Romantic movies are like wines-there’s truly no accounting for taste. No studio prediction could ever fathom Bill Murray in a leading role, or a film like Harold and Maude succeeding, but just like love, these films work for their intangible qualities-the meaningful look, a heartbreaking gesture, or even characters not touching at all.
In that spirit, here’s a compilation of romantic movies, just in time for Valentine’s Day.
For the ladies:
Pride and Prejudice
(BBC version!!)
In every discussion with any woman about the greatest romantic movie of all time, this one’s always tops. The multi-part adaptation of Jane Austen’s sprawling novel accounts, to a large degree, for Colin Firth (as the awkward Mr. Darcy)’s popularity with the opposite sex, and his subsequent casting in the (loose) remake, Bridget Jones’ Diary.
Fans of Pride are also extremely protective of it, and will discuss their issues with the latest version (its length, its fealty to the source, and the casting of Keira Knightley, to no end). Fellas, there’s no greater gift than even suggesting to sit down and watch this four-hour epic with your sweetie-you’ll likely be able to choose from either the VHS or DVD versions that she has on her bookshelf.
Love, Actually
(“The Hugh Grant Movie”)
While Hugh Grant appears in many films which inspire (some) women to go weak in the knees, it’s in Love, Actually that years of the ‘British Romantic Comedy’ coalesce to include their brightest stars in one place. You get Hugh Grant as the British prime minister, Colin Firth as an awkward writer, Alan Rickman (of Truly, Madly, Deeply), and their female counterparts (Keira Knightley again, and Emma Thompson) in a heartwarming statement about finding love in unexpected places. This film also comes as a timely and necessary statement to counter the idea that the world is a horrible place, as we’re too often told.
Exile in Guyville:
Say Anything
It’s impossible to escape the image of a heartbroken Lloyd Dobler as he stands below Diane Court’s window with a ghetto blaster playing Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes.” The scene is wordless, and the gesture of Dobler hiking the radio up to compensate for the strain in his arms is the moment that always gets you.
While John Cusack had already carved out a niche for himself as an offbeat romantic lead, he became a cultural touchstone that in fact continues to repeat itself (one need only look as far as his roles in High Fidelity or last summer’s Must Love Dogs for proof).
In the Mood For Love
No one makes films about love like Wong Kar Wai. While the second half of his Chungking Express is incredibly sweet, and his sequel to this film, 2046, is bittersweet, the filmmaker’s rendition of Shanghai in the 1960s gives him the perfect excuse to lavishly photograph the gorgeousness of Maggie Cheung.
Cheung and Tony Leung’s exquisitely stretched-out suffering is exacerbated when they learn that their respective spouses are having an affair. In coming together in a chaste union, they doom themselves to endless frustration, heartbreak, and (as we see in the film’s sequel) haunting each other with unfulfilled looks, gestures, and words that can’t be expressed.
…and perhaps the twain shall meet?
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Leave it to Charlie Kaufmann to somehow create one of the nicest break-up films in recent memory, where the protagonist needs to somehow fight the erasure of his memories (a nice metaphor for the need to try to forget following the dissolution of a relationship). Featuring a refreshing look at a flawed relationship that ends with a hopeful reconciliation (and features current rom-com mainstay Marc Ruffalo in his undies), this film is easily the smartest romance of the new century, fully deserving of the screenplay Oscar that Kaufman finally won last year.
