Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Celine Sciamma offered up one of the most sumptuous visions of romance in recent memory with this tale of an artist (Noémie Merlant) commissioned to paint a portrait of a bride-to-be (Adèle Haenel) on an island off the coast of Brittany in the 18th century. But this is far from a tame costume drama. Sciamma infuses each frame with passion as these two women fall in love, finding in each other’s eyes a comfort the rest of the world fails to provide. The magnificent ending will have you weeping, while at the same time making you believe that true love is in fact possible.
Notting Hill (1999)
Sometimes it’s best just to reach for a perennial fave. The Richard Curtis-written rom-com starring Julia Roberts as an American movie star who falls for a sheepish travel-bookshop owner played by Hugh Grant remains a delight. Part of the pleasure is watching Roberts and Grant at the peak of their powers, his mumbly charm reverberating off her undeniable spark. Almost every scene is constructed with the specific intention of making you swoon, from the awkward moment in which he pretends to be a journalist from Horse & Hound magazine to her “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy” confession. And, by goodness, the magic works.
Ball of Fire (1941)
What is Valentine’s Day without a fizzy screwball comedy? Ball of Fire is one of the most sweetly goofy. Directed by Howard Hawks – with a screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder – it stars Gary Cooper as an uptight professor named Bertram Potts who studies grammar and lives with a group of other dowdy scholars while they work on an encyclopaedia. And who shall arrive to shake him out of his stuffy ways? Well, the scintillating Barbara Stanwyck as a shimming singer named Sugarpuss who needs a place to hide out because her mobbed-up boyfriend is mixed with a murder. So she shacks up with Bertram, who wants to study her use of slang. Naturally, they are meant to be. Stanwyck proves herself the sexiest of the classic stars, melting the heart of Cooper, whose nerdy demeanour hides his dashingness.
The Best Man (1999)
Malcolm D. Lee’s The Best Man scratches a lot of itches. It’s in part a hangout comedy about a group of college pals reuniting for the wedding of one of their own, a football star played by Morris Chestnut, who is marrying his longtime sweetheart, portrayed by Monica Calhoun. It’s also multiple romantic comedies in one as the members of this group hash out romantic entanglements both old and new with lingering resentments and passions from their youthful dalliances getting in the way of their current plans. At the centre of this chaos is Taye Diggs as Harper, a successful novelist, whose friendships served as inspiration for his book and who is torn between the one that got away (Nia Long) and a great new girl (Sanaa Lathan). (If you love it and want to keep the party going, consider following up with The Best Man Holiday. But be warned: That one will have you sobbing.)
The hate list
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Director Sam Raimi is back in theatres this year relying on some of his most giddily enjoyable horror tricks in the pleasingly gruesome Send Help. But this Valentine’s Day, should you be in a cynical mood, I recommend revisiting his 2009 cult favourite, Drag Me to Hell. The often grotesque, highly entertaining flick stars Alison Lohman as Christine Brown, a perfectly nice bank loan officer with a perfectly nice boyfriend (Justin Long). The hitch: Christine gets cursed when she refuses to give a mortgage extension to an older Romani woman (Lorna Raver) for fear of losing a promotion. Bad move. Lots of wonderfully gross things happen to Christine thanks to her mistake, but the reason this movie works perfectly as an anti-Valentine’s treat is its incredible ending that turns a classic rom-com trope on its head.
Waiting to Exhale (1995)
Is there a more perfect image for the Valentine’s Day hater than Angela Bassett torching her cheating husband’s car and strutting away with the fiercest look ever captured onscreen? I think not. Waiting to Exhale, directed by Forest Whitaker, is a comforting classic, charting the romantic lives of four best friends played by the fantastic lineup of Bassett, Whitney Houston, Loretta Devine and Lela Rochon. While some of the women end up with men at the end of the movie, the film, based on the novel by Terry McMillan, is largely about learning to care for yourself in matters of the heart. It’s the ideal watch for those who agree that foolish men should be nowhere near your February celebrations.
A New Leaf (1971)
Leave it to the great Elaine May to make one of the most caustic romcoms in history with A New Leaf. Walter Matthau plays Henry Graham, an ageing trust-fund baby who needs to marry quickly to maintain his lifestyle. His plan: wed a desperate, rich woman and then kill her for her money. He finds his target in Henrietta Lowell, a quirky botanist played by May herself. May’s daffy performance is full of some of the most skilled bits of physical comedy committed to screen as she leans into Henrietta’s lanky, sniffling ways, while Matthau plays Henry with a grumpy cruel streak. A New Leaf might have a happy ending, but it’s the perfect choice for a cynic.
Amour (2012)
Michael Haneke’s Amour is one of those movies you usually only want to watch once – that’s how depressing it is. But if you’re feeling extra pessimistic this Valentine’s Day, why not pop on this look at how even if you find your one true love, life will inevitably end in pain. Amour follows an older couple, Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), as their lives unravel after she has a stroke. It’s a brutal look at the corrosive nature of ageing and the toll it can take on the ones you love.
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
And here’s some more misery for you in the form of Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea, starring Casey Affleck in his Oscar-winning role as Lee Chandler, a man who is still reeling from a brutal personal tragedy when his brother (Kyle Chandler) dies and leaves him in charge of his teenage nephew (Lucas Hedges). Lonergan’s screenplay is often very funny – especially as Lee tries to deal with the obstinate youth in his house – but it’s also utterly devastating. Want to make your Valentine’s Day a bad time? Wait until you reach the scene in which Lee runs into his ex-wife, Randi (Michelle Williams), one of the most heartbreaking confrontations put to screen.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Esther Zuckerman
Photographs by: Orfeo Tagiuri
©2025 THE NEW YORK TIMES
