The 75 Best Romantic Movies to Make Your Heart Flutter
When you're in the mood for love, these films will get your pulse racing.
When you think about cinema's greatest moments — those time-tested, all-time best that remind us why movies are great — how many of them are heart-stopping, romantic kisses? All-enveloping embraces? A scene where one person triumphantly runs towards another? So while action movies, comedy films and blockbuster superhero flicks all have their places, when you really want something that hits deep into the soul, it's time to reach for those romantic movies.
And I'm not talking about romantic comedies, either. Although rom-coms certainly give audiences the feels, they're not the swooning, yearning emotions you get from a straight-ahead romance. When you're in the mood, these are the best romantic movies of all time (that aren't rom-coms, though sometimes the line is blurry), listed in reverse chronological order. While these types of romances are getting harder and harder to find at the theater — and even streaming services are geared more towards the romantic comedies — they are still out there if you know where to look. (Netflix, for example, is a great spot for a good love movie.) Fire one of these up when you want big feelings, swelling music, broken hearts or kisses in the rain, and get ready to fall in love again.
Cyrano (2022)
The love story of Cyrano de Bergerac is nothing new, but feels fresh in this adaptation through original songs, written by members of The National. Peter Dinklage gives a career-best performance as the title character, co-starring alongside Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Haley Bennett.
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Decision to Leave (2022)
This is a movie for people who like their romances to be rolled up in danger and mystery. The noir-ish film from director Park Chan-wook, who won the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival for it, follows a detective investigating a murder — only to fall for the prime suspect. He has to figure out if she's as innocent as she claims, or if it's all part of her ploy. This is still in some theaters, but it'll be available to stream on Mubi on December 9.
Lady Chatterly's Lover (2022)
This movie is based on the super-steamy, often-banned novel by D.H. Lawrence, and it lives up to its source material in intensity. It follows the life of Constance Reid, an aristocratic wife whose eye turns toward her estate's gamekeeper when her husband returns from the war paralyzed from the waist down. Their affair would upend social norms in a variety of ways, but can she resist his allure?
Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)
Alithea, a "narratologist," returns from shopping at a bazaar in Istanbul to discover one of her purchases contains a Djinn spirit, played by Idris Elba. Being someone who studies stories, she's reluctant to make a wish since she knows how those tales often end, so the Djinn tells her about every wish he's tried to grant in the past three centuries. The movie is surprisingly sweet, especially considering it's from George Miller, the director of Mad Max: Fury Road.
The Worst Person in the World (2021)
This Norwegian film, which was nominated in the Best International Feature Film at the Academy Awards, is a coming-of-age story and romance melded together, focusing on the loves that come in and out of your life when you don't have yourself 100% together. (Who can't relate?) It mostly focuses on Julie (Renate Reinsve) and her journey to young adulthood, but Anders Danielsen Lie co-stars as the man she crosses paths with.
The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021)
This movie unfolds in two timelines, so you get a contemporary romance along with one filled with great period details and costumes. In the present, a magazine writer is sent into the publication's archives for an assignment, where she finds a misfiled love letter detailing an affair that happened in the '60s. Still reeling from a recent breakup, she delves into researching the letter writers, uncovering more of their story.
Sylvie's Love (2020)
Sylvie and Robert meet when Robert gets a job at Sylvie's father's Harlem record shop in 1957. The movie then follows the couple through the years, as they navigate their ambitions, their unexpected setbacks and their feelings for each other.
The Photograph (2020)
This movie is really two romances in one: It follows Mae (Issa Rae) in the present day, as well as her mother, Christina (Chanté Adams), in the past. After Mae finds a hidden family photograph, she's sent on a journey to discover her mother's past, but is finding herself on a powerful, unexpected road instead.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
This film-festival favorite, which was nominated for a slew of awards at the end of 2019, follows a woman who is commissioned to travel to a remote island to paint a portrait of a woman as part of an arranged marriage; of course, she falls in love with her subject, and a forbidden romance ensues.
A Star Is Born (2018)
If you're looking for a story about people brought together by talent and torn apart by fame, you can watch a number of takes on A Star Is Born: There's the 1937 original with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, the 1954 version with Judy Garland and James Mason or the 1976 remake with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. But only the most recent one, with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, has a performance of the heart-rending song "Shallow."
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If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
From Barry Jenkins — director of Moonlight, which is its own sort of romance — comes this James Baldwin adaptation. It's about a couple, madly in love and expecting a child, whose relationship is upended when one of them is accused of a crime he didn't commit.
Phantom Thread (2017)
It's been said that a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. Phantom Thread shows the delirious, belly-flopping butterflies of falling in love — and also what happens when your long-term partner just gets on your nerves (and how the cycle begins again).
Call Me By Your Name (2017)
First love is often the most intense, for better or for worse, and Call Me By Your Name captures all of those roiling emotions. Based on the book by André Aciman, it follows the young son of academics who, while on summer break in Italy, falls hard for one of his dad's grad students.
La La Land (2016)
As its name suggests, this film takes place in Hollywood, and has just the right dose of movie-magic fantasy. The musical follows Seb (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) as they chase their artistic dreams.
Loving (2016)
This film is about a love so strong it literally changed history. It's based on the real-life story of Richard and Mildred Loving, whose Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia, made it illegal for states to have laws barring interracial marriages.
Carol (2015)
Based on the novel The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, Carol tells the story of an affair between two women in the 1950s, so you get the pleasure of watching all the sumptuous period dresses and interiors in addition to being swept away by the romance. This film also features an Oscar-nominated performances from Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
There have been many movies that have attempted to master the romance-and-vampires genre (to varying success), but this Jim Jarmusch movie is the only one that gets at how wearying it would be to keep a marriage intact across centuries. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston play estranged but married vampires named Eve and Adam. (Get it?) When Adam is sunk by a depressive episode, Eve finds him again and tries to cheer him up.
Anna Karenina (2012)
Playwright Tom Stoppard adapts Leo Tolstoy's celebrated novel, with director Joe Wright giving the story new visual twists and turns that make it almost seem like a theatrical production more than a movie. The story follows the upper-echelons of Russian society, and how affairs of the heart can change a person's social standing.
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Teenagers often have the most intense emotions, and that's certainly the case in this Wes Anderson teen romance. It follows two trouble kids who, after they fall for each other, decide to run away together into the wilderness.
The Vow (2012)
No, not the NXIVM documentary! (This one is much more soul-nourishing.) This movie is based on the amazing true story of real-life couple Kim and Krickett Carpenter; after a tragic car accident, she loses her memory, and he has to find a way to make her fall in love with him all over again.
Marisa (she/her) has covered all things parenting, from the postpartum period through the empty nest, for Good Housekeeping since 2018; she previously wrote about parents and families at Parents and Working Mother. She lives with her husband and daughter in Brooklyn, where she can be found dominating the audio round at her local bar trivia night or tweeting about movies.
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