The romance genre has been a staple of fiction since long before the first movies were made. Love’s one of those rare universal themes, after all, and both romantics and cynics have always been able to find – and enjoy – different stories about fictional characters falling in (or out of) love. And like many broad genres, it’s possible to combine romantic storylines with various other tried and true genres, which can add extra emotional engagement to a story, or otherwise ensure it attracts a wider audience.
Depending on one’s definition of “romance,” it might well be one of the most well-represented genres in cinema, thanks to the popularity of romantic subplots. However, when it comes to deciding the greatest romance movies of all time, it’s best to focus on those films where the romance-focused aspect of the story feels like a priority. What follows are some of the best movies that emphasize – and thereby epitomize – the romance genre, and are ranked below from great to greatest.
Updated August 12, 2023, by Jeremy Urquhart:
It might be about as far from Valentine’s Day as it’s possible to get, but in no way do the best romance movies only hit hard around that so-called most romantic time of the year. Romance movies are good for any time of the year, so long as you’re feeling sufficiently romantic and/or have someone to share the experience of watching one with. The following romantic movies are among the best romantic movies of all time, to the point where, in all honesty, maybe those who don’t usually love the genre will find things to like.
30 ‘Roman Holiday’ (1953)
Even if Roman Holiday didn’t entirely invent the romantic comedy genre, it can be seen as a 1950s classic that at least helped reshape what audiences now know as a rom-com. It’s sort of a modern fairytale, following a princess from Europe falling in love with an American reporter while they’re both in Rome, following the brief series of adventures they have together.
It’s a movie that remains incredibly charming and perfectly bittersweet, with the 70 years since its release doing nothing to sap it of its humor or emotional power. It also largely succeeds thanks to the chemistry between its stars, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, both of whom do some of their best work (which is really saying something) in this 1953 classic.
29 ‘Love & Basketball’ (2000)
Fans of basketball and romance will obviously be enamored with Love & Basketball, which is a sports movie, a dramedy, and a romance film all in one. The must-see sports rom-com movie centers on two long-time childhood friends who are both passionate about basketball, and find themselves having feelings for each other now that they’ve reached adulthood.
Like many romance-focused movies, it looks at the sacrifices or compromises that need to be made sometimes to make a partnership work, and grapples with whether other passions in life can (or sometimes should) take precedence. It explores such things well while balancing several different genres to great effect, overall offering a tremendous amount of entertainment value.
28 ‘West Side Story’ (1961)
Given West Side Story is a 20th-century update of Shakespeare‘s Romeo and Juliet, it’s fairly safe to say that it’s perhaps not the best romance film to watch for those who like their stories about love free of tragedy. It’s about two young people falling in love, despite being from very different walks of life; namely, each is associated with the members of a different street gang, with the two gangs having a fierce – and sometimes violent – rivalry.
It tells this epic, crime-related romance story while also being a genuinely great musical, filled to the brim with memorable songs and scenes of impressive dance choreography. It was very efficiently updated (and, in some key areas, improved) by a Steven Spielberg remake in 2021, but the original film version from 1961 is still the most essential and feels like more of a classic; time will tell, however, how future generations feel about the two takes on the same great story.
27 ‘Cold War’ (2018)
Cold War clocks in at under 90 minutes in total, and feels at once simple and complex. It’s a slow-paced movie, and more or less focuses on a single, highly emotional romance between two unlikely lovers, but also has a unique, sometimes confounding flow to its various scenes, and also blends genres quite confidently throughout (it’s a war film, a romance, a drama, and a music film).
Its technical qualities also make it stand out, thanks to the eye-catching black and white cinematography, as well as the fairly unique (at least for modern movies) aspect ratio of 1.37:1. It’s odd and even perplexing, so perhaps not the most accessible romance film out there by any means, but it’s worth giving a chance for the goal of experiencing a truly singular movie.
26 ‘Away from Her’ (2006)
Filmmaker/ex-actress Sarah Polley might be best known for her 2012 documentary Stories We Tell and her 2022 feature film Women Talking, but her feature debut was the lesser-known 2006 romance film Away from Her. It’s about an unlikely romance developing between two elderly people at a nursing home; one grappling with Alzheimer’s disease, and the other wheelchair-bound and mute.
Naturally, given the subject matter, it’s heavy-going stuff, but is likely to pack an emotional wallop for those who feel ready to experience such an intense story. It’s tender and empathetic, too, handling the story at hand – and the character drama – with grace and care.
25 ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (1991)
Animated Disney movies don’t get much more acclaimed than 1991’s Beauty and the Beast, and it holds the distinction of being the first animated movie to ever get a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. Its story is of course a familiar but well-told one, being about the unlikely romance that develops between a young woman and a prince who’s been turned into a beast.
Of course, she’s also his prisoner, at least early on. It could be all kinds of uncomfortable, but the story is handled surprisingly well, and it has that rare timeless quality that all the greatest Disney films have. It’s a family-friendly animated movie that’s funny, entertaining, and romantic, and certainly deserves its classic status.
24 ‘The Worst Person in the World’ (2021)
The Worst Person in the World is proof that not all great romance movies would necessarily make great date movies. That’s because this Norwegian romantic dramedy is unafraid to get very real and surprisingly downbeat at times, following a young woman who’s struggling with the professional and romantic sides of her life, and increasingly feeling like she doesn’t have a place in a rapidly changing world.
To anyone who’s intensely felt the struggles of being in your 20s or 30s while not having any idea where your life is going, it can be a cathartic watch. It does offer a great deal of commentary towards – and insight into – the difficulties of modern-day dating, and as such, is a fantastic movie that deals with the realities of romance… it’s just not entirely romantic in a way that makes it a good date movie in the traditional sense.
23 ‘Gone with the Wind’ (1939)
Film fans will often point to 1939 being one of the greatest (or most important) years in cinema history, thanks to the high number of influential classics that were released during it. One of those historically significant titles is Gone with the Wind, a gargantuan film when it comes to things like runtime, scope, and box office intake.
Much of it takes place during the American Civil War, so while it feels like a historical drama/war film, the romance between the two lead characters – Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler – gets much of the focus. It’s all very over-the-top and melodramatic (not to mention the non-romance parts of the movie can be uncomfortable for different reasons), but it endures as a landmark romantic epic, and it builds to an ending that is admittedly legendary.
22 ‘Carol’ (2015)
One of the most compelling films directed by the always interesting and somewhat underrated Todd Haynes, Carol is a good film made great by two lead performances by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. It follows a younger woman falling in love with an older woman, though complications arise because the older woman’s married, and this all happens during the far more conservative 1950s.
It’s among the best romance films in recent memory for how it handles its story, feeling approachable while also staying away from clichés or overdone tropes. It also captures the period in history with great detail, and in case you needed any more reasons to watch it, it’s also a surprise Christmas movie.
21 ‘The Princess Bride’ (1987)
The Princess Bride is one of those movies that ends up feeling like it belongs in many genres, but balances all its various tones and genre elements incredibly well. At its core, though, it is ultimately a fairytale with a romance between a princess and a farmhand at its center, even if it’s also a comedic and gently satirical take on fairytale adventures themselves.
It’s surprising it works as well as it does, but the core romance plus the balance of everything else is what makes The Princess Bride an undeniable classic. Even if viewers initially find themselves like the grandson character (“Is this a kissing book?”), they’ll likely be won over by the film’s charms by the end.
20 ‘Sense and Sensibility’ (1995)
Ang Lee is a filmmaker who’s made movies spread across a wide variety of genres, though he seems particularly good at tackling romance movies. While something like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon blends romance and martial arts, his take on the Jane Austen novel Sense and Sensibility is mainly concerned with romance.
It’s set near the end of the 1700s, and follows a group of sisters who all have to deal with life, love, and heartbreak after their mother’s husband is left out of an inheritance after his death. It’s a transporting period film that features a great cast, and is notable for having its Oscar-winning screenplay written by Emma Thompson, who also stars in the movie.
19 ‘All That Heaven Allows’ (1955)
Anyone who likes their romance movies heavy on melodrama need not look any further than the filmography of Douglas Sirk. He’s best known for his mid-20th-century melodramas that have sweeping emotions, bold colors, and some very theatrical acting that suits the overall bombastic nature of the stories he liked to tell.
All That Heaven Allows might be his most famous movie when it comes to this style that he was known for, and depicts the (for the time) scandalous romance that blossoms between a widow and a younger man who’s out of her social class (gasp!). It’s the kind of thing that does feel outdated now, but when viewed through the appropriate lens, there is something attention-grabbing about what’s on offer here, and undeniably, Sirk was in a class of his own for the time.
18 ‘Weekend’ (2011)
Not to be mixed up with the bizarre 1967 Jean-Luc Godard movie of the same name, Weekend (2011) is one of the best (and most underrated) LGBTQ+ movies of the past decade or so. It’s about two men who meet at a gay club and find their feelings towards each other grow unexpectedly, despite intending for things to simply be a one-night stand.
It’s all presented in a very human and down-to-earth fashion, and it’s the realism and grounded nature of Weekend that makes it surprisingly powerful. Tonally and visually, it’s the complete opposite of a melodramatic romance film like the aforementioned All That Heaven Allows, which ultimately goes to show how versatile films about human connection and love can be.
17 ‘It Happened One Night’ (1934)
Old-school Hollywood screwball comedies don’t get much better or more iconic than It Happened One Night. It was a game-changing film for its time, and set the groundwork for what would become the modern romantic-comedy, pairing a man and woman together who are both trying to achieve the same goal, but at first dislike each other… only to develop strong feelings for the other as the story approaches its end.
It’s surprising how funny and entertaining it still is, even though it’s decades old at this point, and has influenced plenty of other great rom-coms that admittedly feel more modern. Still, it remains charming and endearing to this day, and is also notable for being one of only three movies to win the “Big 5” awards at the Oscars.
16 ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (2019)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a slow-burn romance in the best way possible. It’s set at the end of the 1700s and follows two women on an island: one is a painter tasked with painting a wedding portrait of the other woman, who’s mysterious and reserved, yet soon the two reveal their feelings for one another, and so begins a passionate yet short-lived romance.
2019 was one of the best years for cinema in recent memory, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire was one of the best to come out within such a stacked 12 months. It’s fantastically acted, deliberately paced without being boring, has plenty of striking imagery, and contains a final scene that, once seen, is hard to forget.
15 ‘La La Land’ (2016)
There are many ways an old-school romantic musical set in detached, hipster-heavy L.A. during the 2010s could have ended in disaster, but La La Land was somehow a huge success. The story is about as simple as it gets: two young people fall in love, but since both are passionate about their professional lives, there’s tension, and the possibility that things won’t work out in the long term.
It’s a very well-balanced film, as it starts light and funny, gets a little heavier in its second half, and then builds to an amazing, inevitable, and bittersweet finale. For any other musicals post-2016 that want to capture the grandeur and sweeping nature of old-school musicals in a modern setting, La La Land has set the bar scarily high.
14 ‘Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans’ (1927)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans was one of the first movies to win Best Picture at the Oscars… sort of. In the first Academy Awards ceremony, there were two awards for Best Picture – one called “Outstanding Picture” and the other called “Unique and Artistic Picture” – with Sunrise winning the latter.
It’s since been considered the “lesser” of the two original Best Picture winners, thanks to the Unique and Artistic Picture award only being a one-time thing. Still, it’s hard to argue that Sunrise didn’t deserve recognition, because it’s a creatively shot romantic-drama that was indeed innovative for its time, and remains one of the easiest-to-watch movies of the silent era.
13 ‘Titanic’ (1997)
Titanic might well be the deadliest romance film of all time, because it’s a film that ultimately aims to be a romantic drama and a disaster movie at the same time. And it succeeds surprisingly well at doing both of these things, though with a runtime well over three hours, it can certainly afford the time and space to essentially be two movies in one.
Jack and Rose make up one of the most famous couples in cinema history, with their tragically short love giving Titanic its heart, and surely being one of the main reasons it’s so beloved. It also delivers as a disaster movie, with the sequences involving the titular ship sinking still holding up to this day, making Titanic an emotional and hard-to-resist film on two fronts.
12 ‘Before Sunrise’ (1995)
In Before Sunrise, two young people strike up a conversation on a train. They’re both traveling, and decide to continue spending time with one another in Vienna. They each acknowledge they need to go their separate ways in the morning, but as the night goes on, they fall for each other more and more, making their eventual parting feel remarkably sad.
It ends up not being the end of their story, however, due to sequels Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013) showing what happens when they reunite by chance, and then decide to have a relationship together. For as great as the follow-ups are, Before Sunrise does feel the most romantic and heartfelt, with the other two movies feeling a little more drama-focused, given the characters naturally get a good deal older between movies.
11 ‘Moonlight’ (2016)
Moonlight‘s a movie that’s certainly more than “just” a romance, though that plays a considerable part in the overall unique coming-of-age story the film tells. Its first third follows a boy named Chiron, with its second act showing his teenage life, and then the final act of the film spending time with him as a young adult.
Part of Chiron’s story involves him coming to terms with his sexuality, and the bond that develops between him and Kevin, who’s also shown at three different ages throughout the film. Director Barry Jenkins also followed Moonlight up with the romantic drama If Beale Street Could Talk, further showing his mastery of intimate, personal relationship-focused films.
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