Boyhood · written by Richard Linklater · 2014

The family says goodbye to the house and neighborhood; Mason watches Tommy arrive too late to stop their departure.

Scene 17 of 160 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one

Mom
Samantha
Mason

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 11 min into a 3:02 film

The story so farBefore scene 17

As his mother’s homes and relationships change, Mason grows from a restless child into a young photographer learning to choose his own direction before leaving for college.

Scenes 1–11
Mason’s world is a child’s local orbit of school, siblings, play, and a family not yet displaced.
Scene 12
Olivia announces the Houston move so she can return to college and support the family, uprooting Mason from his first home and friends.
Just before
Scene 14
The moving van leaves as Olivia adds another discarded item to the curbside pile.
Scene 15
Olivia asks Mason to touch up the marks in their empty bedroom before they leave.
Scene 16
As Samantha talks on the phone about leaving friends, Mason paints over the height marks on his bedroom doorjamb.
Scene 17
This scene

17EXT. OUTSIDE FRONT DOOR - DAY

Carrying their final belongings from inside the house, they slowly exit the front door and head over to the car.

MOM

Okay, let's go, 'cause I wanna get

there before it gets dark.

SAMANTHA

Goodbye yard, goodbye crepe myrtle,

goodbye mailbox. Goodbye box of

stuff Mommy won't let us take with

us but we don't wanna throw away.

Goodbye house, I'll never like mommy

as much for making us move.

MOM

Samantha! Why don't you say goodbye

to that little horse shit attitude?

Okay? 'Cause we're not taking that

in the car.

Just before he gets in the car, Mason is looking out at the neighborhood.

MASON

Goodbye old lady who listens to rock

music and rides a motorcycle.

Soon the car is pulling away. As they drive off, Mason notices out his side of the car, Tommy approaching on a bike in the distance, gesturing toward the car. Mason watches him out the window, but says nothing as Tommy recedes into the distance.