The best romance movies of all time

Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck star in 'Roman Holiday' (1953) — Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck explore Rome — and their hearts —in ‘Roman Holiday’

(Image credit: Carlo Bollo / Alamy)

Jump to category:

‘Casablanca’ (1942)
‘Roman Holiday’ (1953)
‘Doctor Zhivago’ (1965)
‘The Way We Were’ (1973)
‘Before Sunrise’ (1995)
‘In the Mood for Love’ (2000)
‘Love & Basketball’ (2000)
‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ (2004)
‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ (2019)
‘Past Lives’ (2023)

Falling in love is close to a universal human experience. So it’s no surprise that audiences return again and again to see glamorous movie stars go through both the mundane and sublime beats of getting swept away — and sometimes shattered — by love, as in these ten brilliant films.

‘Casablanca’ (1942)

“Casablanca” may be unique in the history of cinema for its timelessness and cultural staying power. Humphrey Bogart is Rick Blaine, a gimlet-eyed bar owner in Vichy-governed Morocco, who must choose between his desire for his former lover, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), and his ability to use letters of transit for her and her husband, Laszlo (Paul Henreid), an anti-Nazi resistance leader. The iconic film “continues to fascinate audiences in a way that is beyond explanation, except to resolve that the picture seems to result from and fully encompass that somewhat fantastical notion of Movie Magic,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (HBO Max)

Audrey Hepburn plays Ann, the glamorous princess of some unnamed European kingdom, who is on an exhausting goodwill tour in Rome and slips out for some fun and respite. When she falls asleep on a bench, she is attended to by journalist, Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), who accompanies her on a tour of the city, planning a scoop but eventually falling for her. The lovingly rendered portrait of Rome has inspired countless romantic getaways to the city. The film “takes an understated, dignified approach worthy of its royal protagonist” and rather than hitting the familiar beats of the romantic comedy, it ultimately “swerves to something more poignant,” said Caroline Siede at The A.V. Club. (Prime Video)

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Latest Videos FromThe Week

Watch full video here:

Director Sydney Pollack’s “The Way We Were” tells the story of the love between the handsome, conservative Hubbell (Robert Redford) and the rabble-rousing communist Katie (Barbra Streisand), set against the backdrop of the early 1950s Hollywood blacklisting affair. They meet in college, marry and then struggle to reconcile their politics when they move West so that Hubbell can pursue his dreams as a screenwriter. It’s “one of those romantic melodramas that can send you to bed in inconsolable tears,” said Steve Vineberg at Critics at Large, yet is nevertheless a “deeply lovable film. (Prime Video)

The simple premise of director Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” is part of its enormous charm. Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) meet on a Vienna-bound train. Taken with each other, Celine agrees to continue talking with Jesse in Vienna before his morning flight. Their one, magical, conversation-driven night together is now the definitive Gen X romance. A film that “isn't just about 23-year-olds in love, but about the condition of being 23 years old,” it also provides a “breathtaking end to, simply put, one of cinema's finest depictions of the delightful immaturity of being young and being in love,” said Tim Brayton at Alternate Ending. (Prime Video)

In perhaps the most beautiful film ever made about unconsummated love, Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) are neighbors in an apartment building, devoted, or at least loyal, to their spouses, who they realize are having an affair with each other. Chow and Su gradually develop feelings for one another, even re-enacting how they believe their spouses’ affair unfolded. Director Wong Kar-wai’s “In the Mood For Love” is “ravishing beyond mortal words,” said Ed Gonzalez at Slant magazine, and its protagonists “come to resemble butterflies caught in a rainbow-tinted industrial web.” (HBO Max)

Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps play Monica and Quincy, best friends, aspiring basketball stars and eventual lovers who are torn apart and later brought back together. Told in four segments, the story takes them from childhood rivalry to heady high school romance through college and their respective professional careers. In addition to the consistently riveting relationship story, “Love & Basketball” is also a superb sports film well ahead of its time by taking women’s professional leagues seriously. The movie is, “at its heart, a passionate love letter to basketball and friendship and Black love and ambition,” said Roxane Gay at Current. (Prime Video)

Jim Carrey plays Joel, a man who decides to have the memories of his relationship with Clementine (Kate Winslet) digitally erased after discovering that she did so first. During the procedure he realizes he doesn’t actually want to forget and races through a prismatic rendering of his own memories to preserve them. It’s a movie that “makes the unique argument that failure is an essential, precious part of romantic experience” and in so doing “celebrates the essential untidiness of love, the beautiful messes two people can make together,” said Scott Tobias at The Guardian. (Prime Video)

Writer-director Céline Sciamma’s searing love story follows Marianne (Noémie Merlant), a painter newly arrived at a gorgeously rendered, remote seaside town in 18th-century France. She is hired to paint a wedding portrait for Héloise (Adèle Haenel), and the two fall madly in forbidden love. It’s a film that is “about the erotic, electric connection between women when they find their desire for creative experience fulfilled in each other, but it is equally about the powers of art to validate, preserve and console after a romance is over,” said Rachel Syme at The New Yorker. (HBO Max)

In director Celine Song’s “Past Lives,” Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Na Young (Greta Lee) are childhood best friends whose bond is severed when Na Young moves with her family to Canada. They later rekindle their relationship as adults from a distance before Na Young (who becomes “Nora” in Canada) marries Arthur (John Magaro). When Hae Sung visits Nora in New York more than a decade later, they grapple with their unrealized love and the struggle not to hurt Arthur with their feelings for one another. Its “mix of nostalgia, love and remorse” is what makes the film “so effective and lovely,” said Monica Castillo at Roger Ebert. (Prime Video)

Explore More

David Faris is a professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of "It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics." He's a frequent contributor to Newsweek and Slate, and his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New Republic and The Nation, among others.