, and how Ethan Hawke pushed him to rewrite the film’s most devastating scene.
