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(This article was originally published in 2019)
There will always be an appetite for romance in cinema . Ever since the days of silent melodramas, studio filmmakers have capitalised on the simple fact that, in Hollywood, love sells.
With the invention of sound, the silent romances of the 1910s and 1920s gave way to a more sophisticated type of on-screen romance, and the romantic comedy was born.
Romcoms would continue to evolve across the 20th century, liberated in part by the increasingly lax restrictions for on-screen sex and nudity. Other age-old genres would also gain popularity, such as the romantic tragedy.
The past decade has seen a notable increase in the number of LGBTQ romances that reached mainstream audiences. The rules of who can and can’t be the subject of a Hollywood romance are gradually being rewritten.
Here are the 20 best romantic films ranked.
Show all 20 1 /20The 20 best romantic films ever made The 20 best romantic films ever made Phantom Thread (2017) Phantom Thread has all the trappings of a conventional period romance. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a famous dressmaker who falls in love with Alma (Vicky Krieps), a waitress who later becomes his muse. Paul Thomas Anderson’s twisted romance flies off in some psychologically dark and unexpected directions, but the arc is that of a storybook love affair, of two people taking extraordinary measures to hold onto the one they love.
Universal Pictures
The 20 best romantic films ever made A Star is Born (1954) Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga scored big at the box office with last year’s A Star is Born remake, but for many, the definitive version was released nearly 65 years earlier. James Mason plays the alcoholic actor whose career is on the wane, while Judy Garland is the supremely talented up-and-coming singer he meets in a nightclub. Although there were two other major screen versions of the story – one in 1937, the other in 1976 starring Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson – Garland boasts the strongest singing voice of any, and her chemistry with Mason is superb.
Warner Bros
The 20 best romantic films ever made Her (2013) In this futuristic romance, Joaquin Phoenix plays a man who falls in love with an artificially intelligent computer system, voiced by Scarlett Johannsson. Her – written and directed by Spike Jonze – treats Phoenix's courtship with all the sensitivity of a flesh-and-blood romance, and what could be a cringe-worthy or facetious premise instead blossoms into a touchingly sincere examination of love in the age of technology.
Warner Bros
The 20 best romantic films ever made Notting Hill (1999) This romcom from 1999 brings Hugh Grant’s down-to-earth bookshop owner into the orbit of an A-list actress played by Julia Roberts, and the unlikeliest of British love affairs ensues. Scripted by Richard Curtis, who had already proved himself a dab hand in the genre with Four Weddings and a Funeral, the film manages to stay charming and keep its tone light, even as its romantic plotline descends into schmaltz.
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
The 20 best romantic films ever made True Romance (1993) True Romance has an all-star cast that includes Gary Oldman, Dennis Hopper, Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini, but eyes are mostly kept on the whirlwind romance struck up between Clarence and Alabama (played by Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette), who go on the run with a suitcase full of cocaine belonging to a notorious gangster. Quentin Tarantino’s script wades through some heavy subject matter, and includes plenty of his characteristic violence, underscored by an effective score from Hans Zimmer.
Warner Bros
The 20 best romantic films ever made Harold and Maude (1971) Age-gap relationships are common in cinema, but seldom like in Harold and Maude. Harold (Bud Cort) is an 18-year-old with an overbearing mother who spends his free time staging elaborate fake suicides. After meeting Maude (Ruth Gordon), a 79-year-old woman trying to grab life by the horns, he falls in love. Hal Ashby’s off-beat cult classic doesn’t shy away from the social taboos of their relationship, but make no mistake, Harold and Maude is an earnest and deeply moving romance at its core.
Paramount Pictures
The 20 best romantic films ever made Beauty and the Beast (1991) The classic French fairy-tale – about the love between a beautiful woman and a prince cursed to live as a beast – has been adapted countless times, most recently into a live-action blockbuster starring Emma Watson. Disney’s 1991 animated musical, however, is the superior on-screen rendering of the romance. Although elements of the story now seem problematic – most glaringly the idea of the Beast imprisoning Belle, and she loving him despite this – there's still a lot of appeal in the songs, and the hand-drawn animation is fluid and endearing.
Disney
The 20 best romantic films ever made The Philadelphia Story (1940) Positioning three of Old Hollywood’s most beloved stars at the corners of a love triangle, The Philadelphia Story is one of the most enduring romcoms of all time. Navigating its way around the strict Production Code rules regarding extra-marital affairs, George Cukor’s film tells the story of a divorced couple (Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant) who are drawn back together despite the allure of a third party (Jimmy Stewart). All three actors play to their strengths: Grant is suave and sardonic, Stewart wide-eyed and self-effacing, while Hepburn is given a strong role in the woman who must choose between her capable suitors.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
The 20 best romantic films ever made Carol (2015) In Carol, Cate Blanchett plays Carol Aird, a woman in the midst of a difficult divorce who falls in love with a young photographer, Therese, played by Rooney Mara. The film – a sexy and stylish period piece directed by Todd Haynes – won a host of Oscar nominations, and stands as one of the most specific and deftly crafted representations of female desire in mainstream cinema, earning a particularly devoted fanbase in the LGBTQ community.
StudioCanal
The 20 best romantic films ever made Amélie (2001) The highest-grossing French-language film of all time in the US, Amélie is a modern-day fairy-tale about a socially maladjusted young woman who decides to dedicate her life to impishly and secretly helping others. The film leans into the tweeness of its premise, as well as the romance of its Parisian setting, to build a gradual love story that’s straight from the heart. It’s not all sweetness, however, and some of the more world-weary touches – such as Amélie’s lover working in a sex shop – help give the film some sharp edges, and a comic bite.
Fox Distribution
The 20 best romantic films ever made Brokeback Mountain (2005) Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as two sheep herders who go through a turbulent but passionate romance. The film’s open and unapologetic depiction of sex and queer relationships made it a landmark release for LGBT representation in mainstream cinema.
Focus Features
The 20 best romantic films ever made It Happened One Night (1934) Directed by Frank Capra, master of the feel-good film, It Happened One Night mixes screwball comedy with heartfelt romance. Claudette Colbert plays a wealthy socialite who decides to slum it with an abrasive but charismatic news reporter, played by Clark Gable. One of only three films to ever win all five major Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay), It Happened One Night endures as the gold standard for a classical Hollywood romcom.
Columbia Pictures
The 20 best romantic films ever made Call Me by Your Name (2017) Set in an Edenic villa “somewhere in Northern Italy”, Call Me by Your Name tells the story of Elio (Timothée Chalamet), a smart but directionless 17-year-old who falls in love with his father’s research assistant Oliver (Armie Hammer). Luca Guadagnino’s languid romance is well on its way to being considered a modern queer classic and it made an instant star out of Chalamet when it hit cinemas in 2017.
Warner Bros
The 20 best romantic films ever made Before Sunrise (1995) Richard Linklater’s minimalist romance pairs Ethan Hawke with Julie Delpy as two love-struck strangers who meet on a train and spend the evening together wandering around Vienna. The naturally romantic city is the perfect background for a soft and thoughtful meditation on love, fate and missed opportunities. Hawke and Delpy reportedly crafted much of the naturalistic dialogue through improvisation sessions, for which they were uncredited. They would, however, be credited in the film’s two sequels – Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013).
Columbia Pictures
The 20 best romantic films ever made Moonlight (2016) 2016 Best Picture winner Moonlight is a radical film: a queer romance with an all-black cast that captures a boy’s coming-of-age with heart-wrenching specificity. Chiron, the protagonist, is played by three actors across three chapters of his life – and the third act, in which an adult Chiron (Trevante Rhodes) reconnects with an old flame, is one of the most heart-rending in modern cinema. Writer-director Barry Jenkins showed himself to have a poet’s ear for dialogue and James Laxton’s camerawork perfectly captures the vibrancy and the physicality of romantic attraction.
A24
The 20 best romantic films ever made In the Mood for Love (2000) One of the most acclaimed pieces of Asian cinema of all time, In the Mood for Love is a masterful study in love behind closed doors, tracking the emotional affair between two people who realise their spouses are having an affair together. Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are exceptional in the lead roles as two soulmates struggling to contain their desire. In 2016, the film was voted the second-best film of the 21st century in a BBC critics poll.
Focus Features
The 20 best romantic films ever made Brief Encounter (1945) David Lean’s tender depiction of an unconsummated extra-marital affair remains one of the finest love stories ever told, and frequently ranks among the best British films ever made. Adapted from Noel Coward’s one-act play Still Life, Brief Encounter focuses on the relationship between Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Dr Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard). Their courtship is bookended by two fateful scenes at a train station – once meeting, once parting. It’s hard to estimate how many hundreds of on-screen romances have ended with a teary-eyed lover being carried away on a train, but none have done so as memorably as Brief Encounter.
ITV Studios
The 20 best romantic films ever made When Harry Met Sally (1989) When Harry Met Sally took Annie Hall’s subversion of the romcom genre and removed the neuroses and pseudo-intellectualism. The result was a breezy, observational romantic comedy starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan as two unlikely lovers. Screenwriter Nora Ephron based much of the film on its eventual director, Rob Reiner. When Harry Met Sally would become a massive hit, spawning an iconic catchphrase (“I’ll have what she’s having”) and even a stage adaptation in 2004.
Columbia Pictures
The 20 best romantic films ever made The Apartment (1960) Jack Lemmon plays bedraggled corporate yes-man CC Baxter, who falls in love with elevator operator Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), who is also his boss’s mistress. The 1960 masterpiece, directed by Billy Wilder, is equal parts cynical and romantic, and features one of the most compelling will-they-won't-theys in the history of cinema.
MGM
The 20 best romantic films ever made Casablanca (1942) The romance of Casablanca has resonated throughout the 20th century. Its dialogue is among the most-quoted in film history and its locations – the piano bar; the airfield – are indelible pieces of Hollywood iconography. Humphrey Bogart is the perfect romantic lead as Rick Blaine, the bitter, lovelorn club owner in French-occupied Morocco whose ex-lover Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman) arrives with her new flame Victor Laszlow (Paul Henreid), who is wanted by the Nazis. Casablanca has been mimicked and parodied so many times throughout the years that it’s easy to forget quite how inventive it is in its depiction of a love affair torn apart by the brutality of the outside world.
Warner Bros
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