Happy Valentine’s Day!
Ahh, it’s the most romantic day of the year, and to close out our 14 Days of Romance event, celebrating the most romantic movies in different genres, we’re looking at the most romantic, well, romance movies.
A good romance film should tug at your heartstrings, twist your stomach into knots and have you feeling as much in love as the lovers on screen. For our top three, we considered lots of wonderful romantic movies, including the funny and touching Notting Hill (a close contender), When Harry Met Sally… and Sleepless in Seattle. And we looked at classic films, including the relationship tales of The Way We Were with Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford and Annie Hall with the great team of Woody Allen and Diane Keaton, both couples showing us the ups and downs of real-life relationships.
But ultimately, for movies that make us want to cry, laugh and cuddle with our significant others, pet or pillow, we chose these three Most Romantic Movies of All Time.
What are your favorites?
2003 British romantic comedy Love, Actually, written and directed by Richard Curtis (he also wrote the lovely Notting Hill), shows love in all its glory. The movie intertwines numerous stories of love: an idyllic relationship between newlyweds (Keira Knightley of Never Let Me Go and Chiwetel Ejiofor of Salt) and the secret love the groom’s best friend (Andrew Lincoln, TV’s The Walking Dead) holds for the bride; a writer (Colin Firth, The King’s Speech) who catches his wife in bed with his brother but then finds love in a villa in France; a rock star (Bill Nighy, Pirate Radio) who realizes his relationship with his manager is the best he has ever had; a father who has just lost his wife (Liam Neeson, The A-Team) helping his young son through his first crush; a husband (Alan Rickman, Harry Potter movies) and wife (Emma Thompson, Nanny McPhee Returns) who find themselves on rocky ground after he cheats; a woman (Laura Linney, The City of Your Final Destination) whose love for her disabled brother stops her having a relationship; a Prime Minister (Hugh Grant, Did You Hear About the Morgans?) who realizes that even when you’re running a country, it’s okay to follow your feelings, and others. The film tells us that we can find love in all different sorts of relationships, and even though it can hurt at times, ultimately love will elevate us to pure bliss. Despite everything, the one thing we need most is love, actually.
Available on DVD and Blu-ray from Universal Studios Home Entertainment
2. The Notebook
Based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, this 2004 drama directed by Nick Cassavetes (My Sister’s Keeper) looks at the kind of love that burns for a lifetime. The movie tells the story of Noah (Ryan Gosling, Blue Valentine) and Allie (Rachel McAdams, Morning Glory), who fall in love despite being from different social classes. As the story is told by an elderly man (James Garner, TV’s The Rockford Files) to his Alzheimer’s ailing wife (Gena Rowlands, The Skeleton Key), we learn that Noah had to go off to war, and when Allie didn’t receive a letter from him for two years, she finally moved on. After she’s engaged to be married to a wealthy man (James Marsden, X-Men), Allie discovers that Noah’s back, and all her feelings of love for him return. Now she has two men that she must choose between, both of whom she loves but in different ways. Beautifully shot, The Notebook‘s most romantic part comes at the end of the film (we won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t seen it yet), and it’s one to make you get the tissues out.
Available on DVD and Blu-ray from Warner Home Video
Disc Dish’s pick for the Most Romantic Film in our 14 Days of Romance countdown is 1957’s An Affair to Remember, directed by Leo McCarey and starring Cary Grant (The Bishop’s Wife) and Deborah Kerr (Black Narcissus).
An Affair to Remember introduces us to silky smooth playboy Nick Ferrante (Grant) and nightclub singer Terry McKay (Kerr) as they meet on a trans-Atlantic luxury liner sailing from Europe to New York. Both are engaged to be married to other people, but that’s not what love’s destiny has in mind for them. Seemingly brought together by fate, just as they are later separated by it, Nick and Terry’s romance in An Affair to Remember is one for the ages. It’s beginning and flourishing on the ship is wonderful to behold, the tragedy that befalls one of them months later as they plan to meet atop the Empire State Building to prove to themselves that their feelings are real is heartbreaking, and the finale where truths are revealed and true love is embraced is simply enrapturing.
Unabashedly sentimental and exceedingly pleasurable (a feeling that grows with each viewing), An Affair to Remember exemplifies Hollywood alchemy at its finest: Fabulous performers (make that movie stars!), a dynamic script, steady direction, shimmering cinematography (Technicolor!), a wonderful score, gorgeous locales and more come together to create a truly transcendent piece of cinema. Big screen romance has never been more sweet or satisfying.
Incidentally, McCarey’s remake of his own 1939 film Love Affair, An Affair to Remember was subsequently remade in1994 by Glenn Gordon Caron (TV’s Moonlighting), reverting back to its original title, Love Affair, starring Warren Beatty (Bulworth) and Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right). That movie pales next to the 1957 version, but there’s a certain satisfaction and comfort in seeing that producer/co-writer/star Beatty chose to remake An Affair to Remember. As one of Hollywood’s great romantic stars and filmmakers (he appears twice in our countdown with Heaven Can Wait and Bonnie and Clyde), Beatty knows an outstanding movie romance when he sees one. And so do we.
Available on DVD and Blu-ray from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
So, which movies will you be watching this Valentine’s Day
Love Actually – ugh! Hated that film and to pick that over such classics as Roman Holiday, Love Story, Bridges of Madison County and Casablanca!
All great films, Kitty. We had Casablanca in our most romantic war movies on day 1: http://bit.ly/i9wJbW.
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