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People talk about romantic movies like it's just one genre, but there are actually so many different types of romances. Most attention is given to the great romantic comedies, which get people to laugh as much as they tug on people's hearts. But then there are also the romantic teen movies, which recall the intensity of a first love (and are now becoming franchises, when you think of Netflix series like The Kissing Booth, To All the Boys I've Loved Before and Tall Girl). There are romantic action movies, romantic Christmas movies, romantic noirs — basically you can find romance in any genre you can think of.
But when you want a straight-ahead, no-frills romance, these are the best romantic movies of all time. Sure, they may incorporate elements of comedy, action or drama, and some of them may even star teens. But the biggest criteria is that the relationship has to be the most front-and-center focus of the film. These are the films that give you all those yearning feelings, the ones that yank on the heartstrings with all their might. And while they may be fewer and far between these days, there are plenty of them around if you know where to look. Grab a sweetheart and get ready to swoon.
Hit Man (2024)
It's romance and true crime all rolled into one. Glen Powell — romance actor du jour — plays an unassuming teacher who somehow winds up helping local police by pretending to be a hit man for hire in sting operations. When a potential client wants to be romantically involved, he gets pulled in over his head. The story is inspired by a real guy (though the romance is fabricated) that director Richard Linklater read about in a Texas Monthly article.
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The Idea of You (2024)
It's a May/December romance when a 40-year-old single mom gets involved with a 24-year-old heartthrob. The twist? He's also the singer of a red-hot boy band. (The whole thing is said to be inspired by Harry Styles.) Can the romance survive the celebrity scrutiny?
Anyone But You (2023)
Bea and Ben don't really like each other. But when Ben wants to make his ex jealous, and Bea wants to keep her family from getting on her case about settling down, they agree to pretend to be in a relationship for the duration of a destination wedding. But you know what they say about best-laid plans, and things start to change when they catch feelings.
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Past Lives (2023)
Everyone has the one that got away, the one that inspires daydreams about what could have been. In Past Lives, a girl named Nora is separated from her childhood sweetheart, Hae Sung, when her family immigrates to North America. Years later, Nora and Hae Sung reconnect for a week in New York City, though Nora already has a fiancé. Is he worth pursing and giving up her established life for, or does he just represent the idea of possibility?
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.
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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?
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 over and over.
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.
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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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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)
Miss Pettigrew, a movie set in London in the run-up to World War II, lives somewhere between romantic drama and screwball comedy. Amy Adams takes over the screwball part, playing Delysia Lafosse, a socialite juggling relationships with three different men (all of whom can somehow help her career or social standing). When Guinevere Pettigrew (played by Frances McDormand) is enlisted to be her social secretary, she's swept into Delysia's high-status world, and embarks on a more serious relationship of her own.
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Both Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal earned Academy Award nominations for their depiction of two cowboys who conduct an affair in secret in the wilds of Wyoming. (They lost, but director Ang Lee brought home the award.)
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The Notebook (2004)
Based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, this romance spans decades, flipping between a couple's first blush of love in the '40s and the present-day reality of how that relationship has transformed in old age. And while that may be moving, we sometimes forget everything that happens after Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams' rain-soaked kissing scene.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind breaks all the rules for romances, starting after the central couple has already broken up. Joel (Jim Carrey), still reeling from heartbreak, seeks out a procedure that'll erase Clementine (Kate Winslet) from his memory. The resulting trip through his mind, and memories of his past with Clementine, result in something more poignant than a straightforward rom-com could provide.
Marisa LaScala
Senior Parenting & Relationships Editor
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.
