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There is no objective ranking of the most romantic movies ever: one viewer may want a buoyant comedy, another a love story shaped by distance, danger or loss. This selection looks for films in which a romantic bond gives the story its heart, while making room for different eras, national cinemas, genres and endings. The American Film Institute uses a similar narrative-centered definition in its 100 Years…100 Passions project; this is an independent selection, not a reproduction of AFI’s ranking or the BFI’s romance collection.
Romances that endure across time
1. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), directed by F. W. Murnau
A farmer’s marriage is threatened when a woman from the city persuades him to consider killing his wife. What follows is a nearly wordless journey through betrayal, fear and renewed tenderness. Its expressive images make reconciliation feel earned rather than easy. AFI’s guide quotes the film: “For wherever the sun rises and sets, in the city’s turmoil or under the open sky on the farm, life is much the same: sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet.” AFI’s guide to romantic films offers that line from the film.
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2. City Lights (1931), directed by Charlie Chaplin
Chaplin’s Little Tramp falls for a blind flower seller and tries to help her, concealing how little he has. Romance and comedy build toward a final encounter whose emotional force depends on a look, not a speech. AFI reproduces the observation that “Not since Chaplin’s ’Little Tramp’ has so much story — so much emotion — been conveyed without words” in its Valentine’s Day Movie Guide.
3. Brief Encounter (1945), directed by David Lean
Two married strangers meet at a railway station and begin an affair that neither can fit into ordinary life. The film finds its romance in restraint: missed trains, small gestures and the feelings its characters cannot safely express. Its ache comes from the choice to leave rather than from a grand declaration.
#1 Best Overall
Love stories with a classic Hollywood sweep
4. Casablanca (1942), directed by Michael Curtiz
Rick Blaine’s past returns when Ilsa Lund arrives in wartime Casablanca with her husband, resistance leader Victor Laszlo. The triangle gives the film its romantic charge, but the story asks whether love means holding on or helping someone else leave. The sacrifice is what makes its famous longing linger.
5. Roman Holiday (1953), directed by William Wyler
Princess Ann escapes the strictures of a state visit and spends a day in Rome with reporter Joe Bradley, who initially sees a story in her freedom. Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck give the encounter a lightness that makes its limits more affecting. Their romance is brief, but the day belongs wholly to them.
6. An Affair to Remember (1957), directed by Leo McCarey
Nickie Ferrante and Terry McKay fall in love during an ocean crossing and agree to meet months later atop the Empire State Building. A sudden accident puts their promise and their future under strain. The film turns waiting into a test of love, making one missed meeting feel enormous.
Romantic comedy, with a little more complication
7. The Shop Around the Corner (1940), directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Shop coworkers Alfred Kralik and Klara Novak clash in person while unknowingly exchanging affectionate letters as anonymous pen pals. The pleasure is watching their assumptions change as they discover the person behind the correspondence. Its romance is built from wit, workaday friction and an unexpected connection.
8. The Apartment (1960), directed by Billy Wilder
Office worker C. C. Baxter lends his apartment to senior colleagues for their affairs, hoping to advance at work. When he falls for elevator operator Fran Kubelik, he has to decide what kind of man he wants to be. The romance grows out of loneliness and a shared refusal to accept being treated as disposable.
Rank #2
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- Format: Box set, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
- Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1)
- Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
- Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
- Number of discs: 3 / Rated: NR Not Rated / Run Time: 369 minutes
9. When Harry Met Sally… (1989), directed by Rob Reiner
Harry and Sally keep crossing paths over the years, debating friendship and attraction as their lives change. Its comic argument gives way to a more intimate question: can two people recognize love when it has grown slowly out of familiarity? The film makes conversation itself part of the courtship.
10. The Wedding Banquet (1993), directed by Ang Lee
Taiwanese-American Wai-Tung stages a marriage of convenience with Wei-Wei to satisfy his parents, while hiding his relationship with Simon. The farce draws its warmth from the pressures placed on family, intimacy and belonging. Romance here is not just courtship; it is also the work of making a life visible to the people you love.
Passion that crosses genre lines
11. Vertigo (1958), directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Retired detective Scottie Ferguson becomes obsessed with Madeleine, a woman he has been hired to follow. The romance is inseparable from the film’s suspense and psychological unease, making it a deliberately unsettling choice for a love-story list. AFI’s romantic-film guide likewise treats it as a love story within a psychological thriller.
12. True Romance (1993), directed by Tony Scott
After Clarence and Alabama fall for each other, a stolen suitcase of cocaine sends them into a violent flight from danger. The film marries an impulsive, stylized romance to an action thriller, rather than pretending love makes the world safe. AFI’s guide includes it among romantic films while acknowledging its violence and action.
13. WALL-E (2008), directed by Andrew Stanton
A lonely waste-collecting robot follows EVE across space, turning a spare science-fiction adventure into a tender courtship. Much of the bond is communicated through movement, attention and small acts of care rather than dialogue. AFI’s movie guide describes the film’s largely wordless storytelling as carrying remarkable amounts of story and emotion.
Rank #3
Longing, memory and impossible timing
14. Brief Encounter (1945), directed by David Lean
Two married strangers meet at a railway station and begin an affair that neither can fit into ordinary life. The film finds its romance in restraint: missed trains, small gestures and the feelings its characters cannot safely express. Its ache comes from the choice to leave rather than from a grand declaration.
15. In the Mood for Love (2000), directed by Wong Kar-wai
In 1960s Hong Kong, neighbors Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan discover that their spouses are having an affair with each other. Their own closeness develops through shared routines and careful restraint. The film makes longing visible in repeated encounters, elegant framing and all the words its characters choose not to say.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors16. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), directed by Michel Gondry
After Joel and Clementine erase memories of their relationship, the film moves through the recollections that remain. Its science-fiction premise gives a familiar breakup question a striking form: would we choose love again if we knew its pain in advance? The answer is complicated, which is precisely what makes the romance feel human.
17. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), directed by Céline Sciamma
In eighteenth-century France, painter Marianne is commissioned to paint Héloïse, who does not want to marry and initially refuses to sit for a portrait. Watching and being watched become the terms of their intimacy. The film treats desire as something built through attention, shared experience and the knowledge that their time together is limited.
Love in different places and traditions
18. Jules et Jim (1962), directed by François Truffaut
Friends Jules and Jim both love Catherine, and their relationships shift across decades of social change and personal upheaval. Rather than presenting romance as a settled pair, the film follows desire, freedom and jealousy in motion. Its unconventional triangle is a reminder that love stories do not all follow the same pattern.
19. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), directed by Jacques Demy
Geneviève and Guy are young lovers separated when Guy is sent away for military service. Sung throughout, the film gives ordinary conversations a musical lift, then lets time and circumstance reshape the future they imagined. Its vivid colors and bittersweet outcome make it both buoyant and deeply wistful.
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Raj and Simran meet while traveling in Europe, but their courtship must contend with family expectations when they return to India. The film’s romance balances playful attraction with the importance of winning acceptance at home. Its journey from flirtation to family confrontation gives the love story a broad, celebratory sweep.
21. The Lunchbox (2013), directed by Ritesh Batra
A lunch delivery mix-up connects Ila, a neglected wife, and Saajan, a lonely widower, through notes tucked into a food container in Mumbai. Their correspondence becomes a place to share regrets, hopes and small observations. The romance is quiet and uncertain, built through words between people who may never meet in the way either expects.
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22. Brokeback Mountain (2005), directed by Ang Lee
Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist fall in love while working as sheepherders, then carry the relationship through years shaped by secrecy and social pressure. The film makes the beauty of their connection inseparable from the limits imposed on their lives. Its heartbreak comes from time lost as much as from love denied.
23. Atonement (2007), directed by Joe Wright
Robbie Turner and Cecilia Tallis are separated by a false accusation and the consequences of a child’s misreading of events. The romance is framed by memory, war and the lasting effects of a single mistake. Its sweeping visual style contrasts with the painful question of whether love can survive a story told wrongly.
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In the final months of World War II, a nurse cares for a badly burned man whose memories reveal an affair with Katharine Clifton. The film moves between the wartime present and the romance that preceded it, where desire is caught in marriage, travel and danger. Its emotional scale is as expansive as its desert landscapes.
25. A Star Is Born (1954), directed by George Cukor
Esther Blodgett’s career rises as Norman Maine, the established star who helped her, struggles with his decline. Their marriage is loving, but fame and addiction place severe pressure on it. This musical drama belongs on a romance list because it takes seriously both the tenderness between its leads and the damage surrounding them.
How to choose your next romantic movie
For playful courtship, start with The Shop Around the Corner or When Harry Met Sally…; for yearning and restraint, choose In the Mood for Love or Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Casablanca and Roman Holiday offer classic Hollywood romance, while The Lunchbox is quieter and more tentative. If you want a love story tangled with another genre, try Vertigo, True Romance or WALL-E. And if a happy ending is not essential, Brief Encounter, Brokeback Mountain and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg show how separation and loss can be central to romance rather than exceptions to it.
That last distinction matters: AFI observed that seven of the top ten films on its own 100 Years…100 Passions list feature couples who do not end up together. That is AFI’s finding about its list, not a general statistic about romantic movies. AFI’s list and definition are a useful reference point, not a ruling on which films belong among the most romantic ever.
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