I’m not sure if any two people find the same things romantic, but there are still movies and moments I think are absolutely undeniable. After a cozy night in or a decadent night out, here are a few romantic-as-all-hell movies that will play as the perfect nightcap to your special day.
Phantom Thread (2017)
Just the greatest movie ever made about finding the person that matches your freak set across the backdrop of a 1950s fashion house in London. Be ready to swoon.
Casablanca (1942)
When you’re still hung up on your ex so badly that you help her and her husband escape Germany in World War II. I can barely return a text, so I know this must be true love.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Beautifully acted, achingly romantic, gloriously queer, this underseen period piece is one of the finest examples of the “female gaze” put to film.
In The Mood For Love (2000)
Maybe one of the three or four greatest movies ever made, Wong Kar-wai’s masterpiece will not only take your breath away, but break your heart into big, sensual pieces.
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
To be a vampire and live for hundreds of years, yet still never fall out of love with your person… how romantic is that? Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton are ethereal and otherworldly.
Her (2013)
For those who slowly come to realize that their partner has evolved past them and is now completely unrecognizable from the person they fell in love with. It should be depressing, but it is somehow hopeful and profoundly, hopelessly romantic.
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Never have wistful glances and barely brushed hands been so erotically charged and so layered with longing. Only Martin Scorsese could direct something this quietly elegant.
Once (2007)
Taps into the part of our lizard brains that has always known how connected music is to sense memory and how hard it can be to hear the song that reminds us of the one that once was everything.
Mississippi Masala (1991)
Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury are searingly sexy as star-crossed lovers facing disapproving parents, clashing cultures, systemic racism, and a love that transcends all. So underrated and moving.
The Princess Bride (1987)
As you wish, indeed.
Past Lives (2023)
This is the most profound look at the path not taken ever made. Filmmaker Celine Song captures the unspoken truth of longing in such a way that makes this a poem of the human soul in ways too hard to quantify.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
That feeling when you love someone so much that science can’t even get them out of your head. When you fight for someone so hard that it happens even in your dreams.
Moonlight (2016)
Painful, honest and searingly compassionate, Moonlight unpacks black masculinity and identity in ways that will engender empathy for generations to come.
The Before Trilogy (1995, 2004, 2013)
Watching Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy fall in (and out) (and in) love in real time across 20 actual years is the greatest experience I’ve ever had with the cinematic love story. It might be yours, too.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
The only movie in history that could pull off the line “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return” and have it work, completely. Romance and love as the greatest, most powerful verbs in existence.
Runners-Up: Say Anything (1989), The Bodyguard (1992), Love & Basketball (2000), Love Jones (1997), La La Land (2016), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), The Remains of the Day (1993), Moonstruck (1987), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), Brokeback Mountain (2005).