The Best Romantic Movies to Watch When You Want to Feel the Love
Get swept up by these epic love stories.
There’s something about a romantic movie that allows you to truly get swept up by the story. The grand gestures, the romantic tension, the lines that have become iconic quotes, those seriously steamy kisses—there’s so much to enjoy. We’ve rounded up the best romantic movies to watch now, whether you’re cozying up with your sweetheart, gathering your friends, or enjoying a solo night in.
No matter what kind of love story speaks to you, there’s certainly a movie here you’ll enjoy. Period pieces, tragic stories of lost love, hilarious rom-coms, LGBTQ+ love stories, and hot-and-heavy pairings are just a few of the options you’ve got for movie night. We’ve highlighted picks available from a wide variety of streaming services, so you should be able to find something no matter what services you subscribe to. We’re willing to bet many of these iconic movies can also be borrowed from your local library’s digital or DVD/Blu-ray collections.
Ahead, check out the best romantic movies to watch now. And if you’re looking for more movie night inspiration, don’t miss our roundups of the best historical movies to watch and some seriously chilling psychological thrillers if you’re looking for something that’s more scary than sweet.
Wuthering Heights (2026)
The latest adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic adds some dramatic imagery and a surprisingly contemporary soundtrack to the story you know and love. If you love period dramas and dark romances, you’ll want to add this to your list ASAP.
The People We Meet on Vacation (2026)
Based on the best-selling book by Emily Henry, this is a classic case of opposites attract...as friends. (Right?) Poppy is a free spirit, while Alex is an uptight planner, and together they even each other out—theoretically. The story is told through flashbacks to the vacations they've gone on together over the years—and how their relationship evolves after each one.
Materialists (2025)
Dakota Johnson plays a woman—ironically, a professional matchmaker—who finds herself asking that classic romantic-triangle question: Should she choose to be with the wealthy and handsome man who can give her all the material things she wants in life (Pedro Pascal), or her college boyfriend, the never-made-it actor (Chris Evans) who still has roommates and drives a beat-up old car? Is love truly all she needs?
On Swift Horses (2025)
For those who like yearning, there's yearning all over the place in this movie. It follows Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a woman who is about to embark on a new chapter of her life when her boyfriend, Lee (Will Poulter), returns home from the Korean War. Muriel also has feeliings for Lee's brother, Julius (played by Jacob Elordi again), and when Lee and Muriel and Julius go their separate ways, they all try to find their own version of fulfillment.
We Live in Time (2024)
This movie follows a relationship over a course of a decade, but the "in time" part comes into play in the way the story is told: It hops around from the beginning of the relationship to the end. It comes courtesy of director John Crowley, who previously took a stab at the romance genre with the Academy Award-nominated Brooklyn, which has a similar mix of romance and sadness.
Hit Man (2024)
It's romance and true crime all rolled into one. Glen Powell— romance actor du jour—plays an unassuming teacher who somehow winds up helping local police by pretending to be a hit man for hire in sting operations. When a potential client wants to be romantically involved, he gets pulled in over his head. Though the romance is fabricated, the story is inspired by a real guy that director Richard Linklater read about in a Texas Monthly article.
The Idea of You (2024)
It's a May/December romance when a 40-year-old single mom gets involved with a 24-year-old heartthrob. The twist? He's also the singer of a red-hot boy band. (The whole thing is said to be inspired by Harry Styles.) Can the romance survive the celebrity scrutiny?
Anyone But You (2023)
Bea and Ben don't really like each other. But when Ben wants to make his ex jealous, and Bea wants to keep her family from getting on her case about settling down, they agree to pretend to be in a relationship for the duration of a destination wedding. But you know what they say about best-laid plans, and things start to change when they catch feelings.
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?
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?
The Worst Person in the World (2021)
This Norwegian film, from the director of Sentimental Value, 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.
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.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
This film-festival and awards favorite 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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RELATED: Lady Gaga Spills the Hidden Meaning Behind “Shallow” Song Lyrics
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.
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. It stars Timothée Chalamet in one of his breakthrough roles.
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.
RELATED: The Best LGBTQ+ Movies Ever Made
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
There have been many movies that have attempted to master the romance-and-vampires genre (to varying success), but this Jim Jarmusch movie is the only one that gets at how wearying it would be to keep a marriage intact across centuries. Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston play estranged but married vampires named Eve and Adam. (Get it?) When Adam is sunk by a depressive episode, Eve finds him again and tries to cheer him up.
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