The 80 Best Romantic Movies for When You Want Your Heart to Skip a Beat
Romances new and old to watch on your next date night (especially if it's with yourself).
With no ill will for the best romantic comedies out there — rom-coms certainly have their place — when you're looking for the yearning, the swooning, the highs and the lows of an all-time great romance, rom-coms don't always scratch the itch. And yet while you can find romantic comedies everywhere — Netflix is even making franchises of them, like The Kissing Booth, Tall Girl and To All the Boys I've Loved Before — if you're more of a fan of those pure, straight-ahead romances, you might have to look a little harder.
These are the best romantic movies to watch in 2023. They run the gamut, from old classics that have famous scenes quoted over and over again ("I'm the king of the world!") to newer favorites that might still be flying under-the radar (catch up with Past Lives if you haven't). Some bring in elements of other genres — including, yes, humor — but the romance has to be the main focus of the story. And we can't promise that you won't need your tissues for a few of these. Grab your sweetheart, cuddle up real close and get ready to have your heart flutter.
Looking for more great movies to watch? Check out these Good Housekeeping guides:
The Best Romantic Christmas Movies | The Best Teen Movies on Netflix | The Most Romantic Movies on Netflix
Somebody I Used to Know (2023)
A woman, fresh off of losing her job as a TV producer, returns to her hometown and by chance reconnects with her ex-boyfriend. They kiss, but then she learns he's getting married, and she's invited to film the festivities. As she watches the weekend's events unfold, she gets jealous of her ex and suspicious of his fiancée — or is she really just missing the person that she used to be when they were together? The Amazon Prime Video original movie was written by real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie, who also stars in it.
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?
You Hurt My Feelings (2023)
There's the romance of new love, which burns hot and bright. But longtime couples know that eventually those passions settle turn into a new kind of comfortable romance. This movie, by Nicole Holofcener, is about what happens when the balance of a long-term relationship is thrown off. A writer overhears her husband tell a friend that he doesn't like her new book, and the lie eats away at her. The way they get over the betrayal — if they do — may not strike new couples as romantic, but the veterans know.
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.
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?
Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)
Alithea (Tilda Swinton), a "narratologist," returns from shopping at a bazaar in Istanbul to discover one of her purchases contains a Djinn spirit (Idris Elba). Being someone who studies stories, she's reluctant to make a wish since she knows how those tales often end, so the Djinn tells her about every wish he's tried to grant in the past three centuries. The movie is surprisingly sweet, especially considering it's from George Miller, the director of Mad Max: Fury Road.
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.
The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021)
This movie unfolds in two timelines, so you get a contemporary romance along with one filled with great period details and costumes. In the present, a magazine writer is sent into the publication's archives for an assignment, where she finds a misfiled love letter detailing an affair that happened in the '60s. Still reeling from a recent breakup, she delves into researching the letter writers, uncovering more of their story.
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.
The Photograph (2020)
This movie is really two romances in one: It follows Mae (Issa Rae) in the present day, as well as her mother, Christina (Chanté Adams), in the past. After Mae finds a hidden family photograph, she's sent on a journey to discover her mother's history, but finds herself on a powerful, unexpected road instead.
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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If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
From Barry Jenkins — director of Moonlight, which is its own sort of romance — comes this James Baldwin adaptation. It's about a couple, madly in love and expecting a child, whose relationship is upended when one of them is accused of a crime he didn't commit.
Phantom Thread (2017)
It's been said that a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. Phantom Thread shows the delirious, belly-flopping butterflies of falling in love — and also what happens when your long-term partner just gets on your nerves (and how the cycle begins again).
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.
La La Land (2016)
As its name suggests, this film takes place in Hollywood, and has just the right dose of movie-magic fantasy. The musical follows Seb (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) as they chase their artistic dreams.
Loving (2016)
This film is about a love so strong it literally changed history. It's based on the real-life story of Richard and Mildred Loving, whose Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia, made it illegal for states to have laws barring interracial marriages.
Brooklyn (2015)
This is for anyone who's longed for a place as much as they've long for a person — it's definitely the one to watch if you're feeling homesick. Saoirse Ronan, who earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for this movie, plays an Irish immigrant who feels torn between her new country and her old one, in addition to missing old friends while meeting new. The movie also earned Oscar nods for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
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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