26
votes
Best romantic movies?
My Anniversary is coming up and I'd like to do a movie night for my wife. She likes romantic films but I don't so we don't often watch them together.
I'd like to come up with 3 or 4 of the best romantic movies ever to watch together as a gift to her. Since I don't ever watch these kinds of movies I don't know what's objectively good.
Thanks!
Thanks to everyone who responded! There are so many great options that I'm going to make a list of all of them to draw from on other special occasions too!
Before Sunrise. Directed by Richard Linklater. Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meet on a train and wander through Vienna together. Just an excellent movie overall, certainly romantic.
I'm not too well-versed in romantic films but this was my first thought as well. Before... is actually a trilogy, and each film is excellent (I've only seen the first two but all three are critically acclaimed). Richard Linklater is very interested in the passage of time, and each film is filmed and takes place a decade after the previous one, with the same actors and characters.
I'll also put up a couple of more unusual recommendations. Spring (2014) is an unusual genre hybrid: a horror romance. Equal parts both. Perfect romance for a non-romance fan.
And Lost in Translation is both a beautiful film and a great choice for when you're in a more melancholy mood.
About Time (2013) : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2194499/
Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1570728/
Petulia (1968) : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063426/
Eagle vs Shark (2007) : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0494222/
Romancing The Stone (1984) : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088011/
Two Night Stand (2014) : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2140619/
I really liked About Time. Definitely also recommend it.
Amélie is one of my favorite movies. It's romantic in the art history sense. It has a love story that's an important part of it, but the love story isn't the center of it. The center of it is the titular character learning to open herself up and reach a state where she's able to love and be loved.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Metropolis - specifically the animated version from 2000 loosely based on the Osamu Tezuka comic.
(The other one is also a favorite, but it's not really applicable here)
I'll warn you right now that it's probably not the kind of movie you had in mind - it doesn't have the standard "happily ever after" ending - but I would still recommend it for the purposes you're going for. It makes some pretty deep statements about love of all kinds, both mundane and extreme, general or specific. The central theme of the movie is "love means never having to say goodbye", and I can almost guarantee you won't see the full beauty of that concept until you finish the movie.
Let me put this in a different light. Have you ever felt you were unable to express the depth of your love for your wife? Well, for me, this is the movie that can communicate that message. And I don't think that my fiance would have ever agreed to marry me if I hadn't made him watch it with me at least once.
I'm partial to Metropolis as well, and while I wouldn't have thought it up in this context, you make a good argument.
It's really more of a Christmas movie, but it's also my wife's favorite movie so I'll throw it in here
They Came Together is quite... touching.
While you wait for netflix to buffer whatever movie you're watching, maybe play this 7-minute short film too.
https://letterboxd.com/film/paperman/
Two that I like which haven’t been mentioned yet are Dan in Real Life and Definitely Maybe.
Like crazy, recently watched it and very much liked it, can't say it's the best I've watched though.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Like_Crazy
Intervention: A Short Film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFxqgEY4fyY
20 minutes, UK, funny.
Hmm... the spouse and I were bored a couple months ago and watched this. It didn't hold up very well in my opinion. The jokes all kind of fell flat, and the characters were fairly one-dimensional (even by rom com standards).
With what the movie implies at the end, your warning seems very understated. :P
Crazy, Stupid Love is IMO the best “typical” rom-com, it’s so well done and funny!
My very favorite rom-com is always going to be Moonstruck, starring Cher and Nicholas Cage. Cher actually won a supporting actress Oscar for her role, I think. It's hilarious and over-the-top and oh, so good.