100 Greatest Romance Films of All-Time

100 Greatest Romance Films of All-Time

The 100 Greatest Romance Films of All-Time

Romance Films are love stories, or affairs of the heart that center on passion, emotion, and the romantic, affectionate involvement of the main characters (usually a leading man and lady), and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus. Oftentimes, lovers in screen romances (often romantic dramas) face obstacles and the hazards of hardship, finances, physical illness, racial or social class status, occupation, psychological restraints, or family that threaten to break their union and attainment of love. As in all romantic relationships, tensions of day-to-day life, temptations (of infidelity), and differences in compatibility enter into the plots of romantic films.

Romantic films often explore the essential themes of love at first sight, young (and older) love, unrequited love, obsessive love, sentimental love, spiritual love, forbidden love, sexual and passionate love, sacrificial love, explosive and destructive love, and tragic love. Romantic films serve as great escapes and fantasies for viewers, especially if the two people finally overcome their difficulties, declare their love, and experience life "happily ever after" - implied by a reunion and final kiss.

More About Romance Films:

See Filmsite's Examples of Greatest Romance Films
See Filmsite's Most Memorable Film Kisses of All Time in Cinematic History
See AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions or "100 Greatest Love Stories"
See also Filmsite's Descriptions of Sexual/Erotic Films

Introduction to Romance Films

100 Greatest Romance Films of All-Time

Filmsite's 100 + Greatest Romance Films (chronological order, unranked) The linked titles below refer to reviews (with screenshots) in the "Greatest Moments and Scenes" section of the site
Way Down East (1920)	The Sheik (1921)	Flesh and the Devil (1926)	7th Heaven (1927) (aka Seventh Heaven)	Sunrise (1927)
City Lights (1931)	It Happened One Night (1934)	Alice Adams (1935)	Camille (1936)	Dodsworth (1936)
Swing Time (1936)	The Awful Truth (1937)	Maytime (1937)	Jezebel (1938)	Dark Victory (1939)
Gone With the Wind (1939)	Ninotchka (1939)	Wuthering Heights (1939)	All This, And Heaven Too (1940)	His Girl Friday (1940)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)	Rebecca (1940)	The Shop Around the Corner (1940)	Waterloo Bridge (1940)	The Lady Eve (1941)
Penny Serenade (1941)	Casablanca (1942)	Now, Voyager (1942)	The Palm Beach Story (1942)	Random Harvest (1942)
Woman of the Year (1942)	The More the Merrier (1943)	To Have and Have Not (1944)	Brief Encounter (1945/46, UK)	Gilda (1946)
Notorious (1946)	The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)	The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)	Letter From an Unknown Woman (1948)	Adam's Rib (1949)
The Heiress (1949)	Father of the Bride (1950)	The African Queen (1951)	An American in Paris (1951)	A Place in the Sun (1951)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)	The Quiet Man (1952)	Singin' In The Rain (1952)	The Band Wagon (1953)	From Here to Eternity (1953)
Roman Holiday (1953)	Journey to Italy (1954, It./Fr.) (aka Viaggio in Italia, or Voyage in Italy)	Sabrina (1954)	A Star Is Born (1954)	All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Lady and the Tramp (1955)	Marty (1955)	Picnic (1955)	Rebel Without a Cause (1955)	To Catch a Thief (1955)
The King and I (1956)	An Affair to Remember (1957)	Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959, Fr.)	Pillow Talk (1959)	Porgy and Bess (1959)
The Apartment (1960)	Breathless (1960, Fr.) (aka A Bout De Souffle)	Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)	Splendor in the Grass (1961)	West Side Story (1961)
Jules and Jim (1962, Fr.) (aka Jules et Jim)	Lolita (1962, UK/US)	Charade (1963)	My Fair Lady (1964)	Doctor Zhivago (1965, US/UK)
The Sound of Music (1965)	A Man and a Woman (1966, Fr.) (aka Un Homme et une Femme)	The Graduate (1967)	The Taming of the Shrew (1967, It./US)	Two for the Road (1967, UK)
Romeo and Juliet (1968, UK/It.)	My Night with Maud (1969, Fr.) (aka Ma Nuit Chez Maud, or My Night at Maud's) (3rd film in Six Moral Tales)	Love Story (1970)	Ryan's Daughter (1970, UK)	Harold and Maude (1971)
Last Tango in Paris (1972, Fr./It.) (aka Ultimo Tango a Parigi)	The Way We Were (1973)	Annie Hall (1977)	(Neil Simon's) The Goodbye Girl (1977)	Coming Home (1978)
Grease (1978)	Manhattan (1979)	"10" (1979)	Somewhere in Time (1980)	An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)
Baby, It's You (1983)	Sixteen Candles (1984)	My Beautiful Laundrette (1985, UK)	Out of Africa (1985)	A Room With a View (1985, UK)
Witness (1985)	Nine 1/2 Weeks (1986)	Broadcast News (1987)	Dirty Dancing (1987)	Moonstruck (1987)
The Princess Bride (1987)	Roxanne (1987)	The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)	Working Girl (1988)	Say Anything... (1989)
When Harry Met Sally... (1989)	Ghost (1990)	Pretty Woman (1990)	Jungle Fever (1991)	The Remains of the Day (1993, UK)
Shadowlands (1993, UK)	Sleepless in Seattle (1993)	Untamed Heart (1993)	Forrest Gump (1994)	Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994, UK)
It Could Happen to You (1994)	Before Sunrise (1995)	The Bridges of Madison County (1995)	Forget Paris (1995)	Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
Sense and Sensibility (1995, UK/US)	Beautiful Girls (1996)	The English Patient (1996)	Everyone Says I Love You (1996)	Jerry Maguire (1996)
(William Shakespeare's) Romeo + Juliet (1996)	As Good As It Gets (1997)	My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)	Titanic (1997)	The Wings of the Dove (1997, UK)
Shakespeare in Love (1998)	The Wedding Singer (1998)	You've Got Mail (1998)	Never Been Kissed (1999)	Notting Hill (1999)
Runaway Bride (1999)	In the Mood for Love (2000, HK) (aka Fa Yeung Nin Wa)	What Women Want (2000)	Amélie (2001, Fr.) (aka Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain)	Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)	Lost In Translation (2003)	Love Actually (2003, UK/US)	Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)	50 First Dates (2004)
The Notebook (2004)	Brokeback Mountain (2005)	The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)	Pride & Prejudice (2005, UK)	Wedding Crashers (2005)
Atonement (2007, US/UK)	Mamma Mia! (2008, US/UK)	Twilight (2008)	WALL-E (2008)	Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)	Before Midnight (2013)	Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013, Fr.) (aka La Vie D'Adèle)	Her (2013)	The Fault in Our Stars (2014)
Carol (2015)	Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)	La La Land (2016)	Call Me By Your Name (2017, It./Fr./US)	Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Past Lives (2023)	Poor Things (2023)	Anora (2024)